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inkandpen22 · 4 years ago

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Not Playing Nice

Request: a transman!reader x protective!Spike after the reader gets insulted or invalidated

Pairing: Spike x transman!reader

Warnings: swearing, fighting, mentions of violence, bullying

Word Count: 2.2k

Summary: Y/N is a member of the Scoobie gang and attends UC Sunnydale with them. When Spike walks Y/N home after a group meeting, he notices some marks on his skin and gets concerned.

A/N: Thank you so much for the request! This is my first time writing a story with this POV and it was such a fun new experience! I hope I did the story justice and I hope you enjoy it! X

Masterlist

Curled up in the armchair, I struggle to not doze off. Buffy and the others discuss the latest Big-Bad that’s been ravaging Sunnydale. When Xander called this meeting at his and Anya’s apartment after he spotted the demon earlier at the construction site, I almost lied and said I was busy in the library. Usually, I’m of greater help than this, but classes have me drained and last night was a long night. The idea of having to walk back past the frat houses on the way to the dorm keeps popping into my head every time I close my eyes, so at least I have that to keep me alert.

I feel a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Hey Y/N?”

I hum, too tired to open my eyes. Spike is squatting in front of my chair, studying my face.

“You seem tired. How about you head on home?” He suggests.

I shake my head, sitting up to prove I’m awake. “Nah, I’ll stay until everyone calls it a night.” A yawn escapes me accidentally.

“If you’re worried about walking back with Mr. Munchie-Man out and about, I could join you,” he offers, referring to the toothy demon we’ve been hunting.

“It’s not that, thanks though,” I offer the blonde vampire a weak smile.

“Yeah, Y/N, you should get some rest,” Willow agrees. “I know you’ve had a lot of projects this week. We’ll bring you up to date tomorrow!” She offers enthusiastically.

I yawn again, “alright, maybe you’re right.”

I shift in my seat to stand and Spike’s hand remains on my arm kindly.

“Come on, Mate,” he mumbles, guiding me to the door. “I’ll walk you home just in case.”

I roll my eyes, “I’m human, not a defenseless puppy.”

“Doesn’t mean the Hungry-Hungry-Hippo won’t make you into a chew toy,” he insists.

Spike is always so uncharacteristically protective of me. He’s not that way with Xander. I suspect it’s because Buffy and the others treat me the same. I’m the ��empathetic one’ of the group.

Everyone says their goodbyes and repeat for us to stay safe. Buffy adds a request, for me to call when I get back to my dorm room okay. I promise her to do so.

As Spike and I arrive at my dorm room, I go to unlock the door. Considering how late it is everyone on my floor is asleep and the only lighting in the hall is the emergency lights.

“Well, thanks for playing bodyguard,” I start to bid the vamp farewell as my door swings open. “I’ll see-”

“Wait,” Spike grabs my wrist suddenly.

I jump, thinking he says something in my pitch-black room. “What?!”

“What’s this on your neck?” He releases my wrist and his fingers brush against my neck.

Shit.

“Oh, I uh...” I stammered, struggling to think of an excuse. “Willow was messing around and tried flat ironing my hair! She kinda got to close ya know,” I laugh nervously, moving to step inside my room.

Spike grabs my forearm and I wince. Noticing my reaction, he frowns and swiftly raises the fabric of my sweatshirt’s sleeve.

“Spike, don’t-”

His sight lands on the massive, hours old, scrape that travels from my elbow to my wrist on the outside of my forearm.

“What the hell is this?” He mumbles, peering up at me with hooded eyes.

“From the last time, we fought a Big-Bad,” I explain plainly, taking my arm back and lowering the sleeve. “I’m not vampy like you, don’t heal as quickly.” I force a smile.

Not buying the story, he nudges my shoulder aggressively and I bump into the wall of the hallway. He presses his palm against the wall beside my head and reaches for the hem of my hoodie. I swat at his hand away and he slaps it back like a cat.

“Stop that,” he orders sternly.

I turn my head to the side, clenching my jaw. I focus on a single piece of wood positioned at the end of the corridor. Swallowing hard, to distract me as Spike picks up the hem of my hoodie hesitantly. He shifts on his feet as the dark-colored bruise that coats my rib cage becomes fully exposed. For a moment that feels like an eternity, he examines the many clustered marks around my abdomen.

He clears his throat and drops the fabric. Pushing off the wall, he paces away to the opposite wall. There’s a prolonged silence between us as I protrude far within myself.

Spike spins on his heels to face me. “All of these marks from one fight where you had me, two mega witches, a Slayer, an ex-vengeance demon, and her lapdog to help you? What are you, a human or a peach?”

I toss my head back in annoyance. “Just leave it, Spike!”

“So, you’re just not going to tell me what happened?” He clenches his jaw.

“I did tell you,” I defend calmly and go to enter my room. “Now, goodnight.”

He rushes to the doorway and slams his hands against the frame. “I’m going to find out!”

“See you tomorrow!” I dismiss, shutting the door in his face.

Finally, alone, I slide down the back of my door and bring my knees close to my chest. Releasing a deep breath, I do everything I can to relax, even in the slightest bit. I’ve gone this long without any of my friends finding out, I just hope Spike doesn’t say anything. I’ve just never wanted to trouble them. I mean, considering we fight demons and forces of legitimate evil each day my problems don’t exactly match the level of priority. I can handle this. Besides, I’ve been dealing with it for a while now. I’m used to it.

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The following night, we all gather at The Bronze to celebrate another win against a demon. I really didn’t like this one, he gave IT vibes this his racks of teeth. Gives me the heebie-jeebies!

At the bar, I wait patiently for my drink while the group is around our usual table just a few yards away.

“Jack Daniels please,” a familiar English accent requests the bartender.

I glance to my right and sure enough, there’s Spike in all his glory. He turns to face me directly and I stare ahead, watching the bartender make my drink.

“You were good today, you know when you picked up Xander’s ax and whatnot,” Spike compliments awkwardly.

“Thanks,” I mumble.

“So you’re still not going-”

“Nope,” I nod. “Still not gonna tell ya.”

“Right then, fair enough,” he sighs, spinning on his heels to face the bar.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him tapping his black painted nails against the bar. After a second of fidgeting, he reaches into his coat pocket and reveals a pack of cigarettes. He slips one between his lips and holds the pack out to me. I give him a knowing look, he can’t be serious.

“You know I don’t smoke,” I remind him.

“You know I don’t smoke,” he mimics my voice, stuffing the cigarettes back into his pocket.

I suppress my amusement, biting down on my lip. That impersonation was just horrid. Spike notices and continues his act.

“Oh Spike, you’re just the best!” He says in a sing-songy tone. “You’re the evilest, most vicious vampire I’ve ever met. I just-”

I swat his arm and he whines, rubbing the wounded area.

“I don’t sound like that!” I laugh.

“You’re right.” He takes a quick smoke of his cigarette and clears his throat. “Let me just get in tune here-”

I whine, “Spike, I-”

“Well if it isn’t the SheMan!”

My heart stops as soon as I hear the eery insult. It’s nothing original, I hear it almost daily, that’s not what makes me anxious. The part that has me so worried is I hear from the same group of asshole every day. They’re all in the same frat at UC Sunnydale. I have to pass their house to get to my dorm, that’s how I ran into the first time. They were are their porch and one of them recognized me from our English Literature class.

The douchiest one of them all, the leader, appears at my side rubs against me. “We missed you in class today!”

I turn my body to Spike, putting my back to the Frat guy. His friends circle us like a wall of steroid driven rage. Spike clenches his jaw, switching his sight between me and the group of guys.

He removes the cigarette from his mouth and barks past me at the Frat leader. “Piss off you wanker!”

“Ooh, got yourself a boyfriend?” One of his minions purrs, making the others laugh.

“Trying to compensate for something are we?!” Spike insults the group, unfazed by the dickwad’s insinuation.

“Just ignore them,” I grumble to Spike.

“I’m sorry? What was that you little tranny?” Another one of them snickers and shoves me into the bar top.

The wind gets knocked out of me as I grip my bruised side. Sweet Lord, that hurt like a bitch!

“Okay, this should be fun,” Spike remarks, having had enough.

I push off the bar weakly, still suffering the shooting pain in my abdomen. I grab the vampire wrist pleadingly. “Spike, don’t!”

He won’t always be there to play bodyguard and I’ll be the one left to deal with the consequences at school. Next year I’ll live in a different building and I’ll never have to see these pricks again.

Spike is ready to drop-kick each of them and huffs when I stop with him. He opens to argue with me. “But-”

“Let’s go!” I repeat sternly.

We go to walk back to our friends, leaving the group of Abercrombie models by the bar.

“Must you always be so patient,” Spike grumbles, his cigarette balancing on his lips.

I can tell it’s taking everything in him to restrain himself. It’s not in his nature to leave a fight, baby steps.

“I thought you liked that about me,” I laugh lightly.

A faint smile appears on Spike’s lips, at least he’s easing up a little. Soon, we’ll be back with our friends and it’ll be fine.

“Oh yeah, you run!” One of the boys shouts over the chatter of the club.

Spike shifts to turn around and I press a hand to his back, urging him to keep walking. “Ignore them!”

“You sissy!” Another adds, earning a series of laughs from his friends.

“Alright fuck this nice-person bollocks!” Spike snaps, dropping his cigarette and smashing it with his boot. His face morphs into his vampy one as he allows his frustration to consume him. “I’m evil for Christ’s sake!” He spins on his heels and marches toward the group of guys gathered by the bar.

“Spike!”

Before I have the chance to stop him, he grabs one of the guys by the collar of his polo and punches him right across the face. The college boy falls into his friends then the floor with a grunt. He covers his face, his nose bleeding excessively.

Spike leans over him with a wicked snicker. “How’d you like that you gutless tit?!”

He stands up straight to address his circle of friends. “Anyone else what a goat it?! Suddenly I’m very thirsty!”

Taking one look at Spike’s face, all of them scatter. I watch as they shove each other out of the way to get away and sprint up to the exit. They leave their friend on the floor moaning and groaning in pain. Spike brushes his hands over his gelled hair, sleeking it back.

“Well, that was refreshing,” he sighs, dropping his arms at his sides.

He rejoins me and presses a hand to my back to walk me back to the bar to where we were peacefully before.

“You didn’t need to do that,” I mutter, nonetheless appreciate.

“Of course I bloody did,” he debates. “If there’s anything I hate more than sympathetic, humanitarian namby-pamby, self-righteous prats! It’s weak high-and-mighty bullies!”

Spike playing defender instead of the offender? What an interesting turn of events. After a moment, the bartender brings us our drinks.

“Thank you,” I say to Spike before I forget.

“Eh, don’t mention it,” he waves his hand, dismissing it as nothing. “And the next time any other prep-fest frat boy gives you trouble you tell me, alright! Promise?!”

I nod, taking a sip of my drink.

“And don’t worry, I won’t tell the others about any of this,” he assures me timidly as a side note.

That truly comes as a relief to me. I wouldn’t want to deal with the constant questions and fussing that I’m sure would ensue.

“So...do you wanna go join the others?” I suggest.

“Nah,” he makes a disgusted face as he lights himself a new cigarette. “They all annoy me.”

“I don’t annoy you?” I laugh, raising a brow.

“No, you’re quite pleasant actually,” he compliments to my surprise. “You think I’d punch someone for just anybody?”

“Umm, yeah?” I argue, not hiding my amusement.

“Okay maybe you’re right,” he concludes. “But if it were Xander I’d let him get hit!” He rushes out to maintain his tough facade.

“Oh, of course, certainly,” I agree, snickering at his sternness.

There’s a comfortable silence between us as Spike finishes his cigarette and I sip on my drink. Then, out of nowhere, Spike pops off like a rocket, causing me to jump a little. Evidently, he’s been going over the events of the conflict with the boys.

“I just don’t get why people get their knickers in a twist about some things?!” He complains to me. “And it changes with every bloody decade! One minutes it pre-martial sex and every other woman being called a harlot! That was real a drag for many centuries, let me tell ya! I couldn’t shag a girl without her panicking after! I was going through villages like I was on a damn pilgrimage! Then, a lot of the focus was shot at the gays for a couple decades following Stonewall and AIDS! I was in New York for that whole thing and people were down right bonkers! And the same people who were so pissy about it also blasted Freddie Mercury and Elton John from their boomboxes! Bet it came as a real shock to them when those closet doors swung open!”

Resting my chin my hand, I just listen to him rant and sip on my drink.

He goes on, “it’s just a load of bollocks how you humans are so quick to attack one another! It leaves us vampires and demons with little work to do! Most of the time, we just sit back and watch the bloody shit show!”

An amused grin appears across my lips as the decades old vampire bitches about closed-minded humans. He’s preaching to the choir here.

“For thirteen years everyone was up in arms about alcohol! Alcohol!” He repeats, peering at me with raised brows. “Of all things! So, for thirteen fucking years we had to hide and sneak around because a group of Jesus loving women decided alcohol was the reason their husbands didn’t like them! Well, I have a hunch that it might of been their constant nagging and preaching!”

He pants, catching his breath after his tangent. Honestly, it was quite amusing. I hope he has more.

“My point is Y/N, if I’ve learned anything from my many years on this planet, it’s that humanity constantly evolving along with the world. In this point in time, you’re who you’re meant to be,” he tells me as he fidgets with the paper from his straw. “Only you can define who that is and fuck anyone who tries to do it for you. Be yourself, people will learn to fucking deal.”

I sit quietly, processing his words and wait to see if there’s more. Then, he meets my gaze for the first time since his tangent.

“Would... would you mind if we just sit here, have a few drinks maybe?” He requests. “Those nitwits have me all moody.”

I struggle to hide the smile that’s forcing itself across my lips. “I’d like that.”

For the remainder of the night, Spike and I sit at the bar. We talk about a ridge range of topics from my major to his life before vamping out. I try imagining Spike as William the poet, it doesn’t quite work out in my head. He tells me some funny stories about his experiences during Woodstock, and we laugh about them for a good hour or two. It’s unspoken between us, but it’s evident that this is the start of a real friendship.

__________________________________________________

Masterlist

Tags: @mx-pibbles

#spike x reader #spikexreader #spike #spike x buffy #spike fanfic #spuffy #buffy s5 #buffy summers #buffy #buffy the vampire slayer #buffy the vampire slayer imagine

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anogete · 4 years ago

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Watch me vomit up my thoughts

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’m sorry I’ve disappeared on everyone. It’s been... a year. I think that probably goes for everyone, not just me. If you’re interested in a personal life update, then read on. If you’re looking for an update on my writing then I regret to inform you that I haven’t written a single thing this year. Maybe next year, though. There is always next year, right? I think I saw a blurb that we’re getting Sam and Bucky back in March. And Loki shortly after. Maybe that will be my inspiration.

I’m fortunate enough to have a job that lets me comfortably work from home. I’m also fortunate enough to own a home. And my last blessing is that I don’t have kids, so I didn’t have to figure out the nightmare of childcare and home schooling like some of you. My library on the second floor of the house has been my office since mid-March. I’ve been transitioning into the Associate Financial Advisor roll this year and that has been going well. I’m supporting the clients I’ve worked with as an assistant for the past nine years, so it’s been easy-going. I’m able to order my groceries for pick up to avoid going in the stores and I live in an neighborhood where it is easy to get delivery from restaurants. I’m incredibly lucky to have all these things going for me and I am thankful every damn day.

I fell into a bit of a funk this spring and early summer, but managed to pull myself out of it in August. I started planning my meals, walking 2-5 miles every day, and exercising on the Peloton bike I bought a year ago. I also started reading again and zipped through almost 50 books between June and now. By November, I was feeling strong and healthy. I felt like I had found a balance between work and activity and self-care. I was still coming to terms with my grandma passing in March of last year and with Ferguson (my sweet doggo) passing in September of last year. But I was trying and things were getting better. I felt like I had my feet underneath me.

Lemme stop you here if you don’t want to read about death and some general medical stuff. Because that’s mostly what you’re getting from here on out.

On November 21st, my mom texted me at 5:30am. I got it right away because I usually wake up around that time, alarm or not. She said she had dropped my dad off at the hospital because he was having difficulty breathing. Apparently, he’d been feeling bad for a week, but insisted to everyone that it was just his sinuses draining. I called her and began questioning her like I was cross-examining a star witness. I was able to piece together a really fucking shitty story.

My dad always went to a friend’s house on Friday evenings to have a couple beers and hang out. We’d all warned him since March that he needed to stop, but he insisted it was fine. He bought into a lot of the cavalier attitude that the Trump fans have over this virus. Plus, he was 64-years-old and didn’t take any medication so he probably thought it was no big deal. He spent a few hours at his friend’s house on November 6th. Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, he received a call from that friend on November 11th that the friend and the friend’s wife had tested positive for COVID. He didn’t share this info with my mother, my brothers, or my uncle, all of whom had been near him. By November 15th, he was coughing but insisted it was drainage when my mom suggested he take something for it and go to the doctor. By November 18th, he was worse and admitted to my mom that his friend had tested positive but that he hadn’t seen him for almost two weeks so his problems were just sinus-related and not COVID. My mom hates confrontation, so she accepted this and didn’t tell anyone, including me and my brothers. By November 19th, he had a fever and was having trouble breathing along with a persistent cough. He finally agreed to take some cold medicine, but refused to call his doctor’s office despite my mom asking him many, many times. At 4:30am on November 21st, he woke my mom and asked her to take him to the hospital because he couldn’t breathe well. She dropped him off and returned home to text me since they wouldn’t allow her in the building. She also texted my brothers, who admitted that they felt like they’d had a cold for several days. I live 4 hours away and haven’t traveled since March, so I hadn’t seen any of them.

A nurse called my mom a couple hours after she dropped my dad off to tell her that he was positive for COVID and pneumonia and they were admitting him to put him on a bipap. From what I understand, that’s the oxygen mask that pushes air into your lungs. Later that day, the health department called my mom and told her to quarantine for two weeks. My mom cooperated and gave them my brothers’ phone number (they live together), my uncle’s phone number, and the name and number of the person we suspected my dad was infected by (his friend). My brothers opted to get tested and were positive. They quarantined for two weeks and had mild to moderate symptoms (brief fever, very tired, cough, drainage). My mom had virtually no symptoms with the exception of some drainage that she took Mucinex for. She didn’t get tested, but she lived and slept in the same bed with my dad for a week while he was symptomatic. If my brothers got it from 30 minutes in the same room as him, surely she got it as well. My uncle and his son got tested, but they were negative.

My dad was cooperative with the doctor and nurses at first, but as the first day wore on he became irritated. He’d been without his chewing tobacco (yes, I know: eww) for several hours and was going through nicotine withdrawal, but wouldn’t admit that to the nurses or doctor. The next day he was put in ICU, still on the bipap, and even more unruly and rude to the staff taking care of him. They called my mom to ask her to talk to him and convince him to cooperate. They said if he couldn’t recover on the bipap and required a ventilator then “things would be very bad.” My mom tried to talk to him by text and he just continued to insist that he was well enough to come home.

I used to be close to my dad when I was a kid, but we’d grown apart over my adulthood. Over the past 20 years, my dad morphed into someone different. Everyone around him, especially my grandmother, told me they saw this happen the same as I did. The result was that my dad became someone I didn’t like and didn’t want to spend time with. He also didn’t seem to know how to talk to me anymore. To be fair, I didn’t give him much help in that regard. I texted him to see how he was doing and the conversation quickly devolved into him complaining about the care and insisting he was well enough to come home. I tried to reason with him and appeal to his love for my mom by saying that my fear was him coming home and giving her the virus. He told me that he’d decided he was no longer contagious and this was just a bunch of bullshit. This conversation via text continued through Monday and Tuesday (November 23rd and 24th), but it took a turn for the delusional. The doctor can only assume that the virus and the lack of oxygen had resulted in hallucinations and delusions. My dad told my mother and I that he was in an office building owned by a man named Mr. Pritt. He said he was the only patient and that this man was having his workers experiment on him and that they would eventually kill him. He demanded that we come get him immediately so he could recover at home. When we told him he’d die if he came home because he was too sick, he insisted he wasn’t sick at all and became very angry with us. He accused both my mom and I of conspiring to kill him because we wouldn’t help him. One day he told me that I’d confirmed what he’d known all along. I asked him what that was and he said, “That I always loved you more than you loved me.” This really hurt because even though I knew he was loopy, I also knew that he’d probably actually had that though before.

He began refusing treatment on those days and wouldn’t accept the steroids they were trying to give him and raised hell when they tried to take him for a chest x-ray. He also told them he didn’t want to be placed on a ventilator even though he had agreed to one when he was admitted. He was texting all of his friends and telling them he needed a ride home. He attempted to get up and leave the hospital twice, falling in the floor both times because he was so weak from lack of oxygen once he took the mask off. He also told my mom and I that he was secretly removing the mask when the nurses couldn’t see to prove to them that he wasn’t sick. He was taking and sending blurry pictures to us of the room as “evidence.” He told my mom to forward the pictures to “the feds.” The pictures were of his hospital bed, the whiteboard with his nurses’ and doctor’s names on it, his IVs, etc. By the morning of Wednesday, the 25th, I was getting some off-the-wall texts from him. He was begging us to come check him out of the hospital at that point and we were trying to play along and tell him we were getting everything in order for him to come home soon. Eventually, he told me that he wasn’t getting out of there alive and that he loved me. I told him I loved him too and begged him to do whatever the doctor said because the doctor wanted to help him get better.

A few minutes later, the nurse called my mom and asked if she’d been on the phone with my dad. My mom said she and I hadn’t spoken to him by any way other than text since he arrived at the hospital. The nurse said he had been on the phone with a woman, trying to convince her to come get him. The nurse made him put the call on speaker so she could tell the woman that he wasn’t well enough to leave. Because she was concerned that her message didn’t get through before my dad hung up, she called my mom to make sure he hadn’t convinced my mom to check him out against medical advice. My mom assured her that we had no intention of breaking him out of the hospital, but she didn’t know who the woman was. It wasn’t her or me. We called a long-time former co-worker of my dad’s that I’ve known since I was a kid and she said she hadn’t talked to him. We called his best friend and asked if he’d called and spoken to the man’s wife. Not her either. More on this later. I’m sure you know where it’s going.

We were stumped, but didn’t have time to deal with it because the nurse practitioner called and told my mom that my dad was delusional and could no longer make his own decisions. They said he had no chance of survival if they didn’t put him on a ventilator immediately. My mom called me. I told her to agree to it. The nurse called her back and gave the phone to my dad. He had agreed to the ventilator as well and wanted to tell my mom that he loved her and me and my brothers and his dog. His speech was slurred and muffled from the bipap mask, but she at least heard that. They intubated him right after the call. He was on a paralytic for a week. When they backed off on the paralytic, they had to increase his oxygen. A week later, the nurse tried to kindly tell us that he wasn’t getting better and his chances of survival were low. She suggested we start to talk about turning off the ventilator and letting him go. We did talk about that, which was very upsetting for everyone, but the doctor said he’d been on the ventilator for two weeks and we’d give him one more week to see what happens. By this point, he no longer had pneumonia. But the damage COVID did to his lungs couldn’t be repaired.

The ventilator was on full blast (highest pressure, highest oxygen) just to keep him somewhat stable. The days were ticking by and he still wasn’t making progress. Any step forward was followed by a bigger step back. My mom would call and get the update from the nurse most days, but I did call myself a few days. When I’d call and talk to the nurse, I’d get a grim picture that my mom didn’t seem to get or understand. I talked to her on December 12th and asked her if she was trying to protect my brothers and I or if she really thought he was going to get better. She admitted that she’d had a feeling for days that he wasn’t going to get better. We decided to just wait for the doctor to call. The nurse called my mom on Monday, December 14th and told her that my dad’s blood pressure was all over the place and they were struggling to keep him stable, that the ventilator was turned up to the highest settings and it was barely enough to keep him going. My mom texted me and told me she asked them to call me. The doctor called me within about 20 minutes and basically told me that my dad wasn’t going to make it. They’d had him on a ventilator for 19 days and within a couple days his throat tissue would likely become necrotic from the pressure of the cuff keeping the tube in place. They could only continue the ventilator if they could put in a trach and he wasn’t stable enough for that. In addition, he needed more support than the ventilator could provide. I was told he was either going to go into cardiac arrest while on the ventilator and die or they’d be forced to take him off the ventilator because of the damage to his throat. The most damning thing he told me was that he’d removed the sedation but my dad didn’t wake. He wasn’t responsive, wouldn’t squeeze their hands, wouldn’t flinch when they tested his reflexes, nothing.

I was told we could come sit with him and say goodbye when the ventilator was removed. I asked when and the doctor said soon. I live 4 hours from my parents, so I told him I’d leave right away and have my mom call to make arrangements for me to come to the hospital. I called my mom and told her all this and asked her to let the hospital know. I packed a bag and rushed out the door. On my way out of town, the doctor called me back and asked if I was on my way. My mom had told them that we’d come by the next morning and he was worried my dad wouldn’t make it through the night. So, I had to have a shitty conversation with my mom about how we couldn’t schedule my dad’s death for 7am on Tuesday, that it needed to happen at 8pm on Monday. I do not recommend these types of calls.

I got into town around 7pm and picked my mom up because she’d decided she wanted to come with me. My brothers said they couldn’t handle it and decided to stay at my mom’s house. My mom and I were taken to the COVID floor, given gowns, and gloves, told he was COVID positive so we’d need to continue to wear our cloth masks (no medical mask, is that safe?!), and escorted to his room in the ICU. Guys, he looked so fucking tired and so sad. It was heartbreaking. The nurse said their ICU was full and most of the patients were in the same shape as my dad. We talked to him for a few minutes, held his hand and all that shit. He didn’t respond in any way, so I don’t know if he was even there. We stepped out of the room while they removed the tube and gave him some medicine. When we went back in, his breaths were labored and it looked like he was gasping for air. My mom almost lost it because she wasn’t expecting that. I told her she could go wait in the hall and I’d stay with him until he passed. The nurse was kind enough to give him a little more medicine to make it less dramatic, but it was still difficult watching him breathe in that way. My mom sat so she couldn’t see his head to make things easier on herself. We sat there with him for about 40 minutes before he passed away at 8:32pm on Monday, the 14th.

I stayed with my mom last week and helped her arrange a private graveside service and the burial. She wanted to do a funeral and I thought that was the worst idea, so we agreed on doing a celebration of life next year when things are a little better (hopefully). To my knowledge, I haven’t had the virus. I operated under the assumption that my mom and brothers had it and were immune for now and wouldn’t transmit it. So, I was able to be with them without mask, but I did wear a mask when anyone else was around. I can’t say the same for the fucking funeral director and the locksmith’s employee who opened my dad’s safe for us, though. I live in a bigger city and mask wearing is pretty wide-spread here, but I saw so many people in my hometown (a more rural area) who didn’t bother with them.

Anyway, while all these graveside preparations are going on my mom goes through the bag of personal items from my dad that the hospital gave us. She tossed his clothes in the washer and placed his two rings into a bag to give to the funeral home so he could be buried in them. She also pulled out his wallet and his cell phone. His wallet has a picture that was obviously cut from an old driver’s license of a woman named Deb. Apparently, this woman lives in Florida and had attended junior high school with my dad. About two years ago, my parents took a trip to Florida and visited with her for several days. She even friended my mom on Facebook. So, the old driver’s license picture of her was very weird. What was even more disturbing? His wallet also contained a plastic bag of hair that very obviously is not my mom’s. And there was a piece of paper with three phone numbers on it. His phone was locked with a PIN and was set to wipe itself after 20 incorrect tries. I did tried to break into it, but wasn’t successful. My mom admitted that she suspected he’d been talking to someone on his phone for years, but she never directly confronted him about it. She’d just make comments about him always texting on his phone and being secretive. Two Christmases ago he bought her a ring at a store that she has an online login to. This particular store posts the receipts for all purchases linked to the customer’s account to the website. She saw that my dad had purchased two pieces of jewelry even though she only received one. My dad has never in his life bought me a Christmas present without my mom assisting, so she knew it wasn’t for me. She still didn’t confront him, though. She just told him that she could see the itemized receipts online.

I sympathized with my mom because I’ve experienced the infidelity of a partner in a relationship and if I were her then I’d want to know. But I also told her that I don’t know digging into it will make things any better and may not even give her the truth. He’s gone and there is nothing that can be done about that or anything else. While I was running errands for her the day before the graveside service, she messaged Deb in Florida and asked if she wanted her picture back. She also called the three phone numbers in his wallet. One went to Deb. The other two were the cell phone and work phone of my dad’s best friend’s wife, Anne. The same friend and wife who likely gave the virus to my dad. My mom told me when I got back that she’d done this and admitted she’d always felt like my dad was talking to Anne and might have an inappropriate relationship with her. I suspect my mom is right. Gut instinct is usually accurate. She said she didn’t think anything physical was going on with Deb, but she did think my dad was carrying on a flirtatious relationship with her via text. In both cases, he tried to hide it. And if you hide it, then you know it’s wrong. That night Deb messaged my mom back and said she had heard about what happened to my dad and was very sorry. She said that my dad was always clear that he was married and nothing went on that was inappropriate, but that he gave her someone to talk to when her husband was sick and dying five years earlier and they’d always kept in contact. Again, I don’t think my mom can count on anyone to give her the full story without spin or deceit. A couple days ago, she texted me a picture of a receipt from my dad’s truck. It was from last Christmas from a department store. It had two pieces of jewelry on it. She looked them both up using the UPCs listed and found the necklace he gave her last year and a ring she doesn’t recognize. We don’t know if he was giving this jewelry to Deb in Florida or Anne, his friend’s wife. Or someone else we don’t even know about. And we’re probably never going to know. Do I want to call Deb and Anne and tell them I want to full story? Fuck yeah. Do I think it will fix anything? Fuck no.

TL;DR? I finally found some balance in my life late this summer. This balance was destroyed when my dad got COVID and died after three weeks in the hospital. And when you’ve already got a not-so-great relationship with your dad, you get all kinds of feels when he dies in a traumatic way and then you find out he’s been screwing around on your mom. I also have lots of anger toward him for knowingly exposing my other family members to the virus simply because he didn’t want to own up to getting it after doing something we’d all told him to stop doing.

Health-wise? I think I’m okay. It’s been almost ten days since I was with him in the hospital and seven days since his graveside service. I haven’t had any symptoms yet and I think most people show symptoms by now. Regardless, I’ve been at home since I returned last Thursday evening and I intend to stay home until January 2nd. My boyfriend is also home and will be here until January 2nd as well. Just to be safe. My brothers are mostly recovered, but both still have a bit of a cough. My mom never had much in the way of symptoms and seems fine. My dad was 64 and overweight. We found out once he was admitted to the hospital that his regular doctor had told him he was a diabetic and my dad insisted on “treating” that with cinnamon instead of actual medicine. Other than those things, he didn’t have any health concerns. Be careful, ya’ll.

#Anogete in real life #personal #covid_19 #fuck covid #family #death

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unwelcomebraininvaders · 3 years ago

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Background info

Unwelcome invaders of my brain

i decided to share this story for anyone who is interested for two reasons:

1. I believe in the power of prayer and/or intentional thoughts to heal. I could use all the prayers/intentions you can send my way starting Oct. 12.

2. It seems therapeutic at this point to write about this.

So here we go:

The first symptoms:

Back at the end of 2020 I had what I presumed was an upper respiratory infection and plugged right ear. Someone I work with had the same symptoms so I thought nothing of it. After this went on for a month or so I made an appointment with the ENT. They treated me with steroids and my symptoms did not go away. I went back and they tested my hearing. The Dr. ordered an MRI without telling me what he was suspicious of. I assumed some blockage in my ear.

The first MRI:

I go for this MRI. The next day I get an email the the results are posted in MyChart. I look at the results and they talk about two different kinds of tumors. I call my ENT and tell the front desk--"hey I'm kind of freaking out--my MRI report is posted to MyChart and it's talking about me having two different kinds of brain tumors--I don't have an appointment to see the ENT for another week. Can you get me in sooner?" The receptionist--"hmm...let me look....No sorry can't see you for a week" In my mind " @$!&*" Okay...it's up to me to look this up on Dr. Google and see what I'm dealing with. I google--Ok well at least they appear to both be benign--that's a relief. Can I just tell you the panic of not even knowing if they were cancerous or benign and having no Dr. appt for a whole week!

The ENT Visit a week later

Him: "It turns out you have an Acoustic Neuroma which is a benign brain tumor...blah blah blah "

Me in my mind: "No shit -- you are now proceeding to tell me everything I just spent the last week researching online" "Do you actually think I didn't look at the MRI report the day it was posted to MyChart"

Now what

So I spend the next several weeks researching whether to have radiation to try to kill the tumor or surgery to remove the tumor. I talk with two doctors who do radiation and three doctors who do surgery. The two who do radiation think I'm a good candidate for radiation. Two of the surgeons think I should do surgery. The third surgeon thinks I can go either way. Great! A tie!! So helpful....not! People in my personal life advocate for radiation since it's less invasive--so that becomes the tie breaker.

Radiation

I take the week off work and have radiation. It's every day for 5 days. I feel tired during that week and the following week...but then it's pretty much back to normal. Other than the hearing loss...I feel like my normal self again! Yay! This was too easy. (yes it was too easy)

3 months later

Wow I have an earache on my radiated side and feel like maybe I have a sinus infection. Go to the PA at the ENT's office....she gives me a CT scan and prescribes an antibiotic for my "infection" and steroid for my "swelling" A few days later...the pain is now stabbing in my ear and radiating down to my jaw and the right side of my neck. Hmmm...that doesn't seem normal. ENT's office is closed...talk to the ENT on call...he looks at my CT scan..."you don't have an infection" (great! so I've been taking antibiotics for nothing) Just continue taking the steroid. Fine....so now I'm also on 3000mg per day of over the counter pain meds just to keep myself somewhat out of pain. 3 weeks later I talk to the Radation oncology PA. She puts my on a different steroid. Take that for a week....no change. Finally after a month of lots of pain meds and steroids...the pain magically goes away to replaced by....facial paralysis.

Facial paralysis

Alright this kind of sucks. My right eye won't blink and the right side of my mouth doesn't do what it should. But at least the pain is gone!! So make appointments with my care team to discuss paralysis...they do another MRI. "ooh look at the the center of the tumor died like it was supposed to" uhh that's great I guess but there are some quality of life issues with a partially paralyzed face. "well we have never had a patient with your kind of tumor have facial paralysis after radiation" "we'd like you to have Avastin infusions". I think to myself--well you guys seem pretty smart...let's try it.

Avastin Infusion

It took 6 nurses to find a blood vessel to get my bloodwork done and start the IV. SIX!! Do blood vessels hide if you're scared They must. The next day oh my the pain on the side of my face again! After two weeks of respite from the pain I was oh so sad for it to be back again. I call the care team...their response "hmm...that's odd this infusion shouldn't cause pain". Umm well it did.

Exploring my next steps

Once a tumor has been radiated it is more challenging to remove. So I call up one of the top surgeons of these kinds of tumors and ask for him to let me know what my next step should be. His patient care coordinator says he actually wants to speak with me...so we have a phone call. I'm expecting him to say..."if after x number of months you aren't getting better then you should consider surgery". What he says instead is "you should get this tumor removed as soon as possible" OK then. I said, can it wait a month -- He said, sooner is better.

Timing is not the best

I guess the only way timing for something like this could be better is if you have surgery when there is no hurry. But with this timeline my challenges are:

1. I have an office remodel starting 5 days before I leave to fly down for surgery.

2. I am in the midst of hiring a new doctor. When do I onboard her

This unwanted tenant will be evicted Oct. 12

This is top priority

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maryellencarter · 4 years ago

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So Twitter is full of noises about the thing in the White House being on dexamethasone, which is apparently a "heavy steroid", and people discussing all the side effects and how important it is to be careful with corticosteroids and how significant it is that a doctor would pull out such a metaphorically big gun. This post is not actually about politics, but I am realizing that a medical incident in my life was a whole fucking lot weirder than I knew at the time.

I think the year was 2010, but it may have been 2008 or 2009. Some of you know that I barely remember 2010, which also partly explains why I'm just realizing this was so weird. I was living with my emotionally abusive family and had not yet realized I was queer. Early in the year, I had had a major physical collapse due to four and a half years of extreme physical and mental stress, starvation, emotional abuse, and general aggressive neglect (see also "Remodel of Doom"). No doctors, because that was not my bio-family's way. I was walking with a stick and got too shaky to stand if anything slightly stressful happened, including "2 seconds of an action movie soundtrack on the TV". I also had undiagnosed PCOS, resulting in high testosterone, a definite beard, and chest hair, and was genderfluid but had not been able to acknowledge it even to myself due to religious brainwashing, resulting in an uncomfortable ping-ponging between a desire to appear cis-female or a general indisposition to do any such thing.

So due to the beardliness (the extreme shakiness and general collapse was not acknowledged), I was taken to an endocrinologist. There was something odd about this endocrinologist. I don't remember the specifics, whether he was just new in town, but I have a vague notion that the dealings were somehow under-the-table. If it was 2010 I'm doing well to remember the name of the dexamethasone, but I have a strong visual memory that his name wasn't on the sign out front and he was seeing patients in someone else's office (which could totally have an innocent explanation), and a vague notion that we had been recommended to see him through the same weird anti-medical... I'm not sure if "black market" is too strong a word, but the same network that had gotten us in touch with the Amish people who sold a camphor-and-turpentine concoction we were using instead of actual medicine to prevent my brother from needing his toe amputated. (Long story, some other time.)

So, as I was saying, I was brought to this possibly rather fishy endocrinologist. I was not encouraged to talk, which was normal for my bio-family (@camshaft22 is still trying to get it through my head that I'm allowed to have an opinion on my treatment). I was exhibited to the endocrinologist, and also to a dietician who talked uselessly about portion control like almost every other dietician I have seen.

Of course, the correct medical treatment for PCOS is a course of hormonal birth control. This was of course strictly forbidden by my bio-family's fundie beliefs as SUPPORTING THE ABORTION INDUSTRY; our primary selection criterion for any medical professional was "refuses to prescribe anything with any possible birth control effect under any circumstances whatsoever", (although an exception was made for the reflexologist / iridologist / really spectacularly well-meaning quack who sold St John's wort, presumably as he included sufficient warnings about it being dangerous to pregnancies), and we would drive far and wide to access fundie medical care on the rare occasions that Epsom salts, mysterious Amish remedies, and generally waiting for our immune systems to work didn't fix something.

So, getting back around to the beginning of the story, I was prescribed dexamethasone. Not, as is apparently the normal medical standard, a one-week or two-week course. There was no plan to taper me off it. I was supposed to take it *permanently*. After two months supposedly my beard would fall out and not grow back unless I were to discontinue the dexamethasone.

I obediently started taking the dexamethasone, because hey, I was a brainwashed kid. (I was actually early twenties, but the brainwashing included not thinking of myself as having any autonomy or ability to make decisions. These were the people who had me convinced I was a dangerous psychopath and could not be allowed out of their control, which is also another story for another time.)

Anyway, after a week or two, the aforementioned extreme shakiness and overstressed condition plus the *permanent course of heavy fucking corticosteroids* had me feeling like an eighty-year-old with Parkinson's. I was constantly trembling all over, couldn't stand up without my stick, felt like I was on the verge of another massive breakdown. This sense-memory is why I am fairly confident about putting this incident in 2010. I was a fucking wreck.

So, being as I had discovered the Internet during the five-year Remodel of Doom (having had to spend my days at the library in order to have access to indoor plumbing, *also* a story for another time), I began googling. I read carefully through the dexamethasone page on Wikipedia. I discovered exactly no evidence that anybody remotely reputable had ever used dexamethasone for hirsutism. (Googling *now*, I find a study from 1998 indicating that if you're also on antiandrogens like spironolactone, the medicines trans ladies use to suppress their beardliness, low-dose dexamethasone can help you stay less beardly for longer after you go off both pills. But 2010 Google plus a tortoise with no experience in identifying reliable sources led me to basically Wikipedia.) All I could find that had any bearing on gender or sex at all was that dexamethasone was sometimes given off-label to pregnant women who were considered at high risk of having intersex babies, to try to make the fetus turn out Cis Girl instead of "onoes we must cut off your baby's clitoris because it's too big and looks a little too much like a dick".

So, based on the fact that I was not pregnant, not a fetus, and in retrospect not on *any actual antiandrogen treatment*, I decided to carefully taper myself off the dexamethasone. (Wikipedia warned about the dangers of going off dexamethasone suddenly.) Which I did, and luckily suffered no particular ill effects, and never saw the weird possibly-unlicensed endocrinologist again. But that was a hell of a thing to have happen, and the prevalence of dexamethasone in the news reminded me of it.

#not actually about politics #dexamethasone #abuse tw #gaslighting tw #brainwashing tw #ptsd tw

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torque-witch · 5 years ago

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Health Update?

So I haven’t been here for quite a bit and if you are wondering what’s going on cool, if not just ignore lol.

TW health and blood??

Last time I checked in I was still tapering off prednisone and dealing with psoriasis. I’ve been completely off prednisone for three months I think.

My new (better) GI through the clinical trial program at UPMC basically said I had to get off prednisone ASAP, and I wasn’t having good luck doing that before - but my liver enzymes were elevated and I was having all sort of bad side effects anyway. So instead of doing a three month taper, I did it in two weeks and upon stopping the drugs immediately began to develop constant abdominal cramps similar to my hospital ones, but no fever or internal bleeding (less, at least). So I was put on a low-dose tricyclic anti-depressant which has an off label use for severe IBS, which I don’t necessary have but the doctor explained that Crohn’s patients on long term steroid use can develop a highly sensitive intestinal response similar to it. And honestly? Worked nearly overnight after a week of hell. Slowly the extra weight has been coming off, the psoriasis died down after a bit of a flare, and the instense hand and ligament shaking wore off as well.

Not sure why Tumblr mobile insists on giant paragraph marks, but after all that I had my yearly pap and it was my first abnormal one, so I had to get a colposcopy (which sucks hard but it wasn’t the end of the world) and now I have pre-cancerous cells in my uterus.

So the long story short is I am on four medications currently for life directly related to Crohn’s. I am still at risk for developing worse psoriasis (I get small patches on my face and neck/ears), or will get flares during times of illness/infections. Bad cells in uterus and prednisone literally destroyed my knees (they feel bruised constantly) so I need to see a Rheumatologist really. Ah and without prednisone my anxiety about eating has worsened to the point that my throat closes up at public restaurants and often times I can’t finish my meals until later in private??? I just really tbh feel worse than I did pre-hospital and diagnosis last year, but I am managing well ish, and that’s all I can hope for. My bf made me a rice hot pad out of a sock when I was in a lot of pain at his place. Sometimes sex doesn’t work because my gut just spasms and it hurts like hell. I can’t walk as far as I used to be able to. I’ve had to abandon hikes, I’ve grown too attached to port a potties for my liking, I can’t sleep comfortably ever, I tire easily and sometimes four sips of hard lemonade sends me into a flare for days. Might sound dramatic but I’m not myself anymore. This isn’t ME it’s just the body I was given. And I’m doing my best to take care of it and live my life and be happy.

#torquetalks #health mention #blood mention #crohns disease #spoonie #spoonie witch

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pathfinderlittleduck · 5 years ago

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My S/P Hysterectomy: The Legend

CW Long Post - It’s worth it, I promise

Gather round my friends for I’m going to tell you a story. Oh! What a journey it was, what a glorious and befuddling day it was. For it was rightfully filled with exuberant joy and ghastly panic. This is the legend of my Salpingo-Oophorectomy Hysterectomy. Yes. A legend. I’m literally gonna be famous.

Monday, 6am

I get off work. My last day before I take off two and a half glorious weeks. I won’t have to see my shitty coworkers, the shitty employees, nor the horrendous conditions of our office. I’m fucking stoked.

Monday, 7pm

My friend Nikki arrives to my apartment, she gladly has sacrificed her time to drive me to and from the hospital. Not to mention the extra unplanned duties, but heed my dear reader for that tale is soon to come.

Tuesday, 2am

After dinner and my subsequent NPO period, and about 5 hours of working on art, I get my final shower before surgery using that special ass pink soap. IT WAS FUCKING NEON PINK. It smelled nice though, I want more of it to be honest. It got me clean as fuck.

Tuesday, 5am

We arrive at the hospital:

Oh the naivete... I did not expect what so ever the events that were to pursue this happy go lucky picture.

Tuesday, 7am

Nurse: *puts IV in*

Me: *trying not to move as I start screaming*

Nikki: YES SCREAM LIKE IRON BULL!!

Tuesday, 7:15am

They roll me out of the pre-surgery room and into the OR. I see all the doctors I had previously met, I blearily wave hello as I am transferred onto the OR table. I see Dr. Locke preparing all her instruments.

Tuesday, ????

I wake up...

Me: *heart monitor beeping rapidly*

Nikki: Do you want your Hancock pillow?

Me: I can’t feel my arms... I can’t... I can’t move my arms!!

Everyone: Uhhhhhh *starts panicking*

Tuesday, Late Afternoon

After a literal constant stream of neurologists and neurosurgeons and every nurse known to man is streaming in and out of the curtain surrounding me, we finally decide to keep me overnight. I was supposed to go home by now, but apparently waking up from surgery saying “I can’t feel my arms” kinda sends everyone into a panic.

I start crying and screaming, the pain is so bad, a 20 on the pain scale. I’m given Oxycontin and a bunch of other pain meds. FYI Oxy is the devil and I never want it near me ever again. It didn’t help the pain, it just knocked me out and I felt like I had the flu times 50.

Eventually I calm down. Sort of. I am FINALLY transferred to a single room, where I am the only patient and there’s a couch/bed for Nikki to use.

Tuesday, 8pm or something

I FINALLY get into radiology and I’m given an MRI of the cervical part of my spine. This is basically your neck, and also where most of the nerves in your shoulders/arms come from. Turns out I have severe stenosis of these nerves AND a herniated disc AND compression in two of my vertebrae. So there’s like the reason behind half of my chronic pain which my previous doctors never took seriously.

After another constant stream of Neuro doctors, a few diagnosis have come to light. Ranging from just general compression of nerves to an auto immune disorder.

BUT IT DOESN’T STOP THERE!! The best is yet to come.

Tuesday, ????

I’m finally off NPO and I can fucking eat and drink. Silvanus bless this water because shit it was fucking delicious as fuck.

Nikki and I are talking and she says, “So they found a lot of endometriosis and a giant fibroid.”

HOLD ON.

A WHAT.

Wednesday... maybe????

I sleep every 2 hours like clockwork to take my meds when the nurse comes in. I’m still in a 15-20 on the pain scale in my arms. I can barely do anything for myself. I can barely feed myself because I can’t fucking move my arms enough.

Wednesday, 3pm I guess??

Repeat the stream of neurologists again and a bunch of sticking me with things to test my nerves (it hurts you fucker).

I’m doped up enough on pain killers and Nikki drives me home. We go to the grocery to get last minute items I need during my recovery since I won’t be driving anytime soon. I barely make it through the trip because my arms hurt, but luckily enough I was able to use the rascal cart to get around since I was still heavily medicated and didn’t wanna fall in the store and make things worse.

Nikki goes home.

Wednesday - Friday

I spend the next several days in so much pain I can barely move. Medicating every 3 hours was making me sick. It wasn’t helping. I couldn’t sleep. My arms and shoulders hurt so bad I was screaming. I emailed all my doctors asking what we should do next. I’m prescribed a cortical-steroid medication specifically to target nerve pain. But I can’t fucking pick it up from the pharmacy because spoiler alert... I CAN’T FUCKING DRIVE OR MOVE MY ARMS. Luckily I had another local friend who picked it up for me, bless his heart.

This new prescription brought the pain down A LOT. Like it brought me from a 15 down to a 5 on the best of times. But eventually I ran out of this medication and had no refills... But this is where my OBGYN saw me for my 2 week follow up.

Monday, June 10th

I have my 2 week follow up with Dr. Locke. We discuss my recovery re: hysterectomy but also I bring up my arm pain.

Lords bless this woman because even though she has no specialty in pain or neurology, she has been instrumental in getting all my follow up appointments and nerve testing and MRI’s done in an extremely timely manner. She put pressure on other departments to get me seen ASAP because this was such a severe and urgent problem that had arisen so abruptly.

So after she examines my incisions, we discuss the findings. Now. This is where it gets good. If you held on this long... fucking buckle up kids we’re going for another round.

Dr. Locke: So I got your pathology results back...

Me: Hold on... my WHAT.

Pathology = cancer testing etc yada yada

Dr. Locke: Oh so we tested the growth we found. It’s non cancerous.

Me: Yeah the fibroid right.

Dr. Lock: It wasn’t a fibroid...

Me: Wait... WHAT.

Dr. Locke: It was a benign adenomatoid tumor.

Me:

BUT THAT’S NOT EVEN THE BEST PART FRIEND.

You see... an adenomatoid tumor is a special kind of tumor. A very interesting conundrum for someone in my condition. Very interesting indeed...

By definition an adenomatoid tumor is:

Adenomatoid tumors are responsible for 30% of all paratesticular masses. These are usually asymptomatic, slow growing masses. They are benign tumors comprising of cords and tubules of cuboidal to columnar cells with vacuolated cytoplasm and fibrous stroma.

US National Library of Medicine, 2009

Hold on... paraTESTICULAR mass???? So like... THE TESTICLES???? Of which I have none???? LMFAO WHAT THE FUCK!?

Yeah so basically my OBGYN (also my surgeon) found a fucking TUMOR INSIDE MY BODY that is 95% of the time FOUND ONLY IN CIS MALES?!

In Conclusion

So not only did I wake up from surgery with a now potentially diagnosed auto immune disorder I never knew I had... BUT APPARENTLY I HAD A TUMOR INSIDE ME THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME.

Luckily it was benign but HOLY SHIT.

In the end Dr. Locke asked for my consent to publish my de-identified (basically name redacted) story + history into medical journals. Basically I’m gonna be famous now apparently.

She’s discussed with other surgeons in the hospital, talked with other colleagues who deal with trans patients and this has NEVER happened to anyone she can determine.

Monday, Afternoon

I was sent home from the appointment with Gabapentin, another nerve medication. I’ve been taking that in addition to high strength Tylenol, Cyclobenzaprine (muscle relaxer), and Diclofenac (high strength NSAID). These meds have been instrumental in my recovery.

I’m back into my regular working schedule, and depending on how I move my arms, the pain comes back full force. Strength is still minimal and I have to lift even tiny things with both arms. Reaching is difficult still but I’m making progress. My next neuro appointments are in July along with a 6 week follow up with Dr. Locke. We will assess my progress during those days.

But that is my story in how I went from a normal trans dude... to a trans dude with a strange tumor and a potential auto immune disorder!!

#ok to rb #surgery cw #trans guy #ftm #trans rights #trans is beautiful #shut up viktor #viktor: personal #i'm not joking she's really gonna publish this into a medical journal

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guitarboard42-blog · 6 years ago

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What Thyroid Blood Tests to Get & How to Interpret Them

When it comes to thyroid blood testing, there’s a lot of confusion. For those newly diagnosed. For veterans like myself. And especially for those who manage to never get an official diagnosis, but still feel like a hot mess.

After dealing with my own Hashimoto’s for a decade, I’ve gotten a little better about glancing at my numbers and being able to evaluate what it means about the state of my endocrine system. But it’s taken years of practice, and many far more knowledgable practitioners helping me advocate for myself, get the right panels one, and interpret the results properly.

Even though The Wellness Project has helped me manage my symptoms, the state of my thyroid is still a moving target, one that I try to check in with on paper every few months. I get a full thyroid panel to check my levels quarterly, which helps me tie some of my changing symptoms to my thyroid function and ensure I’m medicating properly through food and supplements.

I’ve been meaning to share the in’s and out’s of thyroid function testing for some time–what panels to request, and how to interpret the end results–but I’m glad I waited until I had one of those far more knowledgable practitioners willing to help me clue you in on the best course of action!

We’re so lucky to have Jill Grunewald as our guide for this portion of the #HashiPosse journey. She’s a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach, founder of Healthful Elements, and most importantly, co-author of the fabulous resource: The Essential Thyroid Cookbook.

Read on for the biggest mistakes practitioners make when it comes to testing your thyroid, and Jill’s amazing advice for how to advocate for yourself at the doctor’s office. And if you’re in need of thyroid-friendly recipes, make sure to pick up her book!

With health and hedonism,

Phoebe

The Best Thyroid Blood Tests to Ask For and How to Read Them

It’s a common yet unfortunate scenario.

You don’t quite feel like yourself, so you go to the doctor. Fatigue, constipation, dry skin, and stubborn weight gain have been your constant companions for too long. Perhaps you’re frequently cold and your brush is revealing just how much hair you’re losing.

Your doctor may isolate these symptoms (with an anti-depressant, laxative, or a suggestion to “eat less and work out harder”). Or he or she may say, “Let’s check your thyroid.” (Right answer.)

“Checking” can have vastly different meanings, again, depending on the doctor’s worldview.

Many medical professionals (endocrinologists included) operate under the conventional medical conviction that low thyroid function (hypothyroidism) can be diagnosed via one blood test and one blood test only: thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), a pituitary hormone that tells the thyroid to do its job.

But TSH can be “normal” in the face of raging hypothyroidism. It’s not wholly irrelevant, but it tells a small part of the story and should always be taken in the context of other thyroid hormones. (More on this in the chart below.)

Regarding the evaluation of TSH as a sole indicator of what kind of shape your thyroid is in, women’s health expert, Aviva Romm, MD states, “In a world where medical over-testing is rampant, I have to say, I find myself confounded by the fact that so many physicians are resistant to ordering anything but a TSH … as the first form of evaluation, when from a scientific and medical standpoint, that test can be normal and there can still be a low functioning thyroid. It’s outdated medical dogma to order solely this test.”

To add a third layer to this story, many doctors utilize outdated lab reference ranges—those parenthetical numbers next to your lab value that tell you whether you’re within the acceptable range.

This type of thyroid “treatment” leaves many un- or under-diagnosed.

“You may be told you have borderline thyroid problems or sub-clinical thyroid disease and your doctor will watch it,”says Dr. Mark Hyman. “What will he or she watch for? For you to get really sick?”

These archaic practices cast aside a vast group of people who often have subclinical hypothyroidism, meaning they will experience a bevy of symptoms, yet only see slight changes in their TSH blood labs.

An equally important layer: the antibodies that show the presence of Hashimoto’s/autoimmune hypothyroidism–thyroid peroxidase antibody (TPOAb) and thyroglobulin antibody (TgAb)–are tests that are infrequently performed.

You deserve to know if you have Hashimoto’s, which indicates thyroid tissue attack.

It’s estimated that a whopping 97 percent of people with hypothyroidism have Hashimoto’s. And it’s been shown that once you have one manifestation of autoimmunity—any manifestation—if it goes unmanaged, the likelihood of developing yet another autoimmune condition is significantly increased.

By using old guidelines and limited thinking, conventional medicine glosses over the millions who suffer with low thyroid function.

As the saying goes, “Don’t guess, test.” It’s important to do the right tests and to evaluate your labs based on the functional reference ranges, not antiquated ranges that often lead to misdiagnosis, mistreatment, and the passage of time with continued suffering.

Here’s a Cheat Sheet for the Top Issues in Thyroid Blood Testing:

Telltale symptoms, thyroid not suspect (or tested)

Testing TSH only

Using outdated reference ranges

Not testing for thyroid antibodies (TPOAb and TgAb)

Why is the Thyroid So Important?

The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland in your neck below your Adam’s apple and is hailed as “the master gland” of our complex and interdependent endocrine (hormonal) system. It’s the spoon that stirs our hormonal soup. It produces several hormones, with tri-iodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4) being the most critical to our health.

Given that our endocrine system is responsible for growth, reproduction, energy, and repair and the thyroid is largely at the helm of this complex and interdependent system, an underfunctioning thyroid can have profound implications for the whole body.

Thyroid hormones transport oxygen into your cells and are critical for energy production. Every cell in the body has receptors for thyroid hormone and the thyroid is a master toggle that flips on the genes that keep cells doing their jobs.

It’s the boss of our metabolism and an underactive thyroid can affect weight, mental health, and heart disease risk.

Thyroid hormones affect our health systemically and directly act on the brain, the gastrointestinal tract, the cardiovascular system, bone metabolism, red blood cell metabolism, gall bladder and liver function, steroid hormone production, glucose metabolism, protein metabolism, neuromuscular function, digestion, and body temperature regulation.

Given the thyroid’s far-reaching impact, it’s not difficult to understand how misdiagnosis and under-diagnosis is nothing short of a public health concern.

You Are Your Best Advocate

If you have a cluster of symptoms pointing to hypothyroidism (find a list here), listen to your body and trust your intuition. Managing hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s is an exercise in becoming the CEO of your health.

Reject the notion that TSH alone determines your thyroid status.

Don’t allow your doctor to use outdated lab reference ranges or to neglect testing for the antibodies that could reveal Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

Arm yourself with the right information. Use the chart below as a cheat sheet. You can use this to get a new set of labs or to compare values with any recent labs you’ve done.

This is what I feel are the most clinically relevant thyroid tests and reference ranges. Ask your doctor for a “full thyroid panel”and make sure the following are included:

Lab

Functional reference range

Free T3 (FT3)3.2 – 4.2 pg/mLFree T4 (FT4)1.1 – 1.8 ng/dLReverse T3 (RT3)90 – 350 pg/mL or < 10:1 ratio RT3:FT3Thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH)0.9 – 2.0 mU/LThyroid peroxidase antibody (TPOAb)< 4 or negativeThyroglobulin antibody (TgAb)< 4 or negative

Some important notes:

T3 is “the big daddy” of thyroid hormones and the most metabolically active, affecting almost every physiological process. The “free” in front of T3 (and T4) tells you what is available and unbound and therefore usable by the body.

Reverse T3 is just that—the “reverse” of T3. It blocks thyroid receptors and can cause patients to be unresponsive or resistant to T3. When the body is in conservation mode due to stress, including fatigue, nutritional deficiencies, or infection, it will reroute thyroid hormones. You want RT3 low, and high RT3 is often brought about by intense or prolonged periods of stress. RT3 is typically high in people with more advanced adrenal dysfunction (aka HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis dysfunction). You can see that there are two metrics in the chart above for RT3; while RT3 alone is an indicator of thyroid hormone resistance, calculating your RT3: FT3 ratio can also provide information on thyroid status. Click here www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/rt3-ratio/ to calculate your RT3:FT3 ratio.

According to many in the functional medicine community, anyone with TSH over 2.0 is hypothyroid, although TSH is an overall poor marker of thyroid function and should always be taken in the context of other thyroid labs, especially given that TSH can be normal in the face of low thyroid function.

This was a guest post courtesy of the wonderful Jill Grunewald, HNC, Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach, and founder ofHealthful Elements, is a thyroid health, Hashimoto’s, and alopecia (autoimmune hair loss) specialist and co-author of the #1 best selling Essential Thyroid Cookbook.

Have more questions about interpreting thyroid labs? Ask away in the comments section!

Source: https://feedmephoebe.com/what-thyroid-blood-tests-to-get-how-to-interpret-them/

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islandpcosjourney · 3 years ago

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Day 26 – Autumn ’21 challenge

12th November 2021

Woah! Today it’s like I’ve been on steroids or something. Running at a million miles an hour. I knew today was going to be a busy day, but I didn’t have my morning specifically planned out other than getting through my to-do list before I had to leave for work. I was also heading in early to drop off my car to have tyres changed. What I didn’t expect to be getting on with was the hankering to sort out another drawer! I’ve got far too many warm socks to fit into my pants & socks drawer, so it’s had to spill over into the next one, along-with my fitness gear, swimsuits, warm leggings etc. I also had washing from yesterday to fold up and put away which I hadn’t made time for yesterday before work and I was too late home to be dealing with it. However, I got so into my sorting out that I didn’t realise what the time was. In my head, as I had leftover juice from yesterday already in the fridge, I had ticked off that part of my morning. I had forgotten about making the rest of my juices! So, by being all happy in my drawers, trying yet more clothes on and finding them loose and sorting them out, I had unknowingly “wasted” time and then I had to rush my shower and make-up before running downstairs to make juice, partially clean the juicer and run into the car! But I did it and didn’t lose out on too much time. I still managed to get to town, get my tyres and have time to spare before I started teaching – big win! I even had time to sort through my phone messages, pairing up “unknown” numbers to my contacts. I don’t know what’s happened but after the other day when I deleted all the duplicates in my contacts, I’ve clearly deleted the wrong files because some messages had names attributed to them and others didn’t. I haven’t finished that task yet; it seems to be one I can do at any point but annoying all the same that I still haven’t got my contacts synced properly yet.

I’m managing to get this written in-between students and a meeting tonight, which might go on a wee while! Poor Hollags who is being so patient with me! So, when I went shopping earlier, I made myself a rule that I wouldn’t stray from my shopping list. I know I only have 2 days left on this juice-only challenge and so from Monday I can “technically” eat what I like but I am still going to juice next week. I’m still going to juice each weekday and relax on the weekends. It means finding healthy stuff to eat for one meal a day and I’m allowing myself soup as the easily digestible way back in to consuming hot food again. I’ve bought all of my juicing ingredients for the week and a few extra veggies to make a couple of soups before Kevin comes home on Wednesday. I also have some soups in the freezer, and I’ll make large quantities of these two soups for the freezer too, so I have a variety available on hand, defrostable overnight. It is super cold just now in the Outer Hebrides, so I am REALLY looking forward to my first hot plate of food! I’m working Monday night, so it’ll be a lunch meal, in-between cleaning & tidying the house ready for Kevin’s arrival Wednesday night. Looking forward to having him home too. Been needing cuddles. Although, there’s less for him to cuddle now 😂 I wonder how much of a difference he’ll notice? In 5 weeks. 4 weeks of a sudden change mind you. There won’t be much of a change over the next 5 weeks I can tell you if anything. I know that I expect to gain a few pounds over this next week as my body re-adjusts again and starts to retain water perhaps. I’ll limit my salt intake but it’s still more salt compared to whatever sodium content there is in all the veggies I’ve had. It’s salt which dictates how much water you retain and when you limit it, or eliminate it except from natural sources, that’s why you lose lots of water weight initially when you do a challenge like this. That’s ok, as long as I know why, understand and accept it and not gain momentum back in the other direction.

Oh yes, so I was saying that I went shopping and limited myself to only buying what was on my list. Well, it was just as well! Our Tesco has had a revamp and is bigger now but pretty much on every aisle, or at least the end of each aisle, was chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! Of course, it’s Christmas coming up, but I reckon they’ve gone overboard this time! At the door, beginning of the veg aisle, all up the back, where the cereals used to be, where the toilet rolls used to be – everywhere! I get that they’re moving things around, but it was plainly obvious what was being promoted this season and I bet lots of people will fall for it – impulsive buys. I didn’t though, I was a good girl 😇 I had to pass it all to get to the dog food aisle so there was no avoiding it, but it felt very liberating passing it all and knowing that I didn’t need it, nor want it. It also feels really good when I’ve filled up the checkout conveyor belt with all the fresh produce and it still only came to £38 for the week 😍 that was including the dog treats and firelighters too! It’s late now so I’ll just leave this with you:

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feralgoing · 5 years ago

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on acceptance and chronic illness

It has been 6 years (more or less) that I have been dealing with what seems like severe skin issues. When this all started in 2013, no one knew what was happening to me, and various assumptions were made. My mom strongly believed the cause to be that the off-campus housing I was living in was too dirty. My dermatologists thought it was from improper skin care. My doctor thought it was from a staph infection. My specialist thought my symptoms had a hormonal component and the likely cause was my birth control pills or the pituitary adenoma they found on an MRI of my brain. I thought it was from topical steroid usage.

But whatever the cause, the medical treatment has been about the same no matter who I saw (and see). I’m advised to moisturize more with different moisturizers and then prescribed rounds of antibiotics and prescription on prescription of topical steroids (and often oral steroids too if I’m looking particularly bad). The result has also been the same- some clearing up of the skin, followed by a precipitous dive into new flares as I taper off the steroids. It’s almost like my skin is addicted to steroids. What I mean by that is that because I have been applying exogenous (not made from my body) steroids for so long, my skin has adapted. So when I stop using the steroids (or at this point, when I start decreasing the amount as recommended) my skin, having slowed its natural cortisol production in response, suddenly can’t remember how to make enough cortisol. As the blood all rushes back to the skin, with it comes all the inflammation that the topical steroids had kept at bay. (Oh and as an aside, the reason people can’t stay on topical steroids forever is because it thins out your skin over time and can also make you very sensitive to sunlight).

With addictions generally, I’ve heard you can take one of two approaches: drop it cold turkey or reduce it measurably over time. Both types of approaches have been attempted with my skin. The research behind tapering when your skin is already addicted has been changing a lot and so every doctor has a slightly different plan about how to do it. Unfortunately, every plan results with me having worser flares from the moment I start the taper. It is for that reason that I usually opt for the cold turkey approach.

The problem with cold turkey is that I haven’t lasted more than 2 years. At some point I’ll eventually give in and go to a new dermatologist and they will scare me into using steroids and antibiotics again. One told me my organs were also inflamed because my skin was (this was said off-handedly when I mentioned my fear of topical steroid withdrawal. No tests were done to confirm such a statement). Another said my choices were steroids or cyclosporine (an immune-suppressant given to patients getting organ transplants so their bodies don’t reject the new organ. To be on them requires kidney function monitoring, and your ability to fight off things like the common cold is reduced). Another said that skin regenerates by every 3 weeks so there was no way my skin would still have issues with tapering off. And yet another said I should just use topical steroids as needed just on my rougher spots, but then gave no general instructions about how long “as needed” is, if the skin keeps flaring.

This isn’t a blame game towards dermatology (anymore: that was an older stage of grieving). At this point I am more interested in the cultural acceptance for myself and by others of this state of being chronically ill. I’ll be honest, it’s incredibly difficult to do for myself. I constantly think about how life will be if and when I heal, what things I’ll be able to pick back up, what things I’ll be able to try. But deep down I have to accept I might not heal. Lately, I’ve been banking on biologics (Dupixent) to save the day and I just keep being like “okay I’m breastfeeding now but once we’re done, so long as I don’t plan to have another child, I can go on these groundbreaking but experimental drugs.” I have to think about life decisions in that way because no one knows the effects of these medications on fertility or pregnancy, and if I use them I am not willing to take the risk. Harder still is that their efficacy isn’t even guaranteed!

As a result, I’m always forced to think ahead. So much of my experience as a first time mother has already been influenced by my condition. It’s not just dry skin. My body reacts like it’s allergic to everything, even to holding my baby’s head on my bare arms when breastfeeding. I always wear loose flannel over myself to not have that skin contact. I can’t give my baby baths as easily because my hands freak out from that kind of water exposure (washing my hands in general makes my hands itch like crazy and sometimes break into hives). I can’t do crazy sweat-inducing heat-generating workouts as easily without needing breaks to let my skin cool and dry off so I don’t scratch myself to death. This also means carrying my baby strapped to my body on a warm day eventually makes my stomach flare up. I am becoming increasing sensitive to new allergens, like developing allergies even to my childhood dog and a lot of my friends’ houses.

This condition also impacts my ability to sleep. Sometimes I’m kept up at night by my baby, but often times it’s my condition that does it; my skin going through thermoregulating issues or being triggered by friction, sweat, air temperature deviance, my husband’s body heat, stress, etc all irritating my body so I am either scratching or my skin is heating up and weeping, or cracking as it dries out. It’s a never-ending battle to not fear going to bed though I know I need the sleep, because I get so nervous about how uncomfortable the night will be.

And then all the while that I’m slowly learning to accept my own condition as a state of being, I have to figure out how to validate myself to the world. The most common attitude I receive from others is that I am just negligent in using moisturizers, which results in a lot of product recommendations from coconut oil to castor oil, Eucerin to Aquaphor. The challenge is getting people to realize that it’s not just a dry skin issue. I often have sporadic allergic reactions to products (no matter how natural) because it’s an autoimmune issue. Over the past few months I have reacted to coconut oil, and then vaseline, and then vitamin E oil. Now all three are fine to use.

This condition also impacts what I can eat. I once had a date (the fruit), and immediately broke out hives all over my lips. This happens with foods I previously could and will again be able to eat. The reason is because my issue is internal. The skin is just an unfortunate symptom. And yes sure, if I can consistently figure out how to keep my skin closed (no weeping or open wounds) maybe my other symptoms will slow, but my skin didn’t flare up one day in 2013 in a vacuum; something else triggered it.

The next challenge I face is convincing people that this is more than skin deep. I have had people tell me that eczema (the blanket term for having rashes like mine anywhere on your body) is not an autoimmune disorder. One, it definitely is, and two, when you get to my severity level (aka chronic and where the whole body is affected) you have to recognize something else is at play. My eosinophil levels (a type of white blood cell) are often off the charts. I’m talking 6000 units when normal is 60. And again my inner mouth and throat aren’t affected by eczema yet they break out in hives fairly randomly. My digestion also can get messed up at a drop of a hat and I often know I’m in a healing phase when I have bowel movements again. Not to mention joint swelling and swollen lymph nodes even in regions of my body where the skin is intact. My body’s immune system is definitely overactive.

The next issue comes from dermatologists. I honestly don’t know why I keep expecting a different plan of care, as their profession literally meaning the study of skin, but I’m always bummed when they come at me from the approach of only how to fix my skin. Like I said, the problem is my skin isn’t the cause. So if they just give me meds for my skin, I finish the medications and the symptoms return because the cause hasn’t been found and treated.

All this is to say that finding a way to accept my life as it has become, and getting others to realize what it’s like has been difficult. I’m naturally a very anxious person, and the rapid onset of this condition followed by years of being a “medical mystery” and now basically a non-compliant patient (at least towards any derm that recommends steroids yet again without having new scientific evidence proving efficacy in case studies similar to mine) have made me quite wary. I don’t have good faith that people will understand what it’s like or why I am constantly reinventing my future. Why I constantly change my diet. Why I adopt these “hippie” approaches to skin care like refusing topical steroids or going moisturizer-free during wet flares. I’m not trying to be difficult or ignore medical advice. I’m working to figure out this body I’m in as it is, and treating it gently as I re-meet it and get to know it, accepting that yes, I may now always be chronically ill even though I still remember a time when that wasn’t the case. And yeah maybe there will be a cure and/or I will heal one day, but until that time I have to meet myself where I’m at now.

#skin #eczema #topical steroid withdrawal #atopic dermatitis

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butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway · 7 years ago

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@quietsea It’s a little easier for me to make sure I answer all of your questions to the best of my ability this way, so thank you for your permission to answer publicly. I’ll start by saying that it’s not really that there are different diagnosable versions of PCOS as it is that there are a huge variety of hormonal imbalances and things that cause those imbalances in the first place. The end result is always the same: ovarian cysts and a dysregulated menstrual cycle. But what originally triggered that situation can be any one of a number of things. At a fundamental level, hormonal supplements (typically in the form of birth control) that prevent the ovaries from developing new cysts or continuing to develop cysts already in existence is the only guaranteed way to treat the ovarian cysts themselves. It prevents them from growing or bursting, pretty critical aspects of treatment of I do say so myself. However, depending on the originating trigger of the hormonal imbalance, it may not be a treatment in the sense of getting your body to regulate it’s hormonal ratios in the long run. Now, if you’re one of the many people who is comfortable staying on birth control until menopause, this may not be an issue at all! Birth control is highly effective at managing any and all major symptoms of PCOS as long as you stay on it appropriately. But not everyone wants that. Some want to conceive. Some want to medically transition. Some want to be able to live without medication. Some have additional conditions which make hormonal birth control risky or dangerous. Some just don’t want to ~have~ to be on it forever. Any of these people, then, would likely need to identify which hormonal imbalance is causing their PCOS, and begin treatments designed to help their body correct those imbalances under it’s own steam. It is important to keep in mind, as well, that even if you do all of that, your body may just be designed to produce “imbalanced” hormones because for you personally, the ARE balanced. And that’s fine. In that case, you must find ways to minimize risk of developing cysts while also managing the additional concerns that make you want to avoid a lifetime of birth control. So how do you go about identifying your hormonal imbalance? An endocrinologist! They’re doctors who specialize in hormonal matters. They’ll run tests, often a series of urine or blood tests, to measure your hormonal ratios at different points in your “cycle” and measure whether or not you really even have a cycle. Since ovarian cysts are almost always about some manner of suppressed progesterone triggers, a lot of the time this is about identifying where in the long hormonal chain your body’s drive to create more or less progesterone is breaking done. This is where the notions of high E or T come into play. However it’s important to note that progesterone production can also be seriously affected by inflammation! Especially immune or nervous system based inflammatory responses (it’s not unusual, for example, for people with Celiac’s to miss a period following a cross contamination exposure of an allergen, or for a chronically stressed person to not produce the necessary triggers that tell their body to have a menstrual cycle). The reality is that hormones are extremely complicated/delicate and we understand shockingly little about them. The processes that run a menstrual cycle break down very easily and can be challenging to correct. For example if your endocrinologist says you have high estrogen that may be suppressing your progesterone, you will likely be advised to avoid soy and steroids. If you have high testosterone, you may be encouraged to take a hormonal cocktail designed to supplement your low estrogen and progesterone that is closer to fertility drugs than birth control. If your imbalance is caused by inflammation (as mine is) you may be advised to visit a geneticist, a psychologist, or a a cardiologist. In most cases, doctors prescribe birth control first and advise patients stay on it for a number of years before testing to see if their bodies have regulated to the induced ratios because it is simplest, cheapest, and least emotionally draining for the patient. Once that has been tried and failed, if the patient still wants to find a way not to be on birth control, it can take weeks, months, or years to identify a viable treatment option. In my case, it was important to me that I was able to get off of birth control because I wanted to conceive and because being on that cocktail of hormones made me feel incredibly dysphoria, damaged, and emotionally unstable. But it has been over a year now, and it was not until the last six months when we identified and treated my underlying medical conditions that my body showed any sign of regulating. Some things that you can do to help your body regulate, that shouldn’t do any harm regardless of what is actually causing your imbalances: -make sure you’re eating enough food. Afab people are often deeply impacted by diet culture and constant messages of restricted eating, and often perceive themselves to be consuming far more than they really are. Take some time to track your energy output and your calorie intake for a few weeks and see how consistently you’re consuming as many calories as you’re burning each day. It is a rare adult who can survive fully functioning on fewer than 2000 calories a day, regardless of activity level or ability. -try an elimination diet to identify any food sensitivities you may have, and cut those suckers out. Your gut and digestive tract are shockingly delicate organs. Or rather they’re tough and sturdy, but the little digestive villae along them are not. Exposure to food sensitivities damage these organs and decreases your ability to absorb nutrients from the food you are eating, as well as increasing the overall amount of inflammation your body is regularly coping with, which is hard on the glands that manage your hormones. -Try to sweat a little every day. Maybe this means going for a walk long enough to make your arms damp, or maybe it just means drawing yourself a hot bath and laying in it until you feel your forehead and upper lip start to bead up. Sweat is your body’s way of dealing with temperature, but it also gives your body a chance to transfer minerals and such across cell walls by osmosis. Lots of times, that won’t matter, but every once in a while it’ll help your body push out something it doesn’t like that’s giving it a hard time (ever hear the phrase “sweat out a fever”?). If nothing else, it’ll be good for your skin! -track your body regularly. There are a ton of great apps these days that help you track hormonal symptoms. The more you know about your body, the easier it is for you to spot common threads and trends when they pop up. I’m a huge fan of Flo and Spot On, both of which are totally free. As a bonus, both of these apps can sometimes help you pin down whether you’re ovulating or not, which is a HUGELY helpful piece of information when you’re looking at potential treatments. - drink lots of water. It’s just all around good for you to be well hydrated. I recommend setting yourself a timer every 2-3 hours that you’re awake, and trying to get through one 6-8oz glass of water in each interval. If you hate water, a decaffeinated tea or flavored water will do. I’m a huge fan of putting lemonade ice cubes into my water so that every sip tastes tart and sweet. Some people also do their ice cubes up with cucumber, mint, rosemary, lavender, honey, or limes! Whatever helps you feel comfortable and satisfied getting through your hydration routine. -Most importantly: don’t be afraid of the birth control. Burst cysts are scary, painful, and sometimes traumatizing. The fluids can cause some damage of their own in your abdominal cavity, and even the most minor one is going to feel (and probably smell) unpleasant. Birth control all but guarantees you won’t have to experience that. And if you want to be on birth control in between attempts to identify other long term treatment options, that can be a great way to make sure you don’t get any burst cysts along the way. In the end, you observed correctly that hormonal levels vary hugely from person to person. What worked to manage or reduce my symptoms will not always work for everyone else, and vice versa. What my body reacts harshly to may be perfectly within acceptable hormonal ranges for someone else. What is most important is your health and comfort. And it’s a mistake to let anyone try to treat you as if that is a one-size-fits all kind of determination. I hope this long and rambling post has been helpful for you. It was really lovely to hear from you, and I hope you’ll please feel welcome to return with any further questions or thoughts that you have. I’m always happy to try to help people get their footing in their journey or try to figure out where to start. I dealt with a lot of this on my own and without much support, so I really like being able to make sure others don’t have to.

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ittakesrain · 4 years ago

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Oh Hey, RA

Story time, some info I’ve learned, and a glimpsed into the annoying gray blob that is my brain

It was the start of June 2020. The summer’s refreshing, radiating warmth had already started to govern how my days went, prompting me to spend more time reading on the porch stoop, getting that Vitamin D from the glorious sunshine, swimming in my parents’ pool, and going on walks through my neighborhood while I facetimed my cousin (7 states away) while she walked around her neighborhood.

Things were good. Sort of. Well, I mean…some things were good.

By then, everyone knew that the year was going to be a shitshow in its entirety, and we all knew that we were barely halfway through the damn thing, but I personally found it hard to not enjoy the longer days and sunny skies. Not to mention my newly-acquired sanity.

Yeah, so I’d been hospitalized in a psychiatric facility in February (literally right before the pandemic swept across the entire planet). I was finally put on lithium (and a cocktail of other brightly colors pills) and thus the bipolar disorder that had ravaged my life since I was like fourteen years old was finally able to get under control.

It was huge. I mean, there are no words big enough to capture that tremendousness of NOT LOSING YOUR MIND four times a year for fourteen years in a row.

In my opinion, I was (and am) appropriately grateful. And as I typed those words just now, I’m realizing the flaws in my logic —the ones that are telling me if only I’d been more grateful for that one particular good thing in my life, I wouldn’t have been fucked with another bad thing. Now, there’s a lot to unpack there, but for some context, I have a gratitude journal app, and I journal about good things constantly, I’ve even posted lengthy lists of things I’m grateful for on this blog. [I am literally still rationalizing this, my god, I am so messed up in the head lol]

Anyway, my point is that around my birthday mid-June, it became clear to me that something was wrong with my body. I couldn’t move normally. It was exhausting to cross my legs and bend down. It was weird, and it came out of nowhere.

I also finally cut the eating disordered bullshit (for the billionth time) on my birthday by enjoying a wonderfully delicious piece of chocolate cake.

That all being said, moving was even more difficult in July and utterly terribly painful by August.

I found a doctor with difficulty (due to the pandemic, my shitty insurance, my reluctance to talk to people on the phone, and other reasons you’ll discover if you keep reading my nonsense here). And the long and arduous process of figuring out what in the hell was wrong with me began.

Lots of bloodwork. Lots of tests. Scans. Then finally I went to a rhematologist (more bloodwork more tests). And by NOVEMBER (ugh) I was told I have rheuamtoid arthritis.

It’s an autoimmune disorder, meaning my immune system sees healthy cells and is just like “WOW oh BOY let’s just fuck that shit up for no reason and ruin Laura’s joints, cause inflammation and swelling, and just overall ruin normal things like hooking her own bra and getting out of bed.”

Sarcasm aside, there’s actually so much for me to learn about that process and what chaos is going on in my body. Like, I know when they initially figured out that I have RA, they tested for Rheumatoid Factor (proteins produced by the immune system). I got the bloodwork and read through it before I talked to the doctor, but it said <100 RF for me (which is no good, no good at all lol) and that explains why I was sore, stiff, exhausted, achy, all of the above. RF attack healthy cells as opposed to viruses or bacteria.

RA is a progressive disease, and you can’t cure it. So I basically have to stay on top of dealing with it in order to make sure my joints don’t get damaged, ’cause once they do, there’s no reversing it.

It’s not like osteoarthritis that’s gradual after the mechanical wear and tear on the cushions in your joints. Apparently RA attacks the lining in the joints, not cartilage. Osteoarthritis is more common, too.

Another fun fact is that rhematoid arthritis affects my skin. I have a scabs on my knuckles and knees that I don’t foresee going away. The doctor said she can give me a steroid cream for it, but tbh why bother?

—Okay it’s time now to explain that after prompting from my therapist, and my staring at her confused, I realized that I’m slow to seek out help for my ailments because I’m terrified that there’s simply no help available and no solutions to be found…and worse, as she correctly guessed, I’m afraid I don’t deserve help.

Because like, I definitely did fuck my body by not eating. I lose a lot of weight super quick and in retrospect, after learning that RA can be triggered by your body going through traumatic shit (surgery, labor, satrving yourself into oblivion for a few months)…it’s obviously my fault.

To play devil’s advocate with myself, I was all anorexic-y because I was disgustingly depressed, and that was becauase my bipolar wasn’t properly controlled, which again, technically wasn’t my fault.

But either way, I have lots of work to do in terms of processing THAT mess of thoughts. hkjhggffdyds help

Anyway. I’m taking a drug called hydroxychloroquine (which is SUCH a bitch to say lol). It’s a DMARD, and yes, you are correct, that does stand for “disease modifying antirheumatic drug.” They don’t really know why it works on inflammation, but they think it might interfere with communication of cells in the immune system. I’ve been on that for about three months. Which, I’m told, is about how long it takes to start working.

And it was working.

And then I washed my kitchen floor and I’ve been limping around since then. Like????? No????? I should be able to move like a normal human???

I did my research (I did not think to look shit up of my own accord, guess who urged me to do so). There ae other drugs that might work. A chemo drug that’s given to RA patients at a tiny dose, or this type of drug call a biologic, or something? They’re like genetically modified drugs or something. [I’m not an expert obv, I’m just googling and making sense in my own head and smashing my keyboard to get all the info here, so, FYI]

I called my doctor and was told to take Motrin for now, and (shocking) that is helping.

But that’s enough word vomit for today, thanks for looking at my wordssssss

#RA #rheumatoidarthritis #rheumatoid arthritis #arthritis #pain #chronic pain #spoonie #spoon theory #out of spoons

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naturopathytreatments · 4 years ago

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Questions About Testosterone Therapy in Men

Testosterone treatment is a prominent hormonal agent replacement treatment offered here at Living Health Medical Center. In this article, naturopathic doctors Dr. Khalsa and also Dr. Brouwer discuss some common concerns from individuals concerning testosterone treatment in males.

Question # 1: At what ages does testosterone begin to decrease in males?

Dr. Brouwer: I think an usually approved age is right around age 40. Additionally, males that are more youthful than that as well as are under tremendous tension may experience a decrease in testosterone. However, typically, at around 40 years of ages, testosterone begins to decline. Unfortunately, numerous men do not begin to exhibit signs and symptoms till they're 50 or 60, yet by then, they've had several years of reduced testosterone. The effects of reduced testosterone will certainly have gathered in their bodies.

Question # 2: What are several of the low testosterone symptoms that you should be on the lookout for?

Dr. Brouwer: A lot of males do not be available in until they begin to have some sort of sexual dysfunction, like impotence or an absence of sex drive. Yet the adjustments that occur much prior to may be anything from sleep problems, pains, discomforts in their joints, a low exercise tolerance, and not getting as much out of their workouts. Their muscle mass are weak than they used to be, and their cardiovascular fitness has actually lowered. These are the main things that we listen to problems about. Patients usually say, "I'm exhausted," "I'm exhausted," and also "I'm not curious about life any longer."

They may really feel clinically depressed, as well as this mood may stick around for a long period of time. Yet after that they are likewise experiencing concerns with their cardio system, where their heart muscle mass may be compromising. There lots of reasons to start changing testosterone and also begin increasing it while the person is more youthful. It is very important not to wait until the client experiences inadequate erections to resolve reduced testosterone.

Inquiry # 3: What are the distinctions in between testosterone replacement treatment as well as steroids utilized in bodybuilding?

Dr. Brouwer: So, testosterone substitute treatment is a replacement treatment, right? As guys age, their testes don't produce testosterone that well, and they're losing out on the hormone that's essential for their appropriate functioning. As a result, we're changing something that's missing, or that's really reduced. On the other hand, using steroids implies that you're utilizing fabricated testosterone substitutes, a chemical that mimics testosterone. These compounds have an extremely different result on the body. Steroids are not changing something all-natural to the body. They are pressing the body with something fake.

These fabricated materials may cause really high testosterone degrees that may create major side effects, such as road rage. Male may obtain irritable as well as hostile, and their testicles diminish away. There are a lot of actually dangerous effects of that kind of steroid use; that's not the instance with changing genuine testosterone.

Inquiry # 4: Often, we hear patients claim their laboratories are "typical." Exactly how does that connect to conventional or optimum lab objectives?

Dr. Brouwer: This occurs all the time. I get guys that may be found in as well as remain in their 40s or their 50s or 60s and say, "I'm simply not feeling like myself. I'm not really feeling well. I'm tired. I'm not as solid as I used to be." They claim all those points we spoke about in the past. And also they state, "Yet my medical professional says my testosterone is typical."

Well, there is typical for your age. So when you're more youthful, males in their teens, 20s, as well as 30s, have these really high testosterone degrees maintaining them strong. Yet as that starts to decline, the reference array changes per age. In their 20s, there's a referral range for them that's the typical variety. It coincides in their 30s, 40s, and so forth. For that reason, if you're in your 50s and have a normal degree for your age, that's a lot less than when you were younger and more powerful.

So, I do not want my older men to be always in the regular array for their age. I want them to be at a much more normal range for a 30-year-old. Which's based on all the research studies, not just my individual preference. Research studies of males making use of testosterone substitute therapy inform us that those even more vibrant degrees are going to maintain them stronger.

A good offer of doctors will certainly just check out the total testosterone. So, there are a couple of means to look at it, and also you may look at the totally free testosterone (what is readily available for the cells to use) and also complete testosterone (where a lot of that is bound up and also not readily available). Just measuring overall testosterone does not tell us how much of that is usable by the body. However, when a great deal of males are under 1,000 in their complete testosterone level, they really feel symptomatic.

Once more, they're not resting well, their power is poor, so I don't care what your total amount is, as well as I don't care that you're "regular" for your age. I desire you to be because optimum variety of free testosterone as if you were more youthful.

The article “ Questions About Testosterone Therapy in Men “ was first published on Living Wellness Medical Center

Boost your overall health and disease prevention with the help of naturopathic medicine. Contact your nearest naturopathic doctor - Dr. Amauri Caversan ND.

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allenmendezsr · 4 years ago

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Proven MS Treatment By Dr Gary Levin M.d

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/proven-ms-treatment-by-dr-gary-levin-m-d/

Proven MS Treatment By Dr Gary Levin M.d

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Multiple sclerosis is one of the most debilitating and discouraging conditions anyone can have. Waking up day after day knowing you are stricken with MS that gradually drags you, a healthy young person, towards chronic illness and maybe a shorter life. Suddenly you no longer expect to enjoy many of life’s greatest experiences.

You probably remember that day, the day you first heard your doctor speak the words “Multiple Sclerosis.” You may have felt sadness, desperation, even panic knowing full well your life would never be the same again. That time can be almost as difficult for your family and close friends as it is for you.

You are unable to enjoy your favorite things knowing the next attack is just a matter of time. Sometimes the attack’s “remission” leaves you with residual, usually permanent, and scary symptoms. You suffer month after month and find you are losing hope of ever getting better.

That’s a very sad place for anyone to be. I know. I’ve been seeing patients for over 40 years.

My name is Dr. Gary M. Levin and I’m a retired M.D. and Surgeon in the U.S. For more than forty years, I took great pride in running my own clinic, as well as teaching and supervising resident doctors at a facility at Loma Linda Univ School of Medicine. I completely understand how incredibly scary, painful and discouraging multiple sclerosis symptoms are for millions of people just like you.

I have felt the pain of so many patients and their families. It is like your body is fighting an all-out war with a dangerous intruder that doesn’t exist. Your doctor may be putting on a brave face, but the truth is many physicians are just as frustrated as you are. They try every known cure, treatment and medically accepted idea — yet NOTHING works because the real symptoms of MS are not treated!

How come a respected M.D. & surgeon dares to talk about a “Natural Treatment”?

In 1998, I had a heart ailment which required surgical intervention. While recovering in cardiac rehabilitation, I had the unexpected opportunity to work with a colleague who practiced allopathic and alternative medicine. I was very impressed with what I found.

Having been trained in the sciences, I decided to dive deep into this approach, serve a two-year preceptorship and test natural remedies and alternative treatments for diseases.

It was here that I discovered powerful breakthroughs that would have profound impacts for Multiple Sclerosis patients. Here was the highly effective KEY to slowing deterioration, preventing attacks, and promoting regeneration.

The access that the public has to study archives and the ability to learn, understand and draw conclusions out of them is VERY limited (mainly because of the medical talk) not to mention getting updated with new ones and to know how to distinguish them. I can tell you there’s a lot of misinformation out there, which is the reason I use and teach ONLY TESTED and PROVEN methods based on serious, long term CLINICAL studies that I was able to verify myself. I wouldn’t risk doing anything else.

The patients I worked with in my clinic were real people, not experiments. Moreover, I was responsible for teaching and supervising the resident doctors at a facility at Loma Linda Univ School of Medicine, so naturally it was essential for all my claims to have rock-solid proof to back them up.

The Symptom Elimination process is carried out through a simple step-by-step method that rehabilitates your immune system and boosts your supporting body systems to rid it of all symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis PLUS re-energizes and purifies your body for maximum health.

To make a long story short – I have a scientifically proven method for TOTALLY reversing MS!

It is all natural which means it cannot be registered as a patent thus it cannot be marketed using the regular channels (drug industry-pharmacies etc.).

So, I am giving you the result of my own research, trial and error in one handy place with step-by-step instructions to help you reverse your MS.

Don’t believe it can be true?

Watch this TED Talk from Dr. Terry Wahls, a doctor and an ex-MS sufferer who was in a wheelchair when she started implementing some food-related strategies and now she has fully recovered.

What are the results of my method?

Patient after patient left their years of Multiple Sclerosis symptoms behind, saying they are completely symptom-free. Others show a dramatic improvement. Even more exciting, to see how they are getting their old lives back. These FORMER Multiple Sclerosis patients have bright smiles, upbeat energy and even brighter futures — this time without having to worry and stress about the scary symptoms reoccurring because they followed the instructions I gave them. You will see my patients’ Video Stories all over this page. They ARE actors because I understand people’s feelings and feel uncomfortable asking them to reveal their details in public. but what they say is coming from what REAL people are saying. These people from all over and from many different backgrounds tell — in their own words — exactly how my Treatment System eliminated the symptoms of their Multiple Sclerosis. Rather than resigning themselves to a shortened life of misery and pain, and little to look forward to, my patients now feel younger, have more energy and suddenly feel confident in setting exciting and ambitious goals for a long life.

Please keep in mind I will NEVER promote a fly-by-night miracle cure. I am a medical doctor with a lifetime of work in a traditional medical practice. I am not about to hang my reputation on magic pills or whatever else you see promoted on the internet these days.

Download YOUR copy of the Multiple Sclerosis Step-By-Step Treatment System TODAY. This will include a Quick Start Guide PLUS an audio version of the Treatment System for JUST $47.99

Click Here for a limited time only $99.97 $47.99 My 100% No-Risk Guarantee to YOU: I realize you just met me and you may be a little hesitant to order. I don’t want anyone to continue suffering because they don’t feel comfortable ordering and that is why we chose Clickbank.com for handling the payments.

Buying online securely: They provide the highest level of online payment encryption and security and they are the #1 payment processor for downloadable products worldwide. In addition, Clickbank’s order form is secured, and constantly monitored, by McAfee & VeriSign. Payment can be done using PayPal or credit card. The order form is compatible with all mobile systems.

100% iron-clad, 2 month, No questions asked refund guarantee: Clickbank also takes the matter of customer refunds totally out of our hands. We don’t even get the money before the refund period ends. This means that for ANY reason, you can go directly to Clickbank.com to get a full refund. You won’t even need to contact us.

You literally have no risk. Let’s see a pharmacy or doctor top that! So please give my proven method a try. You’ll feel better for it. Yes, I want to finally get rid of my multiple sclerosis. Let me in! Click Here, for limited time only $99.97 $47.99

So, What REALLY Causes Multiple Sclerosis?

When a human baby develops, fatty myelin sheaths build around nerves of the brain and spinal cord. This development is what allows a one year-old to start to walk. As these myelin sheaths grow, a child gains greater mobility, muscular control and mental activity.

Multiple Sclerosis is the deterioration of the myelin sheaths. This happens when the immune system thinks the myelin sheaths are a foreign intruder that must be destroyed. As a result, electrical impulses are slowed or stopped as they travel through the body’s nervous system. The MS patient loses muscular control, loses feeling in nerves and can even suffer cognitive changes. This results in a lot of different symptoms such as constantly feeling aches and pain, numbness, feeling tired and wiped out all the time, double vision, muscle weakness in arms and legs, vertigo, muscle spasms, burning sensation in feet, etc.

Well, this may sound unusual, but if you think about it again you will come to the same conclusion as I did: “Multiple Sclerosis is just another symptom of the REAL disease you have”

So what is the real disease you suffer from?

Well, the simple answer is that you have an overactive immune system disease. Your immune system “freaks out” when it meets your myelin sheaths and attacks them. The fact that you are diagnosed with MS is just because of the fact that your immune system “freaks out” in a way that creates the MS symptoms. But you’re NOT having a “MS” disease. You are having an overactive or blinded immune system disease!

What does this mean? This means you should be dealing with the REAL problem: Your “overactive immune system” is the problem we need to deal with. Taking drugs to kill the symptoms may temporarily help but they are NOT the real solution.

I used to give my patients Copaxone (glatiramer acetate), interferon beta-1a/1b injections, courses of steroids and more but they offered no REAL help. They may have eased the symptoms for a while but this is not the real solution and nobody claims it is.

The sad truth is that the strong toxic effect of all these drugs gradually poisons the whole body, which at the end of the day, only makes Multiple Sclerosis attacks and permanent damage worse!

So , how can we heal an overactive immune system?

In my step-by-step Treatment System, you’ll learn how my Directed Nutrition™ method plus a special vitamin regimen will significantly reduce your symptoms and eventually completely rid you of your current condition.

It shouldn’t be any surprise to people that directed nutrition and simple plants and vitamins can be the basis for powerful cures. Contrary to popular belief, even prescription drugs aren’t wholly manufactured from synthetics.

A lot of regular medications are based on medical herbs and combinations of extracted foods we eat everyday (I know of more then a 100) like the diuretic medications “Theobromine” & “Theophylline” that are made from cacao or the capillary fragility medications “Hesperidin” & “Rutin” that are made from a combination of citrus species and the famous medication “Codeine” (for general pain, cough and diarrhea relief) that is made from papaver and the list goes on and on… so there is no real reason that using my method will not do a great job healing you from your MS.

I followed this basic principle of pharmacology to find life-giving plants and herbs that could be the basis for reversing Multiple Sclerosis. This would not only give patients comfort and new hope, but give their bodies a way to build strength and coordination and promote a far stronger immune system.

How long will it take to get back to a normal life again?

It depends. The treatment protocol is built on layers of strategies for creating the healing process in your body. Each layer is aimed at one angle of the disease and since not everyone’s body is made the same and MS is a disease caused by several factors, some people respond quickly to the first strategies and some to the later ones. Therefore, it may take a few short weeks to several months to see major improvement.

What type of Multiple Sclerosis do you have?

MY method treats ALL types including: “Benign” MS, clinically isolated syndrome (CIS), galloping MS, Schilder’s Disease and Neuromyelitis optica (Devic’s Syndrome).

Can I promise this method will cure your Multiple Sclerosis 100%?

Of course not. Nothing in life is 100% guaranteed. I KNOW my findings will help a lot of Multiple Sclerosis sufferers but I still cannot claim a 100% success rate. Why? In spite of the fact that natural medicine has a huge success rate as a whole and can solve problems that some conventional medicine cannot, it is not an exact science by medical definition.

Natural and alternative medicine works on the WHOLE body. It deals with “system healing” — not specific disease healing, which is why you can never find one exact formula fit to heal each and every person.

You have to understand that every human being has a different body, different blood type, different blood flow and different metabolism. Because each and every one of us eats different foods, we have different rates of digestion. Even our souls and spirits are different. All these variables influence the way the systems in our body work so the way we react to alternative methods cannot be predicted with the same accuracy as with conventional medicine. This is why alternative methods cannot be proven and tested at the same EXACT level as conventional treatments are tested.

This is true for each and EVERY alternative treatment on earth.

BUT…

When you find an alternative method that actually helps you, it will work better than any other conventional treatment.

Why?

You have to understand that we are not made of a combination of separate chemical “dots.” We are made out of a variety of different organic living systems that work in a marvelous synergy and that’s exactly what my methods are aimed at. We heal systems and don’t just try to silence symptoms by taking drugs to make chemical changes in the specific “dots” that trigger the symptoms. Since they deal with systems, side effects can occur when you change something in a complex system.

If someone led you to believe that side effects are “just side effects,” please note that they KILL more than 106,000 people in the US alone every year. Not to mention the 2 million that get sick enough to be forced to go to the hospital every year (RE1, RE2) (9% have been seriously harmed plus 54% need intervention (RE3)in the US alone every year.) Then there are all the people who just feel bad as a result of taking drugs but whose new symptoms are never identified or recorded.

Let’s look at the figures another way.

What is more likely – that you would die in a traffic accident or as the result of a visit to your doctor?

This would be funny if it wasn’t true. The correct answer is visiting your doctor! Traffic accidents cause 43,354 deaths every year in the US (RE4) as opposed to 106,000 that die from ADRs (adverse drug reaction) every year. (RE1, RE2)

Hard to believe? That’s right, I myself can’t comprehend it but numbers don’t lie. Today ADRs are the third leading cause of death!

The danger of passive smoking or illegal drugs is frequently aired in heath campaigns and outraged newspaper editorials, but ADRs – which exact a far greater toll of misery – very rarely trigger the same level of indignation.

If you were to ask most doctors about ADRs, they would give you one of the answers I used to give: The risks of any one person having a problem is pretty small or if a medication doesn’t have any side effect, it’s almost certainly not effective. Some would even say that thanks to a system of proper scientific trials and regulations, modern medicine by and large successfully balances the risks of drugs against undoubted benefits they offer.

since I (and all my colleagues) were trained by the pharmaceutical model, I truly believed in it, despite the fact I just felt that most of my skills come from juggling a range of drugs for a particular problem so the patients suffer the fewest side effects, or knowing which drugs best alleviate the ADRs caused by the first drug…

With that approach, no wonder some of us, as doctors, feel as frustrated as our patients.

Just watch commercials on TV for mainstream drugs and you’ll see long, terrifying disclaimers about side effects. There is hardly a drug out there that doesn’t lead to shortness of breath, difficulty swallowing and sometimes death… and that’s just scraping the surface.

The beauty of ALL NATURAL treatments is that there are NO Side Effects. You won’t see a side effect disclaimer associated with my MS treatment because it WILL NOT make anyone sick. All Natural means you save money on costly prescription drugs and you avoid harsh side effects, all while receiving improved benefits fighting MS.

Remember this; alternative methods listen to your body and help heal itself from inside. They don’t have side effects because they deal with system healing and they use the original materials the body is built from.

With that said, I can say with confidence that you can have a future WITHOUT Multiple Sclerosis. A MS-free life is not an impossible dream. It can happen. My patients are living proof and so are the thousands of people who bought my ebook and successfully used this method!

If you have already met a neurologist (the specialist who typically monitors MS), you should know that they routinely prescribe some very toxic and dangerous medications to MS patients.

These drugs include:

Prednisone, a steroid hormone that can significantly weaken your immune system and can cause diseases such as osteoporosis and cataracts.

Interferon. The “deceptive” drug because, even though it’s a natural substance, it’s typically given in a dose that shuts down your body’s natural feedback loop. As a result, it tends to do more harm than good.

Fortunately, there are many alternatives to these toxic treatment methods offered by conventional medicine.

Too good to be true? That’s what a few people who have visited my site have told me. I realize that it sounds a lot like the “get your body in sync with the universe” cures that are all over the Net. But before we throw the baby out with the bath water, please realize that there is a grain of truth here. Many chronic conditions can be cured or greatly improved with correct nutrition (which can VARY tremendously from one person to the next.)

As I said a lot of regular medications are based on medical herbs and combinations of extracted foods we eat everyday (I know of more then a 100) like the diuretic medications “Theobromine” & “Theophylline” that are made from cacao or the capillary fragility medications “Hesperidin” & “Rutin” that are made from a combination of citrus species and the famous medication “Codeine” (for general pain, cough and diarrhea relief) that is made from papaver and the list goes on and on… so there is no real reason that using my method will not do a great job healing you from your MS.

It’s not as simple as adding carrots and berries to your diet. I use a step-by-step Treatment System that is based on a deep knowledge of the human body, my years of experience & the thousands of clinical studies I have reviewed. Although I’ve retired and closed my clinic, my method for treating and eliminating the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis will go on just as strong as ever. I no longer meet with patients personally, but I am determined to continue to enable Multiple Sclerosis patients all over the world to play a successful, proactive role in their own MS treatment and symptom elimination by guiding them in the proper implementation of the practices that have proven successful time and time again for so many patients.

So I’ve written down my complete Method for eliminating the Symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis in an EASY TO UNDERSTAND E-Book. You will never need to buy anything else from me to make this method work. You can download it and be reading within seconds.

There is no medical speak in my e-book. I keep it simple and easy-to-grasp just like I’m talking with one of my patients. You will learn how to pull your body’s chemical processes in line with a simple vitamin regimen and a nutrition method I found that works better than all the multiple sclerosis medicines combined. It’s available everywhere.

No more worrying about taking pills and/or injections on a daily basis or using other costly chemicals to take your MS away.

Download YOUR copy of the Multiple Sclerosis Step-By-Step Treatment System TODAY. This will include a Quick Start Guide PLUS an audio version of the Treatment System for JUST $47.99

Download your copy NOW and let me help YOU on your way to recovery. You owe it to your family and your future. But mostly you owe a MS-FREE life to yourself. You deserve it.

Hey, you don’t have to listen to me. Just read and watch the testimonials for yourself. As I said above, since I don’t feel comfortable asking people to reveal their details in public, I used actors. What they say is coming from what REAL people are saying.

Download YOUR copy of the Multiple Sclerosis Step-By-Step Treatment System TODAY. This will include a Quick Start Guide PLUS an audio version of the Treatment System for JUST $47.99

Download your copy NOW and let me help YOU on your way to recovery. You owe it to your family and your future. But mostly you owe a MS-FREE life to yourself. You deserve it.

Click Here, for limited time only $99.97 $47.99 My 100% No-Risk Guarantee to YOU: I realize you just met me and you may be a little hesitant to order. I don’t want anyone to continue suffering because they don’t feel comfortable ordering and that is why we chose Clickbank.com for handling the payments.

Extra bonuses!

Bonus 1

The Handbook Of Relaxation!

Everything you need to know about guided relaxation is included in this special ebook ($27.99 value.):

Tools for relaxation. How guided relaxation can help you. How stress affects you. Yoga guide! Restful sleeping with guided relaxation. Imagery guided relaxation.

Bonus 2

You Can Heal Yourself!

Everything you need to know about energy development and self healing is included in this special $29.99 value report. The definition of energy development and self healing. Subliminal exploration. Boosting energy. The relationship between vitamins and self healing. Fighting depression. Brain practices and workouts for self-healing. Finding inner strength. How to think positive.

Bonus 3

Help Your Teen Lose Weight Easily And In A Healthy Way ($39.99 value)

Explains:

What psychological issues overweight teens face everyday.

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How worried you, as a parent, should be about your teen’s weight.

How your teen’s self esteem is affected and how you can help.

You’ll also receive an audio recording of the entire guide. Because you’re busy, I know you might not have time to sit down and read this guide all at once. To make it easier on you, you can now listen to this recording in your car, on the way to work or on your iPod to take wherever you go.

Bonus 4

Your Guide to Healthy Eating

This is the ebook that will end the yo-yo diet nightmare once and for all and turn your weight loss and fitness dreams into reality! You’ll learn how to: · Lose weight. · Improve your health. · Send your energy skyrocketing. · Stop your junk food cravings. · Think more clearly. · Sleep better. · Be far more productive in life! · Actual value $27.99.

Bonus 5

How To Boost Your Metabolism And Lose Weight ($47.99 value)

Explains:

What metabolism really is and how to program it to help you lose weight fast.

How anyone can speed up their metabolism by making changes in just 3 areas of life.

How to boost your metabolism through exercise.

The secret to burning more calories while sitting around doing nothing!

Why most people are wrong about calories.

The secret to eating more and losing weight.

Why getting just the right amount of sleep can help your metabolism grow strong, plus 6 tricks for getting to sleep on time!

The truth about carbohydrates.

Download YOUR copy of the Multiple Sclerosis Step-By-Step Treatment System TODAY. This will include a Quick Start Guide PLUS an audio version of the Treatment System for JUST $47.99

Download your copy NOW and let me help YOU on your way to recovery. You owe it to your family and your future. But mostly you owe a Multiple Sclerosis-FREE life to yourself. You deserve it. Yes, I want to finally get rid of my multiple sclerosis. Let me in! Click Here, for limited time only $99.97 $47.99

Yours,

Dr. Gary M Levin M.D.

10686-B Hazelhurst Dr. # 7693 Houston, TX 77043 USA Phone number: 1-713-866-4099

P.S.

Just a reminder:

This method is fully natural, simple and risk free. Anyone can use it.

I am here to help and support you until you succeed and completely get rid of your Multiple Sclerosis.

The download is instant and you can start putting my treatment system to work for you in just 5 minutes.

Your purchase is fully protected for 60 days by both Clickbank and myself.

Yes, I want to finally get rid of my multiple sclerosis condition. Let me in!

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