#and they wouldn't prescribe me anything and there is apparently no medication you can get over the counter for nausea

[big-urchin-energy]

blood tests came back normal so i guess i just feel nauseous for no reason that's cool

[wallabywannabe]

My parents are getting older and my aunts are even older than them, so I'm starting to get a glimpse into what old age might look like for me.

Here's an easy, cheap tip I learned that everyone can do to protect your health as you age: wear sunglasses!

My aunt had to have cataract surgery, but apparently her corneas were bumpy and for the surgery to have a better chance of being successful, she needed to have a procedure first to shave down her corneas. Unfortunately it's as awful as it sounds. They told her it would be painful for 3 days, and that medication wouldn't help.

So she was crying from pain for a couple days and advil wasn't touching it when my uncle convinced her to take a leftover narcotic from some former surgery, and it actually did help a bit.

She then had to go back and get the other eye done (they only could do 1 at a time), and she told the doctor what she did, and that not prescribing actual pain medication when you know how much suffering a patient is going to be in is inhumane. (They still didn't prescribe anything but she had a few more leftover pills.)

Anyway, moral of the story is: cataracts are genetic but also exacerbated by sun exposure. My aunt who is younger but lives in the southern US instead of the midwest is going to need the surgery sooner than her older sister. So stay out of the sun and/or don't forget your eyes need protection!

2nd moral is: the US healthcare system is broken. It treats a 75 year old white lady and former RN like that, so you know it's worse for everyone else. Don't be afraid to make some waves if you sense you're not getting an adequate standard of care just because you think they must know better. If there's a good medical reason for something, they should be able to explain it to you.

[mrsmarlasinger]

(CW: anorexia/disordered eating, medication abuse, depression, death ideation)

I spent last week in Texas on vacation with my parents and sister (yeah, during the record-breaking heat wave). It was nice: eating twice a day, having dessert, eating out, trying pastries. Walking tons and wearing huge T-shirts and men's gym shorts every day, so I didn't have to feel too guilty.

Then I came home and was instantly convinced I'd gained an impossible amount of weight.

On top of that, I've recently realized that the coughing fits that have been getting progressively worse and steadily ruining my stupid life for the past 6+ weeks, finally culminating in me waking myself and my family up 4–5x per night to cough during our vacation...are an asthma flare-up, and one best treated by the five days of Prednisone my doctor prescribed me when I got really sick a few months ago.

(Which I never touched, because apparently, corticosteroids can cause weight gain through appetite increase and insulin suppression. Terrifying.)

Yesterday, after days of acute consternation, I finally succumbed and started the damn Prednisone. Like magic, almost immediately after my very first dose, my cough improved tenfold. Crazy how the medicine your doctor prescribes you actually works sometimes!

So.

The vacation. The steroid. The body dysmorphia.

Well, I've never once had trouble with my asthma until I got sick earlier this year, so I only use my rescue inhaler once in a blue moon. I've got years' worth of old albuterol lying around my room. Not like that shit expires and loses effectiveness after a year or anything.

Decided to kill three birds (the asthma, the albuterol surplus, and the so-called weight gain) with one stone. Decided to eat nothing for two days and abuse stimulants all the while.

Decided that if I did this, I could enjoy my family's annual Fourth of July BBQ (the first one my partner, posing as my "bestie" for my homophobic father, could attend!). I'd have fun and dress cute and talk to people and eat barbeque and desserts, and I wouldn't feel guilty at all, because I'd have budgeted for it.

Having been too scared to consume more than an anxious grazing session in the pantry on Sunday, I skipped food on Monday. Oh, god, I think I slammed at least half an old inhaler that day. Got so comically sick, so ridiculously dizzy and jittery, I started laughing at my trembling reflection in the bathroom mirror. Jesus, I don't puff this much albuterol in an entire year.

Despite the melatonin I took, my usual killer insomnia struck again last night (I'm sure the steroid and albuterol didn't help). I was up all night and only fell asleep long after the sun had risen, nauseous with exhaustion and aching with hunger.

Slept four hours. Woke up midday. Took my damn Prednisone.

Started tossing back albuterol and Benzedrex like there was no tomorrow. Slonked nearly half a gram of caffeine via zero-calorie drink drops.

All on an empty stomach, alone in my room.

Already I'd fasted more than the 48 hours planned. My heart rate skyrocketed from its usual 60–80 bpm to 125 bpm. I was fucking wired, jittery, anxious and nauseous and sweaty, shaking like an old lady's purse dog. My joints hurt. My dizzy head was pounding. A sort of awful feverish heat radiated from my poor quivery flesh.

It occurred to me that I felt exactly like I had that time I snorted [redacted]. Never thought my shitty, slapdash little stim stack could hit me this hard. I felt so sick I thought I'd puke or pass out or both.

All I could do was chant, "I'm going to die. I'm going to die" under my breath, then suck down another musty, powdery hit of expired albuterol.

But hey. I could see the weight I'd lost in those 48+ hours of hell.

What does it matter if I never came down for the party, never had a burger hot off the grill, never talked to anyone, just got progressively wired in my bedroom until my hand shook so bad I fucked up my lipstick?

Eventually my partner arrived and held my sweating, trembling wreck of a body, making nervous note of my tachycardia and hyperventilation as I repeated, over and over, "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die."

When I felt a little better, we went to root through the leftovers, and I proceeded to low-/medium-restrict on a mini kids' Clif bar, three slices of watermelon, two spoonfuls of pasta salad, and, for some fucking reason, a glazed doughnut. Panicking all the while.

And yeah, sure, I ruined my day, but what's new? I'm ruining my pathetic excuse for an existence too. All in pursuit of, what, becoming more underweight than I already am? Destroying my body more than I already have?

For a spoiled, privileged, rich little white girl without a responsibility under the sun, my life sure feels like a goddamn living nightmare.

I'm so upset.

I'm so sad.

I'm so angry.

I'm angry at the world, because what the fuck did I do to deserve chronic anorexia? I of course believe that I'm a nasty little bitch who deserves the worst of all things, but god, even I don't deserve this. No one deserves this. Anorexia is cruel and unusual punishment for the crime of possessing a tangible form. I'm only 22, and I've dealt with this bullshit for, what, seven years now?

I'm so sad. I'm so sad. I'm so cripplingly, earth-shatteringly sad.

I fasted and slammed stimulants for more than two days so I could enjoy a once-a-year party with my family and our friends (the cringe of American nationalism notwithstanding), only to starve and panic and isolate myself anyway. Now I'm hungry and sick to my stomach, parachuting kratom like it'll fix things. Like eating toilet paper and fake opiates will nourish me. What was it all for? What the fuck is any of this for?

It's not worth it. None of this is worth it. I'm miserable, spiraling. I can't work. I can't function. I'm out of control. It's not my rock bottom by a long shot—hell, I haven't even gotten my lowest weight back—but it sure feels like it. This is hell.

I just want to eat. I want to eat. I want to eat. I want desperately to eat. Please, god, let me eat. If I can't eat, let this vile disease kill me already. I want to eat. I'm so unwell. I want to eat. I'm so, so sick. I want to eat. I want to eat.

Please.

Please.

God. God. God. God. God. God. God.

[clatterbane]

Well, it seems the fun just doesn't want to stop around here!

The next actual procedure has been scheduled for Tuesday.

So, now it turns out that they didn't like some of my bloodwork that they drew at that surprise appointment, apparently thanks to the slightly low sodium and potassium levels which have come up every time anybody has tested that within the past couple of years. I am also on a medication which is known to cause low sodium levels (and which they actually prescribed for the GI garbage, and really think I need pretty high doses of).

So, now I've got a last minute appointment for an EKG through a different department on Monday, because slightly fucked-up electrolytes. Which have apparently been like that the whole time they've been working on me. The EKG people apparently tried to work me for today at 11 a.m. when Mr. C was kindly running interface this morning, but yeahno. He knew that wasn't going to work on such short notice, even if I had been awake. So, they worked me in for Monday instead.

Oh yeah, I also already had another appointment to get other blood drawn for endocrinology set up for Monday at the local GP clinic, before any of the rest of these complications came up. (Partly because they wanted to retest the sodium/potassium too! Pretty sure I just had everything endo was wanting sampled the other day.) You need advance scheduling for blood draws, and the appointment they gave me for that was several weeks ahead.

I already wasn't too happy about having that blood draw scheduled for Monday, and then the gastroscopy procedure for Tuesday. But,now there's a direct time collision with the last-minute EKG on Monday. And of course it's now Friday evening, so no rescheduling until Monday morning.

Wouldn't be surprised if they do try and charge me for a missed appointment, though (a) it is an unexpected time collision with a last-minute more urgent appointment, and (b) we had absolutely no way of notifying them over 24 hours in advance. Not nearly as bothered by the relatively small fee, as just on principle. I feel bad about his needing to run interference so much lately, but hopefully Mr. C talking to them Monday (in Swedish mode) will help.

I am trying not to worry too much about endoscopy maybe deciding just not to work on me now, especially since this exact same thing came up before that eye surgery under a full general. They did a pre-op EKG as standard, and they did seem satisfied enough to go ahead and knock me out then.

Same with the white coat blood pressure factor at the clinic. The anesthesia people were apparently not too happy with that this time either, so apparently they want me to get a couple of home readings over the weekend to get back to them on Monday. Mr. C is apparently expecting a call back then. Presumably before the damned EKG. 🥴

So yeah, not exactly what anybody around here needs at the moment. And I still have no freaking clue why endoscopy suddenly decided to complicate things now with the intubation and all, with no indication that things have been going anything other than fine over the past 2+ years up to this point.

I am definitely not less of a nervous wreck at this point, not least because I do know that there's fuck all I can do about any of it. Besides take some blood pressure readings, hopefully while I am not having anxiety problems nearly on par with every fucking time I am anywhere near a medical facility. 😬 Worrying about this whole electrolyte business really isn't going to get me anywhere, when there's nothing I can do about that--very likely short of going off that medication, which would probably take a while to bring them back to normal anyway.

Of course it doesn't help that I also keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, in terms of professionals trying to blame me for any of this mess. Thankfully, nobody here so far has even tried pulling that crap on me over anything so far, but yeah experience. I may know that I have no direct control over my freaking potassium levels (and yeah trying to eat more of both sodium and potassium has not seemed to help), but that unfortunately doesn't mean that medical personnel won't decide that's the easiest explanation.

On a very related note, I am glad that they are actually doing things like ordering basic labwork and trying to be thorough following up on it here. (Which, I would not be having most of the issues that are going on now, if anybody had been taking the same approach over the previous nearly 20 years back in London. Including this damage to my esophagus from the DKA crash, which I am trying to get treated for this round of shit even to come up.) It's nice to actually have medical professionals showing some due diligence. But, it sure can turn annoying and overwhelming sometimes.

I'm trying not to worry too much, but that's been going about as well as you might expect.

Tomorrow I've got an intake appointment set up for endoscopy, because they apparently decided to pass me over to a different team. No communication or anything, I just didn't hear anything about the next regular appointment--and then I got this new patient appointment letter for a week after my usual appointment schedule has been running.

That was confusing as hell, but Mr. C called to see if there had been some kind of mixup. Nope, evidently somebody just decided to send me to another team there after around 2 years with absolutely no communication about it. And I am apparently supposed to do a full new intake, with forms and blood tests and all.

There was also a procedure set for the 19th, or two weeks longer than they have been leaving between procedures lately. Thankfully, I am still eating fine right now, and here's hoping that will hold out for another week. At least they are evidently not planning to immediately stop doing treatments entirely, since they did give me that appointment date already.

But yeah, I have no idea wtf is even happening here until hopefully finding out something tomorrow, and it's making me nervous. I am actually at the point where I pretty much trust the team I've been working with so far here, after horrible and generally traumatic experiences dealing with the NHS before. And this is kind of a life-threatening issue they've been treating.

I do of course worry that they're basically just trying to dump me as a patient, since it hasn't been completely solved after 2+ years of them treating it (largely thanks to the delays and assorted fuckups when the damaged esophagus was still more easily fixable). I am also concerned that whatever new people I end up with won't actually try to keep me able to swallow as non-traumatically as possible, and I'll basically end up back in an NHS-level mess. The team I've been dealing with did actually seem to gaf if I could eat--and tried to keep me out of severe pain while they were reaming my throat out on a schedule informed by it staying open or not!--but yeah who knows.

We'll have to see what they have to say tomorrow. And I'm glad I do have some kind of backup, going in to who the hell knows what.

[thegittelbug]

Content warning: pregnancy loss, blood

Not sure if I'll post this or delete it later, but I just need to get it out of my brain.

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The health issues I've been dealing with is the miscarriage of a deeply wanted pregnancy. I had some minor bleeding a week ago and so went to urgent care as I had been instructed to, and had to deal with... Just a giant cluster of incompetence. First they told me that ultrasound had just closed so they wouldn't be able to tell me anything, and then when my blood work showed unusually low levels of pregnancy hormones and some sort of infection they shrugged it off and sent me home.

I had further blood work to monitor my hormone levels, which showed they'd dropped 35% in about a day. The nurse told me they still weren't sure and I'd have to repeat the blood work. I honestly am not sure she even looked at the previous blood draws, and when I pointed out the other history she didn't even respond to me.

I came in the next day for my ultrasound, which showed no fetal heart beat. We'd had one at my previous OB appointment the week before. The doctor told me they "weren't sure" what that meant and sent me home, even though I pointed out that we'd lost the fetal heart beat, and that's literally the way you diagnose a miscarriage.

So I was forced to wait 5 days with all the signs of a miscarriage and a possible growing infection because medical staff wouldn't listen to me or review my history. Apparently the staff working on a holiday weekend are just... Awful.

When my OB was able to look at the results, she immediately agreed I was miscarrying and walked me through my options. We decided medication was best to help me pass the pregnancy, and I got that right away.

Oh, and the pharmacist where I picked up my meds decided they needed to ask me about pregnancy before I picked it up. He's lucky I didn't burst out crying then and there. Thanks for me reminding me, bud.

That experience was rough, and I'm still dealing with it. I bled more and for 5-6 times the maximum amount of time I was supposed to, and I'm both emotionally and physically exhausted. It was really painful and I threw up a few times despite the anti-nauseau meds I was prescribed. I missed 2 days of work (thus far). I slept like 16 hours in a day I was so tired, and my OB says if I don't feel more or less physically normal by tomorrow I should have another blood test to see if there's anything else happening.

Emotionally I am jumping around between angry, depressed, and totally numb. I definitely have not had enough time to really process things. I still can't really put it into words yet. It was bad. I did not like it. That's about all I can say right now.