#gross medical stuff

[rubenesque-as-fuck]

Gross medical stuff below the cut 🤕

Anyway I finally had to slice out two more pilar cysts from my scalp today because they were both growing and pressing on pressure points, which was causing more neck pain/migraines and it was becoming unbearable. I have several more still but I can only do so many at a time and these were causing the most immediate pain.

I hate our healthcare system so much. I sincerely do not enjoy having to ~occasionally~ perform a basic surgery on myself but it would cost me Thousands of Dollars each time to have it done professionally and I don't have insurance 🙃 and even when I had insurance I was told that removal of the cysts wasn't covered because it was considered cosmetic surgery. So instead I have my own small kit of sterilized surgical tools for this specific purpose.

Honestly right now the DIY feels worth it because even with current soreness at the actual removal sites my scalp/neck overall still feel so much better. No more pressure points! And I took the Batman route and bought black hand towels to work with this time so the bloodstains won't show, so no ruined towels 😂 going to wear a bandana over my hair at work tomorrow to hide the bandages

[beardycarrot]

If you’re not sure whether you should go to a doctor for something... just go to the damn doctor. I’ve been hesitating to have my conjunctivitis looked at because, y’know, these things are pretty common... until today, when it spread to my other eye and I realized that a) it’s definitely bacterial, and b) if I want it to go away safely and in a timely manner I’ll need a prescription for antibiotic eye drops. I could also use the opportunity to get an opinion on a rash, which I wasn’t too worried about, but if you’ve already paid for a professional’s time you might as well use it, right?

As it turns out, the reason the rash had persisted was that candida (which just kinda naturally exists on your body, because we’re all dirty dirty apes) had taken advantage of the compromised skin and the perfect conditions created by Florida’s hot and humid rainy season. Yep, a plain old contact rash went and evolved into a tasty yeast infection. Yaaay...

I’m really glad that I went in; since the rash had originally come from contact with formaldehyde resins, I assumed that it spreading was just due to an allergic reaction, and never would’ve thought that the cause could be fungal. I, in fact, tossed the (anti-fungal) Nystatin aside when looking through ointments for the rash... and what they ended up prescribing me was a powder form of the same drug. This is why we turn to professionals when we need help.

Just go to the damn doctor.

[spooky-spaghetties]

it’s time for all the unspeakable fluids in my body to fall out at once, graphically and painfully!! oh god!! this was already a not-great process when it was regular menstruation, adding surgical drainage stitches laced through my body in approximately the same region as all my blood falling out is just a horrible combo! i am suffering

[kohakuhoshi]

Cyst saga update: got gyn appointment booked. Here is a PSA: if you're a person that possesses female reproductive organs, and you're peeing excessively and have pelvic pain do not let the doctor insist it is nothing. Even if you're diabetic and the doc insists it must be because of your blood sugar, make sure you get evaluated for anything unusual to rule out any growths. I fucking KNEW something unusual was up but urgent care doc was like "it's just your blood sugar" and ER doc was like "sounds like a cyst. Do you want an ultrasound?" Fuck yes I do!

[maureen-corpse]

My blood test came back fine, so now I just get to do all this again in six months. Bonus: With an ultrasound!

[keelime-art]

After some invasive tests my Doctor told me it’s not cancer, just a cyst on my cervix, but it’s not the reason for the abnormal/constant bleeding. Hooray. They’re still gonna run some more tests though. Either way, they’re not rushing me to hospital, so that’s good. 

[daltongraham]

new diagnoses

cuz I didn’t have enough existing problems

I have (tiny) kidney stones and  hydroureteronephrosis...which is evidently complete blockage of my left ureter due to scar tissue from last year’s surgery. WHEE. This does not explain the rest of the abdominal pain or the constant nausea (because I am not currently passing any stones). Or the new sudden bouts of diarrhea. 

I was not expecting to have anything wrong with my fucking ureter. I guess the bleeding cysts in September weren’t bleeding cysts but instead were passing stones (how did they pass, if my ureter is blocked???). 

I think they’ll have to go in and expand the ureter with a balloon or something. That’s what they did for my mom and grandmother, evidently.

My partner thinks I have Celiac and he wants me to avoid gluten for a while. RAWR

Could I have my post-human body now please

[atenderofsycamoretrees]

robotroadhouse replied to your photo “penny is helping me recover from exploded gallbladder surgery :3”

OMG exploded!?!? Good job, Penny <3

haha yeah so apparently it was a lot more infected than the ultrasound showed? so it was supposed to be this super simple 1-hour procedure where they just went in laparoscopically and took it out, but when they tried to take it out it more or less exploded/ruptured because it was so infected, and it showered lots of wee little gallstones all over my insides which then had to be picked out, so it actually took 4 hours, and then i had to stay overnight bc they weren’t sure if they’d gotten them all and there was some concern some might have gotten into my liver? but i seem to be fine and i got to go home the next day.

i’m not super excited to get the hospital bill >_>

[amberslollipops]

I feel that thing starting again that was happening like 8ish months ago. I feel like SUPER car sick but like, I'm not in a car ? It got so bad before when it was happening I threw up while at school (not a lot but any is too much). It had never happened before the last time tho. Like it would come back like once a day for a couple weeks. I went to the doctor but she just gave me some pills to try of it happened again, but by then it had pretty much stopped. I honestly tottaly forgot about it until just now when it started happening again. I tried to Google it too and nothing came up. Has anyone else had this happen?? No one I've takes to, even doctors, seem to know what it is but it seems at least kind of simple to me, I was surprised. Maybe I'm just describing it poorly? But yeah, it just feel like being extremely car sick, but for no reason.

[inyri]

SON OF A BITCH

i need to wash my grey coat (we wear grey coats, not white). why, you ask? don’t click if you don’t like gross medical stuff.

my last patient was a physical but coincidentally had an infected cyst about the size of a golf ball that had started to drain spontanously. I thought we’d see if we could get it to decompress without having to actually incise it, just use a little pressure.

plus side: it decompressed

minus size: it decompressed ON ME. i had gauze over it and everything but it angled obliquely instead of up where it had been draining before.

MOTHER$($&@#$@#*# (and infected cysts smell like ASS %*$%&@(%&@#*#)

[kohakuhoshi]

I’ve had a few messages asking if I’m okay. The short answer is yes, it has not burst yet so I have time until I can get a gyn to evaluate and hopefully drain them. (I have a small one as well, but it likely won’t burst) A 5cm cyst is big enough to press on the bladder and make wearing pants a pain, this afternoon was bad enough to get me to demand a second opinion after urgent care booted me the day before. I’m being managed by pain meds at the moment and if it gets unbearable I will call 911. I still have insurance (thanks to the state of Minnesota not being one of those states you have to go through obscene hurdles to get low income healthcare in) so that thankfully is not a worry.

[sanguinifex]

So I actually remembered to tell my GP that I have difficulty breathing when it’s humid, and this being the end of June in an area where 90°F with humidity is pretty average for summer weather, she prescribed me an Albuterol inhaler. And let me tell you, I have been missing out, these last 5 years. I walked home from the pharmacy today and I could spare the brain bandwidth to think about more than putting one foot in front of the other. Now that I’m not oxygen starving my brain every time I go outside, I’ll be fucking unstoppable. Maybe I’ll have less trouble with forgetting everything, too.

[pigcatapult]

you know that feeling where you stub your little toe on a box and half your toenail just pops right off of the nail bed because fuck you?

curse my weirdly-shaped little toes.

[fenrislorsrai]

If you’re easily squicked out by medical stuff, this is not an article you want to read. It goes into medical details of just how dire the situation involved was.

This is an experimental treatment approved under  “compassionate use” for patients that have such horrific medical problems that unproven medical treatments that may kill them can be tried because there is literally nothing else left to try. It has not been evaluated in a clinical trial. that’s next step.

This worked to treat a type of antibiotic resistant bacteria that often causes pneumonia in cystic fibrous patients.

[animamosaic]

One of my earlobe piercings on the right side got infected, and now 2 in that lobe are infected, and pain is moving down my neck, and I should go in to the doctor but I’m just. Maybe one more sea salt soak will fix it this time!

And I know why I resist going to the doctor, it’s because my previous doctor would use every visit as time to pressure me into bariatric surgery. Which is why I changed doctors. And my current doctor has never fat shamed me. But, my brain would still rather risk losing an ear than deal with the possibility.