#i have to see a neurologist because at best i have a pinched nerve at worst im having seizures and i might have to move states again

[fortunately-bi]

...... If I went on a hiatus for who knows how long again would y'all hate me....... 👉👈

[wilsons-hotlittleprettyboymouth]

Okay I’m currently furious that migraines are often so blindly easy to treat and I had to find this out myself at the age of 26 when I’ve been to a neurologist since I was 11 lol so I’m about to teach you two neat and fast little tricks to deal with pain!

The first is the sternocleidomastoid muscle, or the SCM muscle.

This big red section is responsible for pain around the eye, cheekbone, and jaw, as well as some temple pain. Literally all you have to do is angle your head down a little, angle it away from the side that hurts, and then you can gently pinch and rub that muscle. I find it best to start at the bottom and travel upwards. The relief is so immediate! You can increase pressure as you feel comfortable doing so.

Here is a short and easy video showing this in action

The second is a fast and easy stretch that soothes your vagus nerve, which is the nerve responsible for calming you down. The vagus nerve, for those unfamiliar, is stimulated by deep breathing such as yawning, sighing, singing, or taking a deep breath to calm your anger in a tense situation.

You can stretch this out by sitting up as straight as possible (this does not have to be perfect to work) and interlacing your fingers. Put your hands on the back of your head with your thumbs going down the sides of your neck and, while keeping your face forward, look all the way to one side with just your eyes. Hold that until you feel the urge to breathe deeply or yawn, or until you can tell there’s a change. Then do the same thing on the other side. When you put your arms down, you should clearly be able to turn your head farther in both directions. If the first session doesn’t get rid of your migraine, rest and repeat as many times as necessary. I even get a little fancy with it and roll my eyes up and down along the outer edge sometimes to stretch as much as I can.

If you need a visual here’s a good video on it. I know some of the language they use seems questionable but this is real and simple science and should not be discarded because it’s been adopted by the trendy wellness crowd!

I seriously cannot believe I didn’t hear a word of this from any doctor in my life. Additionally, if you get frequent recurring migraines, you may want to see a dietician. Migraines can be caused by foods containing histamines, lectin, etc. and can also be caused by high blood pressure in specific situations such as exercise, stress, and even sex.

If any of this information helps you I’d love to hear it btw! It’s so so fast and easy to do. Good luck!

[all-4-wincest]

New Diagnosis

I don’t think that I told y’all what was going on with me this past week. My legs are always numb and painful because of my Multiple Sclerosis, and I’m use to that. My legs have been giving me more trouble than they usually do for about 2 weeks anthought it was another exacerbation of the MS. But suddenly Wednesday night I couldn’t move my legs at all, which has never happened before. I was scared and sobbing, but not wanting go to the ER. But I knew that I had to. My son called 911 because I couldn’t get a sentence out because I was crying so hard. So, I went to the hospital, the same hospital where I had my neck operated on. It was the most horrible experience in an ER that I’ve ever had, but that’s a whole different post

First, they told me that I have FUCKING COVID!!! I was pissed because I hadn’t been anywhere for the last week except for the gas station. I did have to go inside because I needed cigarettes too. But I was wearing a mask, like I always do, because the medication I receive monthly for MS makes me immunocomprised. It’s considered chemotherapy but for MS not cancer.

They did a MRI of my brain and spinal cord to try to find out what was going on with my legs. After it was done a neurologist came to talk to me. He said he had good news and bad news. It wasn’t an exacerbation of the MS, which was great because I had just had one in June. However, he told me that I couldn’t move my legs because my lumbar spinal cord is COMPLETELY FUCKED UP! Obviously he didn’t say it quite like that, LOL L4-L5, right above where your butt starts, is pinching the nerves and the disc is bulging circumvential. He suggested that I need surgery as soon as I test negative for COVID. I scoffed and told him that I need to exhaust all other treatments before I even consider having surgery!! To which he said that was a reasonable thing to do, adding on that I would still end up needing surgery. I started crying all over again. When the neurologist said that he thought it would be best if I went to inpatient rehab until I could walk again. I told him no, absolutely not. I had only seen the physical and occupational therapists once and that was when I was still in the ER. I told him that I didn’t think that was a fair assessment of what I could do. So OT and PT came to see me again and I was able to walk with a walker.

I’m thankfully home now with a walker and orders for in home PT/OT. So wish me luck, prayers would be appreciated if you do that. I’m gonna try to remember to update y’all when I have something to report. Thanks for listening to my sob story.

XOXO, Liz

[msoutherngirl-blog]

Transverse Myelitis

This past winter, February to be precise is when my symptoms began and I knew without a doubt something was terribly wrong. It started out as stiffness in my knees and progressed over the next week to my calves, then my feet and thighs. It was terrifying trying to continue to function that way, but I have bills to pay the same as everyone else. I couldn’t not go into work, it was not an option. For several weeks I suffered through it assuming it was a pinched nerve, taking ibuprofen and trying to tough it out. Nothing was getting better.

After two months nearly had passed of living this way I broke down and made an appointment to see my Doctor. I wasn’t even sure that I should drive myself at that point as I could no longer feel my feet even on the pavement much less a gas or brake pedal. My parents came to get me, thankfully they live close and I was able to start the slow process of taking care of that ‘pinched nerve’.

My primary care physician referred me to a neurologist here in the small town I live in and wanted me seen right away so a few days later, parents in tow, I went to the appointment that did nothing but make me angry. You see I am not a barbie doll, not afraid of a cheeseburger, however, I had no idea what was coming next. Once called back and in this ‘room’ a term we will use loosely since it looked more like a closet to me, to be honest, He took one look at me and even before attempting to do a TENS type electrode nerve test on me, he stated that I should go home, lose a hundred pounds and come back then to be seen. First, I wasn’t sent to see him regarding my weight. Second, I have a TENS unit at home that I use for arthritis in my knees weekly and have never had a single issue feeling it. I was furious. So was my mother who was in the room with me at the time. Needless to say, we walked out, as we did I told my mother that if I got a bill from him I’d march it right back in there and feed it to him. What can I say, he pissed me off?

*My angry face*

My mother had an appointment of her own a day or two later with our family doctor and told him what happened when he asked about the referral. He was not in the least happy either and promptly referred me to an orthopedist. I made calls for that specialist and as he would not be in my town for a good month plus, I made an appointment to go see him in Huntsville, Alabama. After a few minutes chatting and checking my balance etc, he ordered my first MRI. At LAST, I thought I was getting somewhere. Maybe this time I wouldn’t have to fight for my own well being?  The first MRI was for the lumbar spine as it was assumed that after the Xrays came back showing no pinched nerve perhaps there was a disc or something going on. Oh boy, was I in for a party!

Now let me preface this with - Read it ALL - not just my initial experience but the whole MRI journey. I have often referred to it as MRI Hell. The first MRI was to be done in my local hospital. Simple enough I thought, the machine was weight limited at 350 pounds, plenty past my personal weight so no problem! Or at least that is what I thought. We arrived at the hospital nice and early, filled out all my paperwork, and waited patiently for them to call me back. I walked back with the technician chatting a little as we made our way into the room and there it was. The tiny opening they claimed would house a person up to 350 pounds. Ummm only if they are seven feet tall. That thing was tiny. I thought I am here, let’s suck it up and get this over with though, so I tried. I lay on the table,  pressed my arms as close to my body as they would go and as she began sliding me into it my shoulders hit the opening. It was like being pressed into a sausage skin. I pressed the little panic button and she answered over the intercom as if everything looked just peachy. “Are you okay?” she asked as if she couldn’t SEE me being rolled into that tube. “Nope.” I replied flatly. “Nope, not happening. Get me out of here. There is no way I can lay in here for an hour I can’t move and this isn’t going to work.” I could feel the panic welling up in my chest with every inch further she sent me into that thing. It was horrifying and I am not a big baby.

Out in the sign-in area, the lady there asked if everything was okay and I explained to her the issue. Thank heavens for her because she explained to me that the imaging center at the hospital in Huntsville had the larger bore machines and that perhaps I could be seen there. Thank heavens is all I can say. Not only do they have a nicer facility but they have machines rated to 550 pounds that are far newer and take half the time for the exact same image. Easiest twenty minutes I have ever spent as a burrito. It would not be the only, however.

Once the images were ready, I went back for my follow up with the spinal doctor only to hear him tell me that there was nothing there. All was well and the issue must have resolved itself. ‘Since I wasn’t having pain, only complete numbness SURELY there couldn’t be anything wrong with me...’ Right? WRONG. If you know there is something wrong, if you truly FEEL like your body is not your own, you have to be your own best advocate. Don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s all in your head just because they would like an easy answer to get to their next case. Had I done that, I could be paralyzed right now as I type this. The only pain at that time that I had was a small spot on the lower part of my spine just above my tailbone. It just felt like it was bruised or something. It wasn’t excruciating. I wasn't in tears from it, after all, I was numb. I still stood my ground insisting that something was NOT RIGHT. The numbness had subsided a little after my primary doctor gave me a steroid shot, but it hadn’t cleared up and I knew in my heart this simply was not right. It scared the hell out of me thinking that all these people thought I was crazy and by this time I think even my parents were beginning to wonder if I wasn’t making some of it up to avoid yard work that desperately needed to be done.

Apparently, I pushed enough because he ordered a second MRI. This time it was of the thoracic spine. I knew when the imaging was finished his time that something was there. I was not crazy. When the technician came in to take me out of the machine, she brought another person with her. The two of them were very specific about me taking my time to get up and not allowing me to rush or merely get right up. With the look on her face and the clear empathy for my struggle to get up and lay still for the procedure, I could tell there was something this time that had not been seen before. This time within a couple of hours I got a call from the specialist telling me that he was immediately referring me to a Neurologist and I would be seen in a matter of days.

Now for the scary wake-up. The morning of my Neurology appointment I got up went to work and came home in time for my parents to pick me up and take me once again to Huntsville. I think somewhere in the back of my mind I was still hoping it was something that would be the easy shot and rest and you’re all fixed but that was not to be. We walked in and I filled out my paperwork, when they called me back my mom offered to go with me but I didn’t know of a reason since it seemed like I finally might have an answer. After all of the frustration and tears, all of the struggling for three months by this time, I was finally going to get something done. It felt like relief until the doctor walked in and scrolled through my MRI in detail as I watched. I still don’t recall everything he said as he went through it all so quickly, thoroughly, but quickly. When the words  “immediately admitting” and “hospital” sank into my ears panic set in, it was all I could do to tell him my family was in the lobby and they needed to be in the room.

When they came in, he went through it once more. Your daughter has a large lesion on her spinal cord. This is called Transverse Myelitis, it is nothing to leave or put off on treating. One of the larger ones(lesions) I have seen. This is usually seen in people who have Multiple Sclerosis. She needs to be admitted to the hospital today for 5 days of high dose steroids and rounds of testing. He continued about a spinal tap, blood work, a number of other things and the only thing I could think about was my dog at home. How Buddy would never understand if I simply disappeared and I burst into tears. In all of this, my first thought was for my sweet boy at home and how I could not just leave him. Yes, the test listing scared me, but the last time anyone I know was in the hospital for something treatable, was my Aunt. She went in for a simple procedure and they instead punctured her heart which resulted in months in the hospital and her death. I just kept seeing her, I couldn’t stop the tears.

He gave me until the next morning to check into the hospital as he needed to get a room for me on the neurology floor. Which also gave me some time with Buddy who my parents agreed to take home with them while I was in the hospital. Mom even sent me updates and pictures of him which eased it a bit, but since I rescued him, he had never really been away from me his whole life, so it was a bit like handing my child to people he barely knew. He was all set though, dad even made him pancakes.... spoiled much? Okay back to the initial path to my diagnosis.

I was dehydrated, so the IV was not easy. Luckily I had some great nurses while I was there and they took good care of me. For 5 days I was given a full bag of steroids daily which made even water taste bitter. It was in no way pleasant, I can assure you that. I will, however, say the worst part was the spinal tap. I wouldn’t wish that one many people, but let’s be honest... we all have that one person who we wouldn’t mind huh? *chuckles*

On the fourth day of steroids, my doctor came in to check on me as he did almost every day there and said the preliminary spinal fluid test seemed clear but it was still being sent to the Mayo Clinic as that is a requirement for such tests. I was exhausted all of the time. I slept the majority of the time I was in the hospital and more when I came home.  Transverse Myelitis can take anywhere from 6 to 36 months to fully heal once treated. Some people regain all their faculties and others have lasting deficits. It is also an illness that although it is rare affects less than 15,000 people a year, can recur in very rare cases. I hope that I am NEVER that lucky. Once was enough for me to be that scared out of my mind.

[voice-oftheempire--archived-blog]

// So, as a catch-me-up post, I am in the hospital. Again.

Last night, I had a sudden-onset headache that emerged following unexplained dizziness. Headaches are, of course, not uncommon for me, as I have had migraines since I was three years old. I dismissed it at the time, thinking perhaps it was a pinched nerve and progressed on as I left the house with my husband to go attend the movie we wanted to see (Black Panther, how I mourn the loss of thee).

But as we left, the pressure continued to build and was...wrong. It felt like pouring matter into an already-full container and SQUEEZING. This wasn't like any headache I was used to. My migraines do not present like that, nor do they settle at the base of the cranium (temporal and frontal lobe only for me). When the words on the radio not even two-feet from me began to blur I knew something was wrong and the decision to go to Hugh Chatham (not our local hospital, but the better one about thirty-five minutes away) was made.

Once there, my other symptoms (extreme fatigue, weak leg muscles, blurred vision, the headache, the whole nine yards) were taken into consideration and a CT scan was ordered. We expected to find nothing.

Instead, we found slight bleeding around my brain.

Now, we're not talking "OH CRAP BIG HEMORRHAGE PANIC TIME" amounts of blood, but enough that the ER doctor took a pause and stated that he was calling Forsyth (one of our big-city hospitals) to speak to a neurologist and get his opinion on the subject. He wanted to make sure what to do.

The neurologist ordered an immediate ambulance transfer down.

A second CT was taken, and the bleeding was shown to have lessened, but my neurologist -- a wonderful man by the name of Hargis -- refused to let it stop there. He wanted to know *why* I bled in the first place, and wants to guarantee that we are prepared for it to either never happened again in the future OR - if it is something that I will come to live with - be aware of how to continue treating it. He examined my medical history back over a YEAR in the making searching for clues and has taken me as a bit of a project now.

Today, I was admitted to the neurology ICU department with an undetermined release date. They are discussing a brain angiogram with cath while we wait on autoimmune bloodtests and others to come back.

They're looking to find the cause, and I appreciate it. My nurse -- a wonderful woman named Paige -- is probably the best creature placed on this planet. I'm doing okay, not even really in any pain thanks to the painkillers they keep running me on, and my hopes are high. I’ll be on my laptop a *lot* during this time because my spouse will still have to go to work, so I’ll be looking for outside comfort via the internet (lmao), so I will most definitely be around a lot, but posting replies might be slower and meme-responses might be a little easier post-testing for me.

I hate that ya’ll have to keep dealing with me and my body going “NOPE GONNA FALL APART” but I love ya’ll and felt it important to keep you in the loop. You all are just as much a part of my family at this point, after all. <3

[grrlinthefireplace]

this is the letter I just faxed to every Republican U.S. senator about the Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill

Dear Senator:

My name is Claire and I am a playwright in Portland, Oregon. Out of respect for your constituents, I am choosing to send this letter via fax instead of contacting you by telephone, to leave phone lines free for residents of your own state to contact you – as I am sure they are doing – to share their own stories with you. But because the decision you make on healthcare in America will affect all of us, right now you are my senator too, and as such, I would like to share my story with you.

My mother Theresa was a lifelong servant of her community. She devoted her life to her family and to her church. As a board member and volunteer fundraiser, she helped raise money for Catholic nonprofits throughout the State of Oregon. When she died, seventeen priests, an abbot and an archbishop concelebrated her funeral. She was an extraordinary human being.

She was perfectly healthy until something she thought was a pinched nerve in her right arm turned out, in fact, to be amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. It killed her three years later.

I would like to talk to you about how staggeringly expensive it is to die of ALS in America. Mobility assistance and communications technology are two of the most costly forms of medical equipment which health insurance does not always cover. Or, if they do, they cover only the most inexpensive available version. For example, let’s talk about wheelchairs. If you have ALS, it is a matter of literal life-and-death to have access to a wheelchair which provides full spinal support all the way up to your head, and reclines backward at an angle. Why? Because the disease causes your muscles to atrophy. You can’t hold up your own spine. Your shoulders and torso slump forward and your neck muscles cease to be able to support the weight of your head. Without a wheelchair which supports your entire spine at a reclined angle, you will choke to death on your own saliva.

But most insurance providers view those wheelchairs as luxury items, and do not cover them. The wheelchair you get, if you get one at all, is one of those low-budget ones they use to wheel patients around in hospitals. The kind that works fine if you’re temporarily incapacitated, like you’re pregnant or you just broke your leg. They’re not made for the human body to sit in full-time, all day long, and they will literally kill an ALS patient.

Now, the ALS Association is an extraordinary organization, and one of their most vital nationwide programs is a series of equipment lockers, who loan out wheelchairs and other costly equipment to families who can’t afford them, but there is only so much they can do. My family paid full price for not only a wheelchair, but a wheelchair van to transport it, a ramp to get the wheelchair into our house, and a chairlift to get my mother from the first to the second floor, to make it possible for her to spend her remaining few years in the house where she raised her children, instead of moving into a cold, white medical facility to die. That adds up to tens of thousands of dollars of expenses, and we’re still only talking about mobility equipment. One single category of costs associated with this staggeringly expensive disease which can cost one family up to half a million dollars in care.

My father is a software engineer. In 1981 he co-founded a company called Mentor Graphics, which expanded to become a global leader in engineering technology and is one of the State of Oregon’s largest tech companies. By the time my mother was diagnosed in 2005, he had left to start his own company, which he ran from home. He had both money, and time. And not a day goes by where I do not think about what our lives would be like if he hadn’t. We were astonishingly privileged and fortunate. We were able to pay cash for the mobility assistance my mother needed to be able to stay in the house she loved. The vast majority of families living with this disease cannot. I am speaking to you for them, not for myself.

The costs of ALS would astonish anyone who has not had the experience of living with it. I was in my twenties, and my father shielded his children from much of the worst of it. I have no idea how many thousands of dollars we spent. I know there were monthly clinic visits where she saw half a dozen doctors or more. There was medication. There were machines to help with her breathing and suction the saliva out of her mouth when she could no longer swallow. There was a feeding tube to maintain. There was an elaborate computer system with a screen attached to her wheelchair and a sensor on her glasses that allowed her to type on a keyboard and have her words translated into a computer voice, so the woman who used to be the life of every party could still make jokes and teach me how to make the Thanksgiving stuffing and help my youngest brother with his homework and say “I love you”, even though she could barely move her head.

And all of this was in aid of a disease that can’t be cured. This was just to preserve as much of a decent quality of life as possible. To let her be a human being who could do all the little things you take for granted. Get in and out of the house. Ask for a glass of water. Breathe without choking.

We had excellent health insurance, but we almost didn’t. My father was an independent contractor at the time; he hired my sister a few hours a week to help with marketing so that he would have a second person on his payroll. Without her, we would have lost our insurance under a rule that stripped employer-paid coverage from any company with only one employee. If he had lost that, and had to apply as an individual, in the days before the Affordable Care Act there wasn’t a single insurance company that would have covered my mother. Or her children. 10% of ALS cases are hereditary; if Graham-Cassidy passes, nothing could stop an insurance provider from denying me coverage because my mother died.

My father had a great deal of money, very good insurance, four adult children who lived in town and were able to help out regularly to share the burden, a huge church community of support, and a flexible work-from-home job, but still, the pressure was crushing. And we were navigating this situation on the absolute lowest difficulty setting.

Imagine if my father had an hourly-wage job.

Imagine if he had had to add in the cost of in-home health care (another set of massive costs which insurance only partly covers, if at all).

Imagine if he’d had to find the cash to pay outright for every single piece of equipment, instead of only some.

Portland is blessed with an extraordinary ALS Clinic, located at Providence Hospital, where patients make one visit to see every one of their doctors – neurologists, speech pathologists, occupational and physical therapists. Imagine if we lived somewhere that didn’t have those resources. Imagine my father having to carve out the time to drive my mother to monthly or biweekly appointments with as many as eight separate doctors. Add up those co-pays. Add up that gas money. Now imagine it if you couldn’t afford to buy a wheelchair van.

Imagine being diagnosed with this disease if you live in a rural area, miles from the nearest hospital with specialist doctors. Imagine if she had lived alone.

The ALS Association stepped in over and over to help out wherever they could. They are my heroes and my family. Their work saves lives. But even in the best of circumstances, there is a limit to what you can ask nonprofits to do to fill gaps in insurance coverage. And my expectations that the current administration might increase nonprofit funding, instead of decreasing it, are not high.

The moral of this story is that I spent my twenties learning how a medical diagnosis can upend your entire existence in the blink of an eye. We were deeply privileged. We were in a position to afford things others could not. Things without which my mother would have died years earlier. It is crushingly, brutally unfair that that life-saving care was in some cases only accessible to her because her husband was a millionaire. That is the America we had before the Affordable Care Act, and the America we will have again if Graham-Cassidy passes.

You cannot pull yourselves up by your bootstraps with Lou Gehrig’s Disease, Senator. You cannot even hold your bootstraps in your own hand. Every family with this disease deserves the care we got and already not nearly enough have access to it. This bill would make that worse. It should not be a privilege afforded only to the rich to be able to avoid choking to death in a bad wheelchair.

If you have actually read this far, thank you for listening. Please, please hear me when I say this to you: this bill will kill people. You will kill people. Actual, real-life people I know. This is not liberal hysteria; this is a blunt statement of fact from which there is no escaping. Every CBO score, every testimonial from actual experts in the healthcare field backs this up.

I am pleading with you to find and stand fast to your conscience. Please listen to the millions of Americans telling you far, far, far more devastating stories than mine. No ALS patient would be able to obtain coverage if insurers have no obligation to cover preexisting conditions, especially not one so costly. I am writing to you on behalf of the families with ALS who already struggle to afford the most basic care; this bill would strip even that away.

Thank you for listening.

POSTSCRIPT

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“claire why tf would i send a fax in the year of our lord two thousand and seventeen” because, my child, emails go to assistants who auto-respond to them and only pass on a selected handful per day.  phone calls are difficult for some people with anxiety issues, but also mailboxes get jammed up, and you aren’t supposed to call senators who aren’t from your state; they usually don’t count those calls, and you might be tying up the staff member’s time and keeping them from talking to a constituent of their own who they might actually listen to.  but faxes A) go to a central office location and get put in a stack (unlike an email which might never make it out of the assistant’s inbox), B) look good when a senator wants to wave a big stack of paper around and be like “look how many people contacted us about this issue”, and C) are incredibly annoying. young people who work as congressional staffers hate the fuck out of fax machines just like the rest of us do. and pestering staff into telling their bosses “you gotta do something, the phones and faxes are blowing up” is your single most efficient in. 

also, you know. senators are old, and old people still respond to faxes.

[staciabimanyu]

Dealing with Vit D Deficiency

In April 2019, upon having entered into a swimming competition, I felt sudden shoulder and neck pains on the left side of my body. The pain went on and off and became worse during the night. I was in my lowest shape in June 2019 as the pain started striking my inner ear and so I went to an ENT specialist to get my ear checked but the specialist did not find anything.

           I initially suspected that I had a pinched nerve which further led me to a chiropractor, who I hoped was the one who could end my misery. During the first visit, the chiropractor did some physical examinations and said, “You’ve got a Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS)”. He explained that the healing process would not be instant and so I need to be patient as It would take several sessions of therapy to achieve 100% recovery. I had no idea what that was so I did a Google research right after I went home. After reading through people’s threads and replies in one of so many TOS forums I have found (I was quite surprised by the fact that there is actually a lot of people who have been struggling with TOS), I discovered that the symptoms did sound pretty similar to what I have experienced, so I thought it would not hurt if I continue the therapy sessions the following weeks.

A one-time therapy session which lasted for 45 minutes consists of acupuncture, dry cupping, and infrared exposure treatments. Unfortunately, after undergoing four sessions of therapy, my neck and shoulder pain did not seem to get better, and the worse part was that there were some additional symptoms that suddenly appear, such as leg numbness and vertigo, and that was when my husband said, “I think you need to see an orthopedist and get your body medically checked. It is probably not a pinched nerve at all.” I completely agreed and immediately made an appointment with an orthopedist who had been taking good care of me when I had a Jones Fracture a year ago. This orthopedist wrote me a recommendation letter to the radiology department to have a shoulder MRI and Thorax X-Ray and I brought the results of such tests to him the following week and that was when the conversation took place.

The orthopedist : (Looking at my MRI and X-Ray result) All looks good. You only have a mild tendinosis in your left shoulder, it’s probably the inflammation that has been causing your neck and shoulder pain all this time. It's not a big thing but It is just kind of rare to come across this tendinosis case in a patient at your age as it is related to degenerative bones, which commonly found in elderly people.”

I was actually a bit worried, I felt like Benjamin Button.

Me: Is it like dangerous? Is there any sort of treatment to cure this?

The orthopedist: No, it is not dangerous. All you need to do is stretching, I will show you how.

After teaching me how to stretch, in which he said I should do it at least 4 times a day, I began to ask more questions.

Me: So, doc, I assume this stretching result won't likely be perceived until at least a week from now, my guess? Is there anything that can instantly reduce my pain?

The orthopedist: For now, I recommend to give you a steroid injection in your shoulder.  

Me: How does this steroid injection works? Would the pain go away permanently?

The orthopedist: No, only temporary.

Since I was so in pain at the time, I approved very quickly to receive the injection.

When the syringe was pinched to my shoulder skin, it felt normal, just like another blood test injection I usually had. But when the liquid being injected, I can feel the pain to the bone.

And the conversation continued.

Me: Doc, any suggestion on what actions need to be taken if the pain recurrent or even got worse?

The orthopedist: I'm sure that the inflammation would heal itself in a couple of days after receiving this steroid injection and after taking the medicine that I am about to prescribe you. However, apart from your tendinosis, you have a sharp-edged shoulder bone which can potentially cause you to feel pain in the future. In which case, I recommend you to have surgery.

Sharp-edged shoulder bone? Why didn't he mention it in the first place? And surgery? Is there any better solution? I did expect the treatment would be less dramatic than surgery.

Me: Surgery? Seriously? For what?

The orthopedist: Yes, to cut your bones. You’ll feel a lot better after surgery.

“Thank you for your recommendation Doc, but no, thanks”, I whispered in my heart.

Sometimes, visiting a doctor can be so devastating, especially if surgery seems to be the one and only answer. Also, he did not seem to find the root cause of my other symptoms (i.e vertigo and leg numbness).

I did the stretching that the orthopaedist taught me to. However, a few days after the orthopaedist visit took place, my neck and shoulder pain got worse. I was so in pain, I could not concentrate on my work and one day I felt a sudden stabbing pain in my upper chest. I really thought I was having a heart attack and so I went to a cardiologist to get my heart checked. My EKG test result was surprisingly normal so he sent me to an internist to see if my GERD issue was recurrent because after reading my medical record, he suspected that the culprit of all of the symptoms I had was the GERD issue.

I followed his instruction and went to an internist. All the internist did was measuring my heart rate. She then came into conclusion that the GERD is what has been causing all the symptoms merely upon observing that my heart rate was so high. She looked at me and said “You look really worried and that’s the first thing that I notice from all of my patients who have been struggling with GERD. Their anxiety was written all over their face, just like you” Dude, of course I look worried. I AM WORRIED for not knowing what happens with me after all the tests and consultation that I went through. And so her diagnosis was that I had an anxiety disorder which leads to GERD. GERD ok but anxiety disorder? I told my best friend this story and her first reaction was “I don’t accept that you have been diagnosed to have an anxiety disorder. Dude, you are like the most chill person I have ever met.”

And neither do I. I felt the urgency to get a second opinion, so I went to the Second and Third Internist just to hear a similar diagnosis like “You need to be more relax and maintain your stress. It’s all in your head. “ I have never felt so desperate in my life before.

At the bottom of my heart, was pretty damn sure that those were not GERD symptoms, cause it felt different. I have been battling with GERD for years and I notice the difference. When you have a GERD problem, the chest pain that you tend to feel will be like the heartburn type of pain, which in my current case, what I felt is more like a stabbing pain to one point area of my upper chest.

I became more and more frustrated each day. One more additional symptom that I started to feel was that I can't stand to type for more than an hour cause my thumbs would start to generate a tingling sensation. It’s been really disturbing cause It made me less productive on my work, so I made an appointment with a neurologist to see if I have a carpal tunnel syndrome. After having received numerous diagnosis from many different specialists, I was a bit skeptical that this neurologist would finally be able to find the root cause and provide me with a permanent solution.

I still remember I prayed the night before the visit, “God, I am so tired with all of this. I began to feel depressed as it seems like I am only spinning around in a circle of a never-ending searching process. I hope this neurologist will be your incarnation to help me solve my health issue. “

The neurologist sent me to have an MRI (a different type of MRI from the previous MRI that I had before). It is called Braxial Plexus MRI. He also sent me to the laboratory to have a blood test. (CPK, LDH and Vitamin D3). Like I have said before I was soo skeptical. Another MRI..but a blood test? This is actually something new. But I thought let's just see. I brought the result the next day and went to see him again.

He looked at the MRI, “It's all good”.

I am not happy with his statement. I want him to find something. I want an answer.

Then he looked at my blood test and said “Ah there you go. You have a severe vitamin D deficiency. Your level is 9 ng/ml, where the minimum range should be at least 30ng/mL ”

At first, was like are you kidding me? I drank milk every day, I eat cheese every once in a week.

My husband replied with a question, “How is that possible? Does it mean she is malnourished?”

Me: “But I drank milk every day”

The neurologist: You can drink milk as much as you want but still lack of Vitamin D. You need to sunbathe. You deficiency is simply because you never or seldom went outside and did not get enough sun exposure.

It's 100% true. I never went outside my office, not even during lunch. My company provides lunch for their employee (which is good), but it is ironically what has been pampering me not to go outside.

My husband: So when is the best time to sunbathe and how long do you have to sunbathe each day?

The neurologist: The best time to sunbathe is between 7 to 9am, for 30 minutes maximum. But given that your level is so low, I will prescribe you a 5000iu vitamin D3 supplement that you need to consume daily. It cannot solve your problem overnight, in fact, it will take three months at a minimum for you to start seeing progress. But I am sure you will feel a lot better once your level is up. So, let's meet again 3 months from now and let's see how the progress will be.

I feel like what he has been explaining makes more sense to me than what other specialists had told me.

Again, I did plenty of Google Research to find out what Vitamin D deficiency is, what are the symptoms, and what are the treatments. I suddenly felt pretty relieved as I seemed to finally get an answer.

I have been consuming vitamin D for a week now, combining it with 5 to 15 minutes sunbathing. I have not yet been able to say that it works (as its too soon to tell) but I do feel progress, which is a significantly reduced shoulder and neck pain. 

I am going to update you with my progress three months from now.

So, see you then!

[celebritylive]

Art Alexakis, the frontman of rock band Everclear, is opening up about his multiple sclerosis diagnosis.

In a statement posted to the band’s website, Alexakis revealed that he had been diagnosed with the disease three years ago but is speaking out in the wake of rumors that he had fallen off the wagon.

The rocker, who takes medication daily and gives himself three injections per week, said doctors discovered he had MS while he was receiving treatment after a serious car accident.

“Three years ago I was in an automobile accident, and though I totaled my car, I am thankful that no one involved was seriously hurt,” the musician, 56, began in the note to his fans. “About two weeks later, I started feeling a tingle and numbness in my arm, thinking it was a pinched nerve in my neck, I went to the doctor and underwent an MRI.”

Alexakis explained that the MRI confirmed he had a pinched nerve, but pathologists also noticed “lacerations and suspicious marks” on his spinal cord, prompting him to see another doctor.

“I was sent to see a neurologist, who did a ridiculous number of tests – more MRI’s, a spinal tap, over fifty blood tests, and numerous cognitive and balance tests,” he said. “After receiving the results, he told me that I have a form of Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS), and that I have had it for anywhere between 10 to 20 years.”

Relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) is a form of the disease that is characterized by a cycle of defined attacks, known as relapses or exacerbations, followed by periods of partial or complete recovery or remissions, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

The diagnosis seemed to connect the dots for Alexakis, who explained that he had been struggling with his balance, ability to walk, sensitivity to heat and cold, lack of energy and memory for quite some time. “I thought it was just me getting older,” he admitted.

After receiving the devastating news, Alexakis said he sat in his car and cried on the phone with his wife Vanessa for 30 minutes. “I’m sure people in the parking lot thought I was losing it, and I guess I kind of was,” the musician recalled.

RELATED: Selma Blair Walks Emotional First Red Carpet Since MS Diagnosis with a Cane: ‘There Are Angels’

Though he acknowledged that he instantly associated MS with “helplessness, wheel chairs, pain, misery, and hopelessness and pity in the eyes of my family and friends,” Alexakis said his wife helped him avoid spiraling into a panic and reminded him that he was not alone on this journey.

“My wife is a lot of things – all good, but one thing she isn’t is fake, something we have in common. We don’t do fake in our family. My wife is a bad ass, and she reminded me in that moment, that so am I,” he said.

View this post on Instagram

We met 10 years ago today…and everyday has been better than the day before ..Thank you,Sweet Vanessa…for our Daughter Arizona…a million laughs…and for being the best friend anyone could ever have!

A post shared by Art Alexakis (@artpopking) on Dec 4, 2014 at 9:53am PST

//www.instagram.com/embed.js

In the time since that day, Alexakis said he has continued to tour around the world with Everclear, spend time with his friends and family, and live his life — but now, with some adjustments.

“All that said, I can feel the disease slowly growing in me. I now have to give myself injections three times a week. My neurologist says as long as I stay on the medication, I should live into my 80’s without progression. We shall see,” he wrote.

Alexakis said he’s also looking forward to finishing his first solo album Sun Songs, expected to be released by the summer, and embarking on a solo tour in May called Songs and Stories. In addition, the musician plans to write a book.

RELATED VIDEO: Jack Osbourne Explains How His Children Help Him Get Out of His MS Depression

And though the diagnosis was years ago, Alexakis felt it was necessary to clarify about his health due to rumors about his drug and alcohol use. (He has been sober for nearly 30 years following a battle with addiction as a teen.)

“One of the reasons I wanted to be more public about my disease is that I have been hearing a lot of people say that I am drinking again or back on drugs because they have seen me look unsteady on stage or around town (people say all sorts of nasty things when they don’t think you can hear them)”

View this post on Instagram

Getting my Hee-Haw on with my beautiul family at the 93rd Tucson Rodeo!

A post shared by Art Alexakis (@artpopking) on Feb 23, 2018 at 1:00pm PST

//www.instagram.com/embed.js

“To be honest, I have never cared about what people say about me personally – except, that is, for the people that I care about (ie..YOU) and what they think. I wanted you to know the truth, simple as that,” he explained.

“So, if you see me stumbling…sweaty, looking both tired and anxious at the same time, maybe a little more confused than usual, or forgetting lyrics yet looking happy (which is weird for me), please know that I have not fallen off the wagon,” Alexakis finished.

“I am just learning how to be the new me,” he added.

Alexakis and his wife share 11-year-old daughter Arizona. The musician also has a 26-year-old daughter Annabella Rose from a previous relationship.

from PEOPLE.com https://ift.tt/2HG1Rs9

[acrackinthebell]

Very long post about doctors and my personal experiences with healthcare.

I don’t like doctors.

But I suppose that isn’t exactly true. I don’t think doctors are intentionally bad or not doing very well. In fact, where other people are concerned, I really trust doctors. I just don’t trust them when it comes to me.

I had the same pediatrician as my siblings when I was younger. My brother and sister are fine. They had perfectly normal experiences with our doctor. I didn’t. 

When I was in the fourth grade, I got really sick. Sick enough that I collapsed onto my bed after school without removing my backpack, shoes, or socks, and slept for two hours. According to our home thermometer, I had a fever of 103 degrees. I was entirely lucid and could answer questions properly, but I was exhausted, so my mom took me to the doctor. She called ahead, told them what was happening, and they said they’d see me before they close. We went there, went into an observation room, and waited. I fell asleep. My mom woke me sometime later, and we left. I couldn’t clearly remember what happened. All I knew was that I definitely didn’t see a doctor.

My mom told me that we left because the office was empty. We were left in the observation room. No one else was in the office. No patients. No nurses. No doctor. We found out the next day that my doctor left early so accept an award. What was the award for? Attentiveness to her patients.

I never saw that doctor again.

I have had good doctors, all of them specialists. My dermatologist was amazing and recognized all the issues I bought up. They took care of all my skin-related problems. My gynecologist would do as much as they could for me. Outside of regular examinations, they checked on my sciatic pains, figured out that I have acid reflux, and would hear any complaint I raised.

My other doctors... Well, I live with chronic pain. It started when I was 12. I was in a lot of sports, so years of soccer, dance, and swim wore on me. The pain started as a pinching sensation in my hip, mostly when I was stretching for dance. I thought I was doing the stretch wrong, so I just adjusted until it didn’t hurt anymore. Then, I played water polo and swam competitively in high school. That didn’t help. The pain got worse and was constant. I could ignore, so I did. When I mentioned it to my doctor, they told me to take ibuprofen. Every. Single. Day.

I also happen to get a lot of kidney stones. My first passed just after I turned 17. The emergency room doctors gave me painkillers, and other medicines to help my pass the stone, but they recommended I catch the stone and give it to my primary doctor. I did. He said, “Yup, that’s a kidney stone,” and offered literally nothing else to prevent future ones or even wonder why a 17-year-old girl had kidney stones in the first place.

I left that doctor to seek another primary care doctor. My first visit there, I ended up in the waiting room for 2 hours. Then, I was in an observation room for another hour. The doctor came in, and this time, I made a list. I handed her my list and told her what I wanted checked. She glanced at the list and barely addressed the first two issues before saying she’d see to the other things later. I tried to get her to stay so I could tell her about my problems with anxiety. She had a hand on the door the entire time. We were both on our feet. She didn’t ask any questions about it or even bother to refer me to a specialist. She just prescribed me a medication and sent me away. I was almost late for work because of the ridiculous wait. Then, the office never bothered to call me when I left my medical papers there. They kept them. When I went back to ask for my copies (when I was collecting materials to find a new doctor), they said that they’d be archived and it’d cost me $25 to get my own records back.

I can’t see either of those doctors anymore because of my health insurance. I was without health insurance for a couple years because I couldn’t afford it. That meant that when I ran out of medicine for my anxiety, I was screwed. That lapse led to me having 4 anxiety attacks in 2 weeks, a long string of nightmares, and sleep paralysis. Those might actually not be related. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen a specialist.

The only reason I sought out health insurance and doctor was because my prescription for birth control was running out. I hate everything about having a uterus. I don’t want it. For some reason, I can’t actually do anything about that except pay a lot of money over my lifetime to avoid having my uterus do anything. My anxiety was also becoming more of an issue. Attacks were frequent, and I couldn’t get myself to function properly. Throughout that time, it infuriated me that I had to pay lots of money just to make my brain function like everyone else. That still bothers me.

So I bit my tongue and went through the process of trying to get a new  doctor.

This, of course, gave me a lot of anxiety. But I made another lists, filled out all the forms, and tried to get through a doctor’s appointment like a normal person. It didn’t work. Doctors give me so much anxiety that I broke down in the office. My doctor appeared to be patient while I blubbered my way through all the problems I was having, but they still didn’t address them properly. She also recommended I continue to live on a steady regimen of painkillers instead of trying to figure out what’s wrong with my hips and knees. At my request, some x-rays were done, but all I received in return from those was “Your x-rays were normal” with absolutely no other information. They didn’t even show them to me.

By sheer luck, I happen to be tutoring a chiropractor’s daughter. When I went over limping one day, they checked up on me. After a simple examination of my reflexes, they immediately noted that I was showing signs of hyperreflexia. They said that some people are just wired to have stronger reflexes, but it might be that my vertebrae are crushing my spinal cord and causing pain. I found this annoying because literally every single doctor I’ve ever had has banged on my knees and told me that they were huge reflexes, but not a single one of them ever deigned it necessary to investigate further. The chiropractor was kind enough to recommend some short-term solutions and suggest specialists for me to see. However, since I wasn’t seeing them as part of my health insurance, I had to go back to my doctor and forward the message myself.

The doctor didn’t listen. I told her exactly what the chiropractor told me. I even showed her the note they wrote. She didn’t even read it. Instead, she asked me report my pain, which was significant at the time. Even though I stated that my hips were hurting the most, she recommended me to a back specialist. I told her that it wasn’t my back, but she just brought in a nurse to help me make the appointment. So I did. What did it matter anyway? I was just being shipped around the healthcare system to more and more people who didn’t care about what I was telling them. I assumed that I would eventually get lucky and find a doctor to listen, but I had to continue seeing doctors for that to happen.

The back specialist was really nice. He was really confused when he asked what was wrong and I said “hip pain,” but he looked over me anyway. He found the hyperreflexia, as the chiropractor did. I then had to explain my anxiety because I was hit by a wave of tears. It’s not that I’m sad. I’m frustrated. I’m frustrated that it took 14 years of consistent pain and 26 years of doctor’s visits to properly diagnose something that every doctor has commented on. I want to be mad and scream properly, but I can’t. It’s not his fault. He was just doing his best. He recommended me to a neurologist to make sure nothing was pinched, and for me to get an MRI.

There, I met a great nurse. He was actually helpful. He was only trying to help my gauge the pain of what would be happening, but at the mention of having passed 7 kidney stones, started offering advice. He used to work with a urologist. He said that ibuprofen can lead to kidney problems. You know, like my doctors have been recommending me to stay on for forever? It’s okay, though, because I’m allergic to ibuprofen now. He recommended some other ways to combat stones, and then the neurologist saw me and deemed my nerves healthy.

I can’t go get an MRI, though. I literally can’t afford it. So who knows when I’ll be able to figure out what’s actually wrong with me, or if that will ever happen? I figured everything would be fine, because my doctor had everything set up okay enough that I just had to continue to live how I had been. It wasn’t the best, but I was surviving.

At least, until my birth control ran out. I would launch a personal war against my uterus if I could. Remove it myself, even. It’s best use would be giving it to a trans woman who really wants one. She can have my eggs, too, if she wants them. (Though, I wouldn’t recommend it because I’m a medical mess.) Anyway, without proper medication, my uterus would start acting up again. But that was supposed to be fine because my doctor said that she put in a prescription for me and I could just fill it. However, when I message her to fill it, a nurse responds and says that I can’t until they know there’s no chance that I’m pregnant.

First of all, no. Medical professionals do not get to take over my personal autonomy. My body might not be functional, but it’s the only thing that I have any control over. I am paying money to continue to maintain this control. The sheer thought that I wouldn’t be able to obtain medication that I need simply because someone else wants to protect whatever parasite might be growing in me is appalling. After crafting a very terse response explaining what I had already told my doctor (that I was on birth control prescribed by my previous gynecologist), I was very near in a rage. Did my doctor not note that down? I told her explicitly because I knew I would need more. She told me to message and tell her when so it would be filled. That’s exactly what I did. And now, suddenly, there’s a new loophole that would try to make me miserable for a week. That’s unacceptable. The only possibility I can see here is that someone lied to me. I don’t know who it is, but it is not something I will tolerate from someone who I am paying.

Completely unrelatedly, no, I am not pregnant. It’s something I would like to never happen, hence the desire for birth control. This is something I’ve worked to control for years because the thought is so horrific. And what would they even do if I was pregnant? Probably not listen to my desire to keep parasites from growing inside of me.

When no one replies for a full day about my (now urgent) need for birth control, I call the pharmacy. The doctor said I could fill it. The pharmacists explains that he can’t fill it without a note from my doctor which should be there. But, of course, it’s all been lies, so it’s not there. For some reason, he asks if it’s okay that he’s going to contact my doctor to fill the prescription, but it probably won’t be done for another two week. I don’t respond because there is nothing that is more not okay. I can’t yell at him, though. He doesn’t understand that his bodily autonomy might be in jeopardy from some policy he has to enforce. I know he is not at fault. I can’t punish people for doing their jobs however miserable it will make me. So he hangs up, and I have a good and proper cry because there is no action for me to take.

I cannot function without the help of medication. I cannot get medication without the approval of doctors. Therefore, doctors have complete and utter control of how I function. It’s all for them to decide. And record shows that a grand majority of them have worked to do the sheer minimum. They will not go above and beyond because it is not their job to. Regardless of the fact that I am paying for this care, I am not worth it.

That is the only logical conclusion. 

If doctors provided proper care and assistance to everyone and if I have been continually denied this over the course of my lifetime, I am literally not worth the proper care to make my brain function properly or to live a life without pain.