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suchawonderfullife · 8 years ago

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2. My body is a Picasso

I’ve been incredibly fortunate in my journey to try some cutting-edge treatments in Australia, as well as having a very intelligent, compassionate and hard working CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) specialist on my side. A specialist like that doesn’t come cheap either (very little if anything is covered by medicare so you have to be prepared to be out of pocket by tens if not hundreds of thousands over the years). He’s been my Dr for 8 years and yes he couldn’t get me better, but he has helped me in so many ways.

He was able to diagnose a multitude of problems within my body through tests regular doctors would not have access to. His understanding and knowledge of CFS and what it does to the body on a cellular level is extraordinary. For those who know who I am talking about, they would agree that he is a brilliant man, who I owe my life to. He got me into private psych hospitals when I was suicidal, he got me in to see him on spur of the moment appointments to treat flu’s and tonsillitis so that a GP didn’t mess me up even more, he diagnosed me with Lyme Disease. Most of what I know about my body and these illnesses are because of him.

My first 2 years of being chronically ill consisted of spending tens of thousands of dollars on testing and trialling supplements and medications. I did a tonne of research and learnt about “pacing” and other things I could do on my own to help my body repair. I did everything I was supposed to and my health slowly built back up to 80%. I went back to work part-time, back to Uni, I could leave my house almost everyday and things were getting better. Having a diagnosis of CFS without Lyme Disease (because it doesn’t exist in Australia), meant that the cause of my CFS was not being treated and therefore just a ticking time bomb. Of course I didn’t know this and neither did my doctor.

So when I relapsed HARD, it was a complete shock to my doctor and myself. My heart became so bad I couldn’t shower standing up anymore, I couldn’t lift my arms above my head to wash my own hair, sitting up for longer than 10 minutes at a time was impossible, talking or paying attention to someone speaking to me was exhausting, looking at my phone or a computer made me feel incredibly ill and I was lucky to sleep 2 hours a night.

It was terrifying to be this ill and not no why. I ended up on 5 injections, 52 tablets, oxygen therapy for 4 hours and drinking litres of special liquids every day. Without all these I would have been far worse than mentioned, but I wasn’t getting any better.

You wouldn’t believe some of the tests I’ve done. I’ve peed into a huge jug over a 24 hour period and carried it into a pathology (multiple times), I’ve had to poo into a container and scrape pieces of it out to go into special containers and sent that off, I had to pee in complete darkness into a special container covered in foil because if any light hit my urine it would destroy whatever needed to be tested. Boy was that something I’ll never forget. I had to do it in my bedroom as I had blinds to make my room pitch black. Due to how sick I was, I wasn’t well enough to “squat” and hold my own weight, so I needed my mum in there to help hold me and being a girl you can’t really get your pee flowing unless you’re at least squatting. And how do you aim your pee as a female when you’re in total darkness? I’ll leave that one to your imagination. Being in my bedroom and not at a toilet wasn’t triggering whatever part of my brain was needed to tell my bladder to let it out and I possibly had stage fright from having someone standing there waiting for me to “go”. So it took some time and both my mum and I were getting quite frustrated. Then there was the logistics of finding the toilet paper, wiping, putting it into a bag once I’d finished and hoping I didn’t get any on the floor- all in pitch-black darkness. The things parents do for their kids huh?

For you folks who hate needles, I could have 10 viles taken at each appointment if needed, I have permanent needle marks on my arm where blood gets taken because it happens so often. I also did a spit test, where I had to spit into this test tube and fill it to the top within a certain time frame. It was actually bloody hard to meet that deadline as I wasn’t allowed to drink for ages beforehand so I was dehydrated. My Dr also does a standing test for POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), which is one of my heart conditions. This is really horrible when you’re so sick as standing completely still for 20 minutes can be near impossible. Some patients faint before the 20 minutes are up due to lack of blood flow to their brain. I never fainted luckily, but my blood pressure would drop to something ridiculous like 45/60 and my heart rate would shoot up to 160bpm. I’d become very disoriented and brain-fogged due to oxygen not getting to my brain, my legs would shake with fatigue, I found it difficult to breathe let alone speak (the nurse would keep asking you how you’re feeling) as my heart was beating as if I was running.

Hydrogen breath tests suck too, for people that have done those. You go into a specific clinic, drink this disgusting liquid and then have to sit around for hours and have your breath tested every hour to see if you have an intolerance to foods like lactose and fructose. Being that I am intolerant, drinking a liquid containing things I’m intolerant to gave me gastro like symptoms, running to the toilet throughout my testing and feeling very bloated, nauseous and just yuck. Gastroscopy, colonoscopy, endoscopy, liver & kidney scans (very painful when they’re inflammed), I’ve been lucky enough to have all of those too!

Then there’s the trialling of all the medications. Because when you have illnesses that are incurable and largely misunderstood, even regarded as not existing, you are essentially a guinea pig. It’s not only that, but every single CFS or Lyme patient has different symptoms and different biologies, which means all our treatments must be individualised and what works for one might not work for another. My body is also very sensitive to medications (it runs in my family) and having a bad reaction to things is common for my mum, brother and I. Every doctors appointment became a Russian roulette of new medications or supplements. “This test shows your body can’t absorb potassium, take 7 of these a day/ we found your stomach can’t produce acid to digest food, take these with every meal/ your mitochondria can’t produce energy, take this injection daily/ you’re chronically dehydrated, drink 2L of this a day/ you’re not producing the hormone that helps you sleep, take this highly addictive sleeping tablet plus these horrible tasting drops just before bed/ your blood pressure is too low, take this beta blocker.” The list just goes on and on.

My body is like a Picasso- a jumbled mess, a masterful fuck-up, where down is up and up is down (actually this is sounding more like Dr. Suess). Nothing in my body makes sense or works how it should. So when I trial a medication that I react badly to, thats where you get side effects on top of chronic illness, I have to wean off it and start all over again with something different. I’ve tried hundreds of medications, supplements, tinctures, herbal remedies, whatever was recommended to me. Because I will do whatever it takes to get better and to just feel better. But the more I tried, the lower my success rate of finding things that actually worked.

New doctors wouldn’t understand how seriously complex I am. A kinesiologist put me on some tinctures that made me seriously ill. My CFS Dr was furious because she wouldn’t have understood that putting me THAT b12 concoction would then irritate this part of my illness and he would never have let me take something like that. Then my Dr’s own colleague tried to treat me and she even made me really ill by telling me not to take certain things and trying others things, as she didn’t know my history for the last 6 years and wouldn’t have had time to read through my hundreds of tests and doctors notes over that time. Again my Dr was angry. This doesn’t make her negligent either, we are just so complex and confusing to the majority of the medical community, can you begin to understand why we are shunned as hypochondriacs or put in the “too hard” basket?

This is what makes my CFS doctor so amazing, he never gives up on us. It can actually be traumatic for patients like myself throughout our fight to get better. We aren’t even heard, listened to or taken seriously. I had to yell and argue with my GP when I first got sick, just to get him to write me a referral to a CFS doctor because he didn’t “believe in it” and said I must just have low iron or something (he already tested it and it was within the spectrum). He even WORKED with a CFS doctor, so he had an easy connection and getting that referral was like extracting teeth. Years into my diagnosis he would then argue with me over prescriptions and why I needed to take certain things. “7 potassium tablets a day, you should be dead!” Yet I’d have my prescription bottles with me for proof. “Wow you’ve lost so much weight, you look great, are you working again now?” Would be his opening line to me as I slowly dragged myself into his office with a walking stick, barely able to stand or hold my own head up. I don’t think he’s a moron either (well he kind of is), but this is the general consensus of how people with my illnesses are treated by the people that should be helping us the most. So if I’m being frank with you here, the majority of the medical community are morons when it comes to illnesses like mine. They’re brilliant in many other ways, but that doesn’t help me or change my story.

Can you imagine a cancer patient getting a positive test result or scan of a tumour and being told to just take some panadol (pain reliever), get out more and see a psychiatrist? Or you find a lump in your breast and want a scan, your doctor tells you you’ve imagined the lump, probably from stress or depression and that fatigue is because you need to exercise and lose some weight, then your imaginary lump will disappear. Later you find out your body is riddled with cancer, how angry would you be? My body is riddled with billions of deadly and destructive bacteria because of this ignorance and negligence towards certain illnesses. Can you imagine my anger when I was diagnosed with LATE STAGE Lyme Disease at age 24 and I should have been diagnosed in the hospital when I presented very clear symptoms at age 16. Instead the doctors found me a novelty, they kept coming in all night and gawking at me like a medical marvel. “What the hell is wrong with her? Those are some fucked up symptoms!” is what I imagine the talk outside my door would have been. Lyme Disease is more common than HIV/AIDS, it is not a unique or unheard of disease in the medical world.

Anyway, so I was FINALLY diagnosed with Lyme Disease in 2013, better late than never, through overseas testing that costs upwards of $1,500-$2,000. So again, you better be rich if you want to get anywhere with treating this bastard illness. This is where the fun begins!

#lyme #lyme disease #chronic lyme #chronic illness #lyme treatment #hansa center #hansa #cfs #chronic fatigue syndrome

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giantmommy · 7 years ago

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Green Poop While Pregnant: The Crazy Reasons Why Not To Panic

The one color associated with poop is brown. Sure, you get answers like dark brown to black, but when you see green poop, then that’s quite unusual. Should you be panicking? Our reflexes say we should, but having green poop while pregnant can mean normal to strange. Though it’s almost like a taboo to discuss about poo, it’s high time that we should. Because your health is on the line, that’s why.

Now that we’ve got you interested, you’d think that green poop is associated with your hormones. Unbalance they may be, green poop is something you’ve taken up in your lifestyle like diet and medications. Here’s what you need to know all about it and why you shouldn’t panic in all cases.

Green Poop While Pregnant: The Crazy Reasons Why Not To Panic

Why Is My Poop Color Green?

Is It Normal To Have Green Poop While Pregnant?

Five Reasons Why You Should Not Panic At All

You ate GREEN leafy vegetables

You ate VIOLET vegetables and fruits

You took iron supplements

Doctors prescribed you with antibiotics

Laxatives

Other Reasons Why Poop Turned Green

What Can You Do With About Having Green Poop?

Cover Your Health, Mommy!

Why Is My Poop Color Green?

Our liver secretes a greenish liquid called bile in the intestines. It absorbs fat and fat-soluble in your food once it comes in contact. Food passing through the large intestines has been changed by the bile due to bacteria, turning poop to brown.

The reason why it’s green is that when food passes the intestines too fast for the bacteria to catch up or for the bile to be broken down, it has no time for them to change or come in contact with the food. Therefore, they fail to turn the feces to brown, and thus, turning poop to green.

Diet and medications are often the reason why there’s a short time in bowel transit. In science, this condition is known as Rapid Transit or the decrease in Colonic Transit Time. When one is pregnant, rapid bowel movements are often experienced because of body changes and lifestyle. That’s why you may experience green poop while pregnant.

Is It Normal To Have Green Poop While Pregnant?

Actually, it is quite normal for pregnant ladies to have green poop while pregnant. Hundreds, nay, thousands of mothers all over the world have experienced green poop. Many first timers have probably panicked upon seeing it, but seriously, there’s no need to.

Though you shouldn’t go dreading about it, it’ll give you enough information about the food you are eating or the medications you take. We know it’s not nice to look at that green poop, but, you have to so that you can make adjustments in your daily intakes.

Five Reasons Why You Should Not Panic At All

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See that green poop? Eww! It may be disgusting, but there’s nothing to be hysterical about. Here’s why you need to calm that pumping heartbeat of yours.

You ate GREEN leafy vegetables

Put a huge emphasis on the “green” word. Eating lots of green vegetables is great for your health, so, there’s no stopping to that. It will affect your stool though, due to the excess green pigments found in the veggies that you ate. If you limit your green vegetable intake, however, that would be bad. Don’t panic if you’ve been excreting green poop while pregnant if you’re eating green leafy vegetables.

You ate VIOLET vegetables and fruits

Natural colors in food can really affect the color of your poop. Yes, it’s violet. But when it comes in contact with the bile and all, it can turn to some kind of yellowish to greenish sort of poo. Grapes and eggplant are the typical veggies and fruits pregnant women take. But you should not stop it just for the discoloration of your stool.

You took iron supplements

If doctors prescribed you some prenatal vitamins to assist in making your baby grow strong and healthy, then chill down, woman! It is helping you, remember? For those ladies who are in need of iron, these supplements can turn your poop green when there’s unused excess iron in the body. So, when you excrete stool, it will look green.

Iron supplements boost the blood flow and enrich it in your body. You need more iron when you’re pregnant. So, no need to worry. It’s not harming you. Rather, it helps you. Oh, and sometimes it makes your pee turn bright yellow.

Doctors prescribed you with antibiotics

To boost your immunity, your doc may prescribe you to take some meds for the regulation of your health. Taking antibiotics is one of the reasons why you have green poop while pregnant. Never attempt to stop taking them unless your doctor says otherwise.

Laxatives

If you suffer constipation and suddenly turn to laxatives for aid, chances are, your stool will become green due to the decrease in colon transit. There will be little time for bile and bacteria to interact with your food and, therefore, will make your poop green than brown.

These everyday intakes are the main reasons why you have green poop while pregnant. When green stool happens, and you know why you did one of the things above, then relax. You worry too much, dear. Other reasons of having them can be found below.

Other Reasons Why Poop Turned Green

While the list mentioned above is benign, here are other reasons that can have you excrete green poop while pregnant. Though these are illnesses and disorders, don’t panic! Instead, keep your head up and control your hysterics.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome can have your stool bleed. When that happens, blood and bile would mix and can turn your fecal matter to green

Celiac disease, for those who cannot digest gluten, chances are, it’ll affect the villi in you intestines that help in the proper process of bile and bacteria. Hence, your poopy will look green

Food poisoning always results to chronic gastrointestinal problems. Diarrhea, for one, will quickly eliminate wastes in the body. When that happens, the bile and bacteria don’t have any interaction with the mashed food. So, instead of having brown fecal matter, you have green poop while pregnant

Low in potassium may cause dehydration, diarrhea, and muscle cramps. Therefore, your body organs, especially the intestines, would suffer much without seeking medical attention. You can also pump up your potassium by eating bananas!

See what we mean? Though there’s no need to panic; you should not ignore these albeit malign issues. Contact your doctor and see what he or she can do about these problems if they persist.

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What Can You Do With About Having Green Poop?

If it’s benign, no need to call your doctor unless you’re utterly hysterical about it. Taking iron or eating green leafy vegetables signifies that you’re living a healthy lifestyle. Meanwhile, if your intestines are inflamed, then that’s the time where you can tap your doc to help you out with.

Having green poop while pregnant is never an issue because more often, it’s a mother’s lifestyle – aka, taking certain food and medicines. The best thing to do when you’re worried with having green poop is to have a stool examination and take doctor’s advice. From there, you can follow his or her orders.

Cover Your Health, Mommy!

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From time to time, you need to check whether you’re healthy or otherwise by looking at the color of your poop. It may be disgusting, but that’s one way of knowing that your inners are functioning properly.

How about you? Do you check your poo now and then? Have you had any experiences of having green poop while pregnant? Do tell us below!