posted
I'd wait in the doctor's office with that wound uncovered. They'd probably move a lot quicker if you were making everyone else in the office sick from the sight of it.
Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
Maybe send some macro snaps in to your BC rep, you know so they can better appraise the situation and decide whether you really need the procedure. Maybe one or two a day, printed out, of course. At a print shop. Posters might be going too far...
Registered: Sep 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
I hate asking this because I hate it when people ask me... I hate it more than ANYTHING. But are you sure there's no other doctor you can see who might be able to help you more effectively? I know how hard it is to change doctors, and to find a specialist in something that no one has enough experience to truly specialize in, but I just feel like your doctor is dropping the ball on you, and I wish that I could help... I hate not being able to.
I hope and pray that you can get insurance company approval and that this all gets better for you soon. Lord knows you deserve it at this point. Please keep us updated....
~Liz
-------------------- "You are anal twattypoo who has ruined my good mood" PsyLiam to TSN May 01,2006.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Gawd Jason - that totally and utterly sucks. I'm dumb-founded. Gah!?! We live in a day and age where people shouldn't just have to suffer like that - is it something that is treatable!?! Grrrr!
You need a sugah-daddy.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
quote:Swedish is on my list of fun places I may visit sometime soon in my never ending quest to end these horrific migraines.
*sigh* Ok, no point in keeping up this charade. Yes, I am swedish. Grr, I give up, I hereby give you access to my aura and rejuvenating sweat, in fact any flareite who needs healing can call out to me. I first go through the foot rub, the "scanian runner" over the back, then awesome massage of the temples and neck, ending with a classic "half-eaten samosa" that leaves you breathless. My sweat can and will be used as emollient lotion. Also available for sale as perfume, "Homme de navet".
posted
"Nim's Patented Swedish Funk: available wherever Ricolla is sold..."
So, the best laid plans of mice and ...er...me, do oft go arwy, and I found myself in a world of sleepless pain last night. This is readily solved by a combonation of Percocet, Methadone and (strangely enough) Pina Collada drink (the sugar activates the drugs). Annnnnd I overslept a bit. four hours I did manage to call several times and explain my situation and needs to the nurse's answering machine- no reply as of yet.
Worse still- I have to work the next two days in the mornings (7-7pm shift) and, while that precludes any ranting in the waiting room, it does allow me a chance to schedule a real appointment with my Doctor (if I raise hell with the poor scheduling woman that has minimal english skills, yet is in charge of calling paitents- she cals me "Yeason Cawwell").
LOA, I tried seeing other doctors (closer to home and with years of experience) and they all tell me to go to Cedars Hospital because only they deal in exotic crap like mine. My doctor runs the dermatology department at Cedars: all my (local) referrals go in a big circle. I have yet to grasp the art of contating specialists in other hospitals abroad without a doctor's referral- it's a brick wall of bueracracy that would make the IRS proud. Also, when inquiring about dermatologists, there is the difficulty in sifting through the majority that deal with acne or botox for a living- surgical dermatology is far more rare and stuff dealing with unusual/severe cases, even moreso.
Going through Blue Cross, only gives me lists of available (covered) doctors.
Going online yields two kinds of results- the ones that start out with "Not much is known about pyoderma gangrenosum..." or "...was cured by (insert treatment I allready failed) in a few months".
I think I may have to look at this from another angle and start ruling out the disease's most likely causes with specialists in those fields to be certain the tests performed on me to rule them out were not in error somehow. That means getting re-tested for Diabetes, Cancer and Chrohn's Disease/Inflamatory Bowel Syndrome (almost certainly not this last- my stomach's fine and I can crap...er...like a fox?).
Or I could go the route my doctor and I tried last time the insurance company balked at a treatment (for Humeria): stick me in the hospital for a week and let them eat several thousand dollars of I.V. meds and special request room-service (Cedars makes a mean cheeseburger but what they call french fries is a culinary crime).
Anyone got any good news? Loa? You feeling better (hopefully!)?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
Thanks for asking, though I hesitate to post on my current condition for fear of angering the Health and Wellness Gnomes...
In August, I went two weeks straight with excrutiating head pain (read: I would have given anything for a gun to put to my head on several occasions) and so my doctor put me out of work on Short Term Disability. Again.
In this timeframe, there was a major revamp of my medication - we kept me on everything I was already on and added propranolol, which is a beta-blocker. I've had luck with propranolol before, but I had to stop taking it because it lowered my blood pressure so much that I was passing out. This time, I'm on a lower dose, but we're still hoping for headache control. Also, we talked about another hospital stay. I declined due to cost, comfort, and the fact that as soon as I LEAVE the hospital, the pain already returns. Instead of hospital time, my doctor allowed me to start taking the hospital medications at home. So my boyfriend learned how to give me injections of DHE in my keester to help break the spell. The DHE helped, but still wasn't enough to break this acute and extreme attack. Desperate to break it, my doctor also put me on a steroid burst and a burst of Midrin, which is a combo drug, including a vaso constrictor. All of these meds, in combination with my OTHER daily meds, finally broke the attack, and I was able to return to work last week.
In the midst of all of this though, all hell began to break loose at the pharmacy. My pharmaceutical company decided that I can no longer get retail fills on my medications. Don't ask, I don't want to talk about it. This is an issue that I'm still fighting. They're forcing me to get a 90 day supply of everything through mail-order now though - this is great for meds that I take for 90 days at a time, or for meds that I know I will need in advance. The problem is, I don't take ANYTHING for a full 3 months, and there are a LOT of meds that I only get prescribed in the middle of an acute attack. I can't just wait 7-10 days for those to be delivered when I'm in excrutiating pain. So it's an issue.
Anyway, enough bitching about the pharmacy. Since we broke this last spell and got me up to my dose on propranolol, I've been doing much better. I've gone from daily pain of an 8 or higher on the pain scale to pain topping at a 4 for over a week. This is a borderline miracle. All without ANY pain medications in the last week. As I said, I hate to talk about how well I'm feeling, for fear of jinxing it, but truly, this is the best I've felt in.... well, I don't know how long. I'm not well, I'm not cured, but for the first time in months, I almost feel like a human. I saw my Neuro on Monday and he put me back on one of my anti-epileptics, hoping it will help even more, and he's given me an abortive to try. It's a triptan, so if it works, it could be life changing. None of the other triptans have worked so far though, so I'm not holding my breath on that one...
Anyway, that's the update. I may be getting close to finding my "drug coctail", or this well time may be a fluke. Either way, I'm going to enjoy it while I can.
I hope you start to find your magical medical miracle soon, too....
~Liz
-------------------- "You are anal twattypoo who has ruined my good mood" PsyLiam to TSN May 01,2006.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Woah...real glad you're doing better- that "8" is a tough thing to deal with. I once went in to my dotor's office with the knowledge hat I'd be immeadeately hopitalized (the wound was infected and no amount of painkillers was working at all)- a foolish resident smugly asked the 'ol "rate your pain from one to ten" and I just yelled "AAAHHH!- get that!?!"
I was (briefly) amused- my doctor was not.
On my own scale, I usually vary between "Other people have it worse" and "People better get the fuck out of my way. ...sometimes venturing as far as "Make a deal with God" and once even beyond that.
As to "coctails", I'm happy to say I'm now only on painkillers. I'm completely off steroids and chemo and Remicade and...well, everything. Better to let my body recoup without all that crap- it never worked anyway.
How long do your meds last when refrigirated? It might be worthwhile to get a 90 day supply of everything (assuming insurance covers the costs) and stockpile it up in the freezer: it's what I do with my Percocets )though I rarely have overage lately).
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
I wish I was joking. . . I have this theory. Doctors only give her "bad news" - for which read, we're going to fuck with you by telling you the worst case scenario, because you know too much about your own condition(s) and keep correcting us when we give inaccurate summaries of your symptoms and treatment regimes, which makes us look bad, God-like arbiters of the species' health that we are - when I'm not there. Now, I'm really not as scary in real life as I am here (although some might disagree, Tom was too afraid to even meet me when he was in the UK). So they can't be afraid of my reaction. So it must be sadism on their part by trying to upset my wife when she's on her own.
Example: first obstetrician we saw in New Zealand got so annoyed with Kate's own knowledge of her condition, she suggested she had a hole in her heart despite none of the tests and scans (X-rays, echoes, ultrasounds, MRIs) indicating anything of the sort.
So in the past year, we've had:
Renal Consultant - Lee = You Can Forget About Having Any More Kids
Another Renal Consultant + Lee = Kids, No Problem
Yet Another Renal Consultant - Lee = Remaining Kidney Deteriorating, You Need To Go On ACE Inhibitors Right Now To Reverse It, And No More Kids For The Duration If Ever
So, yeah. The heart thing. She has pulmonary and aortic stenosis - a faulty heart valve (I think it's a case of having an effectively-bicuspid valve where there should be a tricuspid); in effect, it doesn't close properly and you get leak-back. So we go to her annual heart consult the other day, and get stuck in with some Eastern European wanker who obviously thinks he's Goran Whatsisfuck from ER and is more interested in how long we reckon it'll take to cycle out to where we live since he's thinking of moving to that area.
So she has her scan, I pop out to call our childminder since we're gonna be late, and boom, while I'm gone Goran and the actual Cardiac Consultant who gave her a clean bill of heath after her last checkup (just after having 19 hours of labour followed by an emergency C-Section) spring the open-heart-surgery valve-replacement on her, subject to her Renal Consultant's agreement. And, another child? Not happening anytime soon (= if ever, we're in our thirties and we don't want too much separation of age between our children).
posted
Fuck man, get a second (and third!) opinion- your track record with doctors demands it!
Did the doctor really spring the "heart surgery" thing on your wife [i]without[/i you present?
One of my very best friends was told by her OBGYN that she would never [i]ever have children and to start looking into adoption if she wanted them (one of her ovaries ws renoved due to a cancerous growth). -It pretty much crushed her spirit. Ten years later, she's on kid number two. I was initally told my leg problem was a spider's bite: I stupidly did not get a second opinion and suffered a year of extremely painful treatments as result.
The point is, doctors are not only often wrong, but are often arrogant assholes that refuse to ask for asistance/second opinion when they make these dire prognosis.
I'm hoping your wife needs nothing, but I'm sure you're allready seeking expert advice.
In this case, I'd happily call you a total loser.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
You're all weak. Primitive biological organisms. You will be obsolete in the new order.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
Forget Borg implants (I went through the whole "Goth" thing allready, thanks). If i lose my leg, I want the machine-gun prostethic from Darkman[/i}. ...or maybe the "leg-holster" from [i]Robocop.
Or maybe I'll just pray that shit never happens.
...but OTOH, you'll never know the intense cooling relief of applying artifical skin to raw nerves and explosed muscle. 20,000,000 expy points for me, plus I move up a level.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
Here's hoping the best of everything for us all.
But oi, what a thread.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Let's see... Sunshine and light... I'm healing faster and more cleanly than anyone expected. After two weeks with the wound-vac, my surgical wound is half as wide and half as deep -- and a little shorter, which they didn't expect at all. I have two more nights of IV nutrition. I'm going to be on a tapering dose of Prednisone for the next six months or so, Imuran for one to five years -- maybe -- and a Specific Carbohydrate Diet to eliminate known IBD triggers... That's a serious bummer, and I'm working to tailor it to my own personal case with the help of a couple doctors and a nutritionist.
I haven't needed any painkillers for the last week or so, although since I do still have a five-inch gash in my belly, Lidocaine is definitely my friend when the dressing gets changed.
Oh, and Nim -- Liz said she was contemplating going to Swedish, which is an hospital here in Seattle, on the other side of the state from where she lives. She didn't mean she was thinking of going to Sweden. Although I bet she wouldn't mind. And neither would I. I've got family to track over there.
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic