Tag: neurologist


A Pain In The Head

20
January

On Wednesday, I went back to the neurologist, after the office called me Tuesday afternoon and told me to show up at 3:45 the next afternoon. I got there at about 3, since my dad had a physical therapy appointment an hour earlier at the building right across the street. Being there forty-five minutes early wouldn’t have been a problem if I had been called back to a room sometime before 4:15. Of course, since it was a doctor’s office, it wasn’t humanly possible to be seen on-time. No, I didn’t go back until about 4:45 or, maybe even, 5:00.

After going to the exam room, I waited…and waited…and waited. Finally, the doctor came in. First, he apologized for having been too sick to see me before then. (I didn’t know he’d been sick.) Then, he went over the results.

He said that the MRI had revealed 5 white spots (aka: white matter lesions) on my brain. He said the radiologist report said there were 10, but that he’d only seen 5 legitimate ones. (The other five were apparently blood vessels and other anatomical parts.) He said that these were normal, especially for people with migraines. He told me, after that, that my EEG had some abnormal electrical activity, which seemed to be related to migraines. I asked him about my myoclonic jerks being worse lately–again, I was told it was the migraines. The dystonia is apparently due to the migraines as well. So, he basically told me that migraines are all powerful, evil problems that cause a hell of a lot of pain and torment for people.

While he was telling me about the results, he told me that he would’ve had the MRI results sooner except that, according to him, his computer just suddenly started writing other files over the disc the hospital sent him. This resulted in him having to get another disc. I’m not exactly convinced, but…who knows?

Anyway, I am now scheduled for a “BOTOX evaluation” because he said that he didn’t think that just treating me with pain medicine was going to cut it anymore. Apparently, I need something more permanent or long-lasting. (From what I’ve read, there is no conclusive data about the level of permanency of BOTOX injections when used to control neurological conditions.) I don’t know if my insurance will cover BOTOX. (I’m now on a Medicare Part C program.) So, I don’t know if I’ll be able to have it done or not. If I do have it done, then I can tell people I’ve had a nose job and BOTOX. Fun, fun, fun.

3 comments » | Confessions, Sickness and Health

It Never Ends

13
January

The neurologist never called back this week, so I’ve been sitting here with an ever-intensifying headache and no clue what the hell is going on.  And any time that I bring up that my head hurts or my neck hurts or that I’m worried about the results, I end up having my mom find some way to demonstrate that her pain is so much worse.  She sometimes gets into this tendency of making everything a competition.  If I talk about having some specific kind of pain, she can tell me about her experience with that particular pain (or a different type) and how it was so much harder on her.

I told her that I’d been having more problems with getting fatigued by barely doing anything and I brought up that some of this muscle fatigue had been going on for years (because it has, but I’d never really told her about some of it), and do you know her responses?  First, there was the comment that somehow she was hurting really bad (not worse than usual, though), which was followed by the comment that some of the fatigue I had was a result of my not enjoying doing certain tasks and must be because she never pushed me hard enough to do those tasks.  She basically just took something that was about me and shifted it into something that was about her and about my being lazy.

Speak of the devil! She just woke up.  And it wasn’t one of those June Cleaver-style good, sweet, wholesome greetings.  No, it was her typical greeting, which is her breakfast order.  I’m a damn waitress.   When I was a little bit snippy about getting it right away, because I was (1) I was in a lot of pain and (2) I was agitated (meaning, crying) after reading a post on an LJ community about my icon promotion technique, she got more rude about it.  She insists that it was simply a request, but if I hadn’t agreed to do it, then I know that I would have been bitched out for hours on end and I would have had to go through the whole “no one loves me” whining spree that she loves to dole out whenever anyone doesn’t acquiesce to one of her demands.

Can I please have one day in my life that doesn’t end up sucking?  Can I have a mother that actually takes into consideration that I’m tired?  Can I be able to do things that I like without having to feel bad or angry or sad or upset about it?  Because if I don’t have a good day (or even an okay one) soon, I worry that I’ll just completely give up on things.

Comment » | Family, Icons, Like So Totally Me, LiveJournal

Unintended Anxiety

7
January

My head hurts. Actually, the back of my neck and the very top part of my back is the part of my body that really hurts. I was hoping that by now I might have a full-fledged answer for why I was hurting. I was hoping that maybe the test results would be in, and the neurologist would know for sure what the hell is going on with my head, neck, and back.

I had the appointment last week to find out the results, which turned out to be a dud because the doctor had the hospital emergency that he had to deal with. He was supposed to call that evening. He didn’t. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and didn’t call the rest of last week. I even waited until halfway through this week, just in case he was out or backed up because of the holidays. But a couple of days ago, I got tired of waiting and made the call.

I got a call back this afternoon. It was his nurse. Apparently, he was looking at my chart, but hadn’t gotten my EEG results back until late this week. I thought that was strange because of the appointment from last week being scheduled and me being told that my results were in that day. The nurse today couldn’t tell me what the results were, even though they finally had them. I wasn’t really worried about the results until I talked to my mom.

My mom was able to trigger my inner health-related panic attack voice. She said that if the nurse couldn’t tell me the results, then she must not have been able to read the EEG. She then said that that would be due to the EEG being abnormal in some way, so I started getting nervous. I don’t think she meant to trigger that anxiety, but I have this tendency to think the worst when she makes that kind of suggestion (because she is generally right about it) and I was sitting at home by myself in a bit of a panic. (My parents left for the grocery store right after I got the call.)

When they got back, I mentioned how nervous I was. At this time, my mom said it was probably no big deal and that she didn’t mean to scare me. I don’t know that my mom understands just how much this kind of thing worries me. I’ve talked about it in therapy multiple times before, and my therapist has told me to tell my mom not to make the comments because of the heightened anxiety it causes, but I don’t feel that it is fair to make my mom stop saying random things because I have an inability to deal with the comments rationally. It isn’t like my mom is trying to upset me or hurt me or anything. If anything, I think she may be trying to prepare me.

So, now I am going to try to forget about the whole panic-related stuff and have a relatively relaxed weekend. I bet that won’t happen, though. The neurologist is supposed to definitely call by Tuesday, so I hope that that does happen. I’m not holding my breath on it, though.

Oh, and, in a somewhat related note, my mom made a list on the first of all of the things that the neurologist (or, in one case, a different neurologist that used to treat my headaches) has diagnosed me with. I was kind of surprised at the length of the list. After she made the list, which is below, she told me why she made it. Apparently, the next time that my aunt starts in on how horrible of a person she thinks I am, my mom wants some sort of proof that my life is a bit more difficult than my aunt seems to realize. I mean, my mom and Nana have both tried to convey the physical and mental stuff I deal with, along with the stuff I have to do and (sometimes) choose to do, even though I have very little energy and always feel like crap or hurt. I think it’s basically her version of a wake up call.

The List

  • Migraines (actually, 3 neurologists dx’d this)
  • Chronic Daily Headache (2 neurologists dx’d this, including 2 of the three that dx’d the migraines)
  • Dystonia
  • Essential Tremors
  • Myoclonus
  • Vertigo
  • Tarsal Tunnel Syndrome
  • Degenerative Arthritis of the Lower Spine
  • Absent reflexes in parts of my legs

I think that is everything, but I might have forgotten something. Anyway, my mom seemed shocked at the length of the list, even though I’d told her about each of the things when the doctors would tell me what I was “suffering” from. And some of the things, i.e. the tremors and the myoclonus, are things that I was told I had quite a while ago. I think the tremors were diagnosed in middle school; while the myoclonus was diagnosed a couple of years ago, even though it had been going on since I was a very, very small child.

So, now I wait to find out if that list is going to be edited…

Comment » | Confessions, Family, Sickness and Health

The Battle Has Begun

3
January

I am in an epic battle with my sinuses.  (10 points to Gryffindor for the proper use of epic, please?)  They’re not only filled with gross mucus crap (sorry for the visual), but when I get that stuff out I start getting not only the dried blood, but lots of not-so-dried blood, too.  (Again, sorry.) I don’t know why they have suddenly decided to intensify the crappy feeling, but they have.  It may be that I’ve been without my Flonase for around a month now, which I could probably remedy by calling my family doctor (or my allergist or my ENT doctor), but I haven’t done that and I’m not sure if I want to do that.  Well, I would like to have my sinuses not feel like crap, but I’m not sure if fixing that feeling is worth the anxiety of calling any of the doctors.

I still do not know the results from EEG and MRI.  I do need to make that call today.  I was going to call yesterday, but I am pretty sure that the neurologist wasn’t there yesterday and I was asleep for most of the last twenty-four hours.  (I took 2 Flexerils at 4 AM yesterday, then took 2 more at about noon yesterday, and doing that kept me asleep most of the day and night.)  I would probably be asleep right now, but my iPod had reached the red section of the charged bar, so I needed to recharge it so I could listen to music instead of having bad dreams.

It’s pretty damn cold today, which shouldn’t be surprising since it is winter, but it is kind of shocking to the system since I was running around in shorts and short-sleeved shirts last week.  Right now it is 21°F (or -6.1°C) outside (unless you’re in some parts of Madison County where it is 9°F or -12.8°C), so I had to change from my warm weather clothes to my cold weather stuff. I wish that I wore socks right about now because that would keep my feet a bit warmer, but I don’t, so no socks for me.

Oh, I had a weird dream yesterday. It was one of the few bad dreams that I think that I’ve gotten while doing the listening-to-music-the-whole-time-I’m-sleeping thing. I’m not exactly sure how it started, but apparently, different parts of my family actually had money in the dream. My parents and I were living in this huge house in an affluent neighborhood, and the house was right across the street from Deb, Nana’s first cousin who was raised by Mama and Papa (Nana’s parents) after her mom died. Apparently, in the dream, Deb’s husband was involved with an organized crime organization, which would never happen because he is way too nice and too good of a person to be involved in a crime enterprise. Deb had apparently found out and gotten him to turn someone in, and when the group found out, they made him choose between his life and hers, so he basically ordered a hit on her. She was killed in the house my family lived in, which I apparently witnessed, but couldn’t remember because I had some weird form of amnesia. Anytime anyone would bring up her name or what happened, I would start crying or saying that it didn’t happen. It was very, very, very strange.

I had planned on making icons everyday during 2012 for my icon/graphic community, but I haven’t made any so far.  So, I need to make some today.  I was planning on doing some Colin Morgan on the 1st, Kate Bosworth on the 2nd, but I don’t remember who I planned on featuring today.  I guess I could make the first two and do some others today, as well.

Ugh, I need to not pay attention to Rand Paul making his dad sound like this über-cool guy.  I don’t like or trust either of them, don’t get the appeal of either of them, and don’t want either of them involved in decisions of the government.

Comment » | Confessions, Family, General, Like So Totally Me, Sickness and Health

I Think I Should Know

11
December

I feel like a little kid with her first headache. I want to whine and whimper about the pain. I feel like I should be acting pitiful, which is crazy since I’ve had headaches for over 2 decades now. I should be able to suck it up and deal with it. Of course, I wasn’t able to do that in 2000, when I had such bad “tension” headaches that I would spend long periods of time in my room with no lights on at all and nothing touching certain parts of my head. That was also when I had them to such a degree that even the school counselor thought I needed to be resting. The “tension” headaches then were one of the only physical issues that contributed to my dropping out of high school. The headaches that I’m having now are just as bad, and sometimes worse.

I think my neurologist appointment is this week. That should help me some. I hope he’ll have some ideas for what causes these awful headaches. I get migraines and even they aren’t this bad. I don’t think they’re tension headaches because, from what I’ve learned about them, tension headaches aren’t crippling. (I also think the tension diagnosis was crap back in 2000.)

The headache probably isn’t helped by the fact that I forgot to finish my (already late) dinner.  I had only eaten once yesterday before I started my dinner at almost midnight.  Then, I didn’t really like what I was eating (imitation crab salad with crackers), so I put it aside so that I could eat it once I got hungry enough to not care what I was shoving down my throat.  Well, I forgot to shove it down my throat until four o’clock, which was about 21 hours since I had actually had a legitimate meal.  I had been nauseous the entire time, but by four, I had started shaking, twitching, palpitating (it’s a word), and just feeling like shit.  My muscles felt weaker and I was almost in one of those moods where my body was either going to shut down or start making me sound like someone who’d been drinking for about 10 hours straight.  It was not pleasant and it was getting less pleasant by the minute.  So, I ate the rest of my dinner quickly, shoved some other high-carb crap down, and basically tried to swig anything that had even a slight amount of sugar.

My sugar doesn’t feel so low now.  Actually, it feels like I overcompensated.  So, instead of having the typical nausea of hunger, I am now having the gagging feeling that I assume children get on Halloween when they toss their twenty pounds of candy in their mouths without thinking.  Yeah, it’s that unpleasant feeling that was described in the episode “The Almost People” from Doctor Who:

I expect chocolate for breakfast. If you don’t feel sick by mid-morning you’re not doing it right.

Of course, mine isn’t from jumping on the bed on my birthday or eating chocolate for “breakfast” so it isn’t exactly the same, but it is pretty close to what happened, so it’ll do. And I guess it serves me right because I know better than to completely or almost completely skip eating meals. I’ve had low sugar issues for almost as long as I’ve had headaches, so I should know how how to not abuse my body in such severe ways.

1 comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Confessions, Geekery, General, Sickness and Health

It’s a Blacked Out Blur, But I’m Pretty Sure…

6
November

I hurt. This is not news. I hurt in my head, back, and neck. Again, this is not news. I tend to have weird tastes in my mouth, have trouble being around any light, and need to be laying as far back as humanly possible in order to feel anywhere near normal. This isn’t news to me. This probably isn’t news to anyone who may have listened to me complain every day for the last, oh, year and a half. My mom finally started putting together my complaints the other day. (She’s been remarkably more coherent in the last few days and couple of weeks.)

My mom wants me to go see my neurologist because she thinks that it sounds like a CSF leak. I have been thinking this was a potential issue for about a year now, especially since I started getting some yellow fluid in my ears regularly after my sinus surgery. I don’t bring it up at the doctor because I honestly feel like when I ask about serious issues that doctors might think that I’m being a malingerer or something. I know that I might miss out on getting things fixed by not discussing them with doctors, but I don’t want to come off as a hypochondriac or an attention-seeking whiner. (I don’t like asking for help ever.) Besides, the issue with the headaches/neck and back pains being horribly bad and the fluid being in my ears isn’t necessarily a regular issue. It seems to come and go, so it could be nothing. It could just be random bouts of health crap. My mom thinks it is super-serious, though.

So, I guess that I shall call my neuro doc this week. I am also supposed to call my GI doc about my regular heartburn and my family doctor about my ongoing sinus crap. The more aware my mother seems to be about my health issues, the more doctors she seems to want me to contact. It’s nice that she cares, but I don’t know what good it will do for me to see the doctors. They probably won’t do anything and anything that do try will probably end up causing some other crap. I think I’ve truly given up on doctors at this point.

In other pointless news, Alabama played LSU last night and lost. Somehow, local news had a hard time showing any highlights of LSU from the game, but got in all of the Alabama highlights. Maybe it was a coincidence. Alabama fans are being excessively annoying on Facebook. Apparently, the same people who regularly like to give Auburn fans a hard time when Auburn loses or doesn’t win by a high enough score or when Auburn has a stellar player that Alabama fans don’t like (i.e. Cam Newton) do not want to hear that their team lost, didn’t manage to score a touchdown (Auburn did vs. LSU), and that the referees were actually being kinder to Alabama than they were to LSU. (It was in Tuscaloosa, so having Alabama-loving refs is not unheard of there.) Instead, they’re saying how the referees were being mean to them or that LSU was cheating or other stuff that they normally say when they’re feeling butthurt. I’m glad I’m no longer “friends” with certain people on Facebook (i.e. some family members and Alan) because the Alabama loss would have resulted in a lot of whining from them and even more unusual conspiracy theories.

Oh, I accidentally described (outloud) the attitudes of ‘Bama fans last night as being butthurt to my parents. I then had to try to, nicely, explain what butthurt meant. Ah, sometimes I need to remember that slang does not translate for members of some (older) age groups.

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Confessions, Facebook, Family, Friends, Sickness and Health

I Promise I Will Be There

24
May

In the past I have had doctors and therapists who don’t do the reminder calls, so I’ve learned not to really expect them.  Sure, I prefer when I get them, since I’ve usually scheduled the appointment weeks (sometimes months) in advance.  But, for the most part, I understand that doctors don’t have to call.

Well, on Friday, The Heart Center called to remind me of my appointment and to do pre-registration.  That’s not really weird, since a call prior to the weekend, is normal for appointments on Mondays and Tuesdays. (Pre-registration is also pretty normal, since the Center is part of the Huntsville Hospital System, so my appointment is sort of like being checked into the hospital for a few hours.)  Well, yesterday morning I got a second call from them.  This time it was their computer system, which required me to confirm the appointment via their automated system.  About four hours later, I got another call from them.  I think that it was a person.  (My dad answered and confirmed vocally, so I’m guessing that it was a person.)  I’ve never had an appointment that required 3 confirmations before.  My mother suggested that it might be that the Center has me scheduled for multiple people or multiple procedures or something.  Who knows?

Of course the idea that I’m going to see more than 1 specialist or that I’m going to be going through procedures is a bit unnerving.  I’m used to the EKG stuff and Holter monitors being a part of my appointment, but they don’t usually do anything other than that when I visit.  There is a chance that this appointment will be different, so I guess I shouldn’t expect it to be just like the others I’ve had there.

I’m no longer certain that it is Serotonin Syndrome, since I’ve continued to have problems with my heart rate going extremely high and my blood pressure getting higher than I’ve ever seen it go before.  The high numbers are especially unexpected when earlier in the day I will have had a fairly low reading or a reading that it close to normal.  A few hours after the high reading, the lower readings will come back.

I’ve also had some massive headaches with and without the increases (and decreases) in pulse and pressure.  Yesterday, I had one of the worst headaches that I’d ever had, which is saying something since I’ve had headaches pretty constantly for 20 years or so.  This headache felt like the front of my skull, mainly in the forehead area, was going to cave in.  It also felt like there was this explosive or maybe implosive feeling in that general area.  It didn’t feel like my standard migraines, tension, and sinus headaches.  It was different, and definitely not good-different.  I know that I probably should have gotten it checked out, but if I had called my family doctor and told them, I knew that they would have suggested that I tell the cardiologist today or that I go to the emergency room.  The ER isn’t really an option.  I know that I can’t rely on them to do anything anymore.  And if I were told to just tell the cardiologist, then I would have basically wasted a phone call.

Sometimes I wish I still had a headache doctor, but I didn’t really appreciate the way that I was treated there and I didn’t like that they kept putting me on medicines that I had already had issues with.  Since there is only one headache specialist in the entire state, I guess I am kind of screwed in terms of looking for others around here.  Insurance might keep me from going to doctors elsewhere, not to mention gas prices and the angst that comes with the idea of really long drives.

Anyway, I hope that the appointment goes well today and that we figure out what the hell is going on.  Otherwise, I worry that I will worry myself to death over it.

2 comments » | Confessions, Sickness and Health

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