What's Your Ailment?

[Huntn]

I've been taking an over the counter dose of an anti- acid reflux medicine, under Dr supervision. A couple of days ago, I forgot to take my pill, and no acid reflux. It's been several days now and it has not reappeared. I'm wondering if this has subsided or it will reappear? I assume the latter. Time will tell.

 

[Mr. McMac]

I've been taking an over the counter dose of an anti- acid reflux medicine, under Dr supervision. A couple of days ago, I forgot to take my pill, and no acid reflux. It's been several days now and it has not reappeared. I'm wondering if this has subsided or it will reappear? I assume the latter. Time will tell.

I've been taken prescription medication for years for the same problem. I get a checkup on a regular basis. So far so good. If I miss a day, I get heartburn. I was told I may need surgery to correct my problem, but I'm scared yo have any kind of surgery. My insurance will pay for it, but I'm frightened by the thought of having my life in the hands of a surgeon who may or may not know what he's doing......That being said,I've never been in the hospital other than breaking a couple of bones, and a kidney stone I had back in the 90's..

 

[Huntn]

I've been taken perception medication for years for the same problem. I get a checkup on a regular basis. So far so good. If I miss a day, I get heartburn. I was told I may need surgery to correct my problem, but I'm scared yo have any kind of surgery. My insurance will pay for it, but I'm frightened by the thought of having my life in the hands of a surgeon who may or may not know what he's doing......That being said,I've never been in the hospital other than breaking a couple of bones, and a kidney stone I had back in the 90's..

Yes, there are risks associated with all choices.

 

[MattG]

Allergies. Been to specialists, had tests done, allergic to lots of random stuff in the air. Stayed with me through my time in Florida, still have it now that I've moved to NC. For years I blamed in on my mom's cats when I still lived with my parents, but then I moved out and lived several years pet-free with no relief. Sprays don't help, most pills don't help, doesn't seem to be anything diet-related. The only way I get any relief is with OTC Benedryl, and that really only helps with the sneezing/tickling/runny nose stuff. It doesn't really help with the swelling in my nasal passages (it's rare that I can completely breath out of my nose); that just comes and goes. Just something I've learned to live with.

 

[heehee]

Migraine, which is from poor posture of my neck / shoulders.

 

[Huntn]

Allergies. Been to specialists, had tests done, allergic to lots of random stuff in the air. Stayed with me through my time in Florida, still have it now that I've moved to NC. For years I blamed in on my mom's cats when I still lived with my parents, but then I moved out and lived several years pet-free with no relief. Sprays don't help, most pills don't help, doesn't seem to be anything diet-related. The only way I get any relief is with OTC Benedryl, and that really only helps with the sneezing/tickling/runny nose stuff. It doesn't really help with the swelling in my nasal passages (it's rare that I can completely breath out of my nose); that just comes and goes. Just something I've learned to live with.

I wonder how much of a genetic component there is to this? That probably sounds stupid, it all reverts to genetics.

Migraine, which is from poor posture of my neck / shoulders.

Skeletal issue or bad habit? If the latter, some physical focus on it?

 

[heehee]

Skeletal issue or bad habit? If the latter, some physical focus on it?

Bad habit. Sitting at the desk 8 hours a day staring at the screen doesn't help. I've been going to a physiotherapist and she does help a lot, have to strengthen the muscles at the back of my neck and stop putting my head forward so much.

 

[Huntn]

Bad habit. Sitting at the desk 8 hours a day staring at the screen doesn't help. I've been going to a physiotherapist and she does help a lot, have to strengthen the muscles at the back of my neck and stop putting my head forward so much.

I've been focused on trying to keep my posture straighter while walking, pushing by head backwards to straighten my neck, just for general reasons. I don't suffer from headaches.

 

[grahamperrin]

Testing for potential allergens

Allergies. Been to specialists, had tests ...

Did those tests include the following method? (I have no idea of the proper phrase to describe this.)

One arm naked, outstretched to the side, someone 'weighs' your ability to hold the arm in place -- a press down on or around your hand. Then, elsewhere on the arm, a drop of liquid containing a potential allergen, then again a measure of your ability to hold the arm.

 

[MattG]

Did those tests include the following method? (I have no idea of the proper phrase to describe this.)

One arm naked, outstretched to the side, someone 'weighs' your ability to hold the arm in place -- a press down on or around your hand. Then, elsewhere on the arm, a drop of liquid containing a potential allergen, then again a measure of your ability to hold the arm.

Nope I've never heard of that! Mine was the one I would say is probably most common, the one you hear about people having where they prick you like 50 times with needles, each with allergens in them, to see which ones you react to.

 

[anjinha]

Migraines, anxiety, night terrors. All fun stuff.

 

[Huntn]

Did those tests include the following method? (I have no idea of the proper phrase to describe this.)

One arm naked, outstretched to the side, someone 'weighs' your ability to hold the arm in place -- a press down on or around your hand. Then, elsewhere on the arm, a drop of liquid containing a potential allergen, then again a measure of your ability to hold the arm.

Nope I've never heard of that! Mine was the one I would say is probably most common, the one you hear about people having where they prick you like 50 times with needles, each with allergens in them, to see which ones you react to.

That's what I remember with our son, multiple pricks on his back. Then I remember the doctor telling us that although there was nothing conclusive, he wanted to start our son on medication. I said no thanks...

Migraines, anxiety, night terrors. All fun stuff.

Sorry to hear that. Is there a known source for the anxiety, that is if you want to discuss it. I'm no expert, just curious. I assume you don't sleep well.

 

[anjinha]

Sorry to hear that. Is there a known source for the anxiety, that is if you want to discuss it. I'm no expert, just curious. I assume you don't sleep well.

Well, I'm not anxious about anything in specific, I just have issues with anxiety in general. I believe they are related to growing up with an abusive father. I probably should go to therapy at some point but I am terrified of it.

I do have sleep issues as well although not as bad as when I was younger. When I was in my teens I had really bad insomnia. Right now my sleep is generally pretty good but sometimes I'll have trouble sleeping one night because of something specific (being stressed out about an event, for example) and then that triggers a vicious cycle of having trouble sleeping for several nights because I get anxious about not sleeping.

 

[grahamperrin]

Applied kinesiology

I did a little searching. From what I recall of the method, it was probably applied kinesiology.

allergy testing: What Is Applied Kinesiology?

Easily criticised, but anecdotally it did seem to succeed where doctors had failed – for years – to diagnose a friend's allergy. Back in the early 1980s. She had been prescribed antidepressants for years (since her early teens) despite telling doctors that she was not depressed. Of course everything changed after the allergen was identified.

 

[Huntn]

Well, I'm not anxious about anything in specific, I just have issues with anxiety in general. I believe they are related to growing up with an abusive father. I probably should go to therapy at some point but I am terrified of it.

I do have sleep issues as well although not as bad as when I was younger. When I was in my teens I had really bad insomnia. Right now my sleep is generally pretty good but sometimes I'll have trouble sleeping one night because of something specific (being stressed out about an event, for example) and then that triggers a vicious cycle of having trouble sleeping for several nights because I get anxious about not sleeping.

Easy for me to say, because it's easy for me to do, and that is clear my mind when I lay down to sleep. As a rule, I'm not thinking about what I'm doing tomorrow and try to clear any ongoing family issues from my mind. My wife tends to think about things when laying down, which makes it hard for her to sleep.

 

[kds1]

I'm getting that one myself. It's getting to the point that I can't eat anything without popping a few tums afterwards. If things keep going the way they are, I'll probably end up as bad as my dad.

Though a part of me thinks that simply changing my diet would help things tremendously.

Stop eating those baked potatoes from that place you think is so awesome.

 

[Renzatic]

Stop eating those baked potatoes from that place you think is so awesome.

No.

 

[grahamperrin]

… BPPV. … Dramamine. … mostly dizzyness with minimal nauseousness. Once I get verticle, mostly I'm good. …

… Benign Positional Paroxysmal Vertigo

The phrase was new to me. … when I'm careless enough to run out of Sertraline, after three days or so I'll get what I can now describe as BPPV. … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benign_paroxysmal_positional_vertigo … and I gathered maybe twenty other bookmarks whilst reading up about SSRI and so on. If anyone would like me to add them to this topic, just say.

To cut a long story short:

• taking sertrailne had ultimately hideous side effects that were in many ways hidden
• being without sertraline had side effects that were less hideous but more overt
• I very gradually reduced my intake to around 25 mg/day
• nothing, cold turkey, since Thursday 25th June
• symptoms of withdrawal (e.g. vertigo) began, as expected, on Saturday 27th June
• a local GP states that I'm unfit for work due to vertigo from Monday 29th June to Friday 10th July
• for the vertigo (for the withdrawal from sertraline), yesterday I began a nine-day course of Prochlorperazine.

The GP remarked that some of the symptoms don't fit with the 'spinning' that's associated with vertigo. Whatever's going on, I do feel somewhat better today. Touch wood. Not right, but reactions to head movement are less severe than they were yesterday.

That said, Thursday 2nd July was also a 'somewhat better' day that didn't translate to 'properly better' on the Friday. So I'll take each day at a time.

In retrospect

I see that I became dependent upon (but not addicted to) sertraline.


Other people with BPPV or vertigo

Rewind to December 2014:

Reading online this got my attention, a benign tumor growing in the vicinity of the ear can mimic BPPV. … I'll be seeing a specialist to rule out this possibility.

(Vestibular.org link)

@Huntn I assume that a tumour was ruled out. Are you now free from BPPV?

 

[Huntn]

To cut a long story short:

• taking sertrailne had ultimately hideous side effects that were in many ways hidden
• being without sertraline had side effects that were less hideous but more overt
• I very gradually reduced my intake to around 25 mg/day
• nothing, cold turkey, since Thursday 25th June
• symptoms of withdrawal (e.g. vertigo) began, as expected, on Saturday 27th June
• a local GP states that I'm unfit for work due to vertigo from Monday 29th June to Friday 10th July
• for the vertigo (for the withdrawal from sertraline), yesterday I began a nine-day course of Prochlorperazine.

The GP remarked that some of the symptoms don't fit with the 'spinning' that's associated with vertigo. Whatever's going on, I do feel somewhat better today. Touch wood. Not right, but reactions to head movement are less severe than they were yesterday.

That said, Thursday 2nd July was also a 'somewhat better' day that didn't translate to 'properly better' on the Friday. So I'll take each day at a time.

In retrospect

I see that I became dependent upon (but not addicted to) sertraline.


Other people with BPPV or vertigo

Rewind to December 2014:



@Huntn I assume that a tumour was ruled out. Are you now free from BPPV?

Regarding Positional Vertigo when I first got it, the Dr. prescribed a motion sickness medicine which I took for one day before I realized I did not need it. The issue was mostly going from horizontal to verticle. Once I got verticle in the morning I could function all day without medicine.

An MRI ruled out the tumor. He told me that the ear tumor (Acoustic Neuroma) is usually discovered by a difference in loss of hearing between your ears, and I had some difference in hearing with my ears, but because my Mom had had an acoustic neuroma, I was given an MRI.

Since then, I've had slight relapses, but not as severe as the first time and it goes away in a day or two without doing those positional exercises.

For anyone who has not had this, I was first effected when I was 62. It was quite alarming until I got educated on what was going on. If I had still been flying as a pilot, my career most likely would have ended so I quit at a good time (59.5).

 

[Doctor Q]

Color blindness and Celiacs

I count my blessings every day

I'm actually color-blind.

I'm color blind too, and consider myself very lucky to have this disability rather than any other.

We talk about it in the What it's like to be color blind thread. I added you both to the List of Color Blind MacRumors Members.

 

[Huntn]

I'm color blind too, and consider myself very lucky to have this disability rather than any other.

We talk about it in the What it's like to be color blind thread. I added you both to the List of Color Blind MacRumors Members.

It may have been discussed in that other thread, but how restrictive is color blindness from an employment standard? I figure there would be issues in several tech/vocational related fields, say electrician.

 

[Doctor Q]

It may have been discussed in that other thread, but how restrictive is color blindness from an employment standard? I figure there would be issues in several tech/vocational related fields, say electrician.

There are jobs I simply couldn't do, like be an interior decorator or a painter, jobs that put people like me at a disadvantage but that we can still do, like computer graphics work, electrical work, or many factory jobs, and jobs that for good reasons I'm prohibited from having, like being a firefighter.

There may no longer be a blanket prohibition on color blind airline pilots, and there are color blind physicians, but I'd rather have my pilots and doctors be people with normal color vision, just in case that gives them an edge.

I have a feeling that I'd make a rather poor parking lot attendant, since I'd fetch the wrong cars when people identify them by color!

 

[Huntn]

There are jobs I simply couldn't do, like be an interior decorator or a painter, jobs that put people like me at a disadvantage but that we can still do, like computer graphics work, electrical work, or many factory jobs, and jobs that for good reasons I'm prohibited from having, like being a firefighter.

There may no longer be a blanket prohibition on color blind airline pilots, and there are color blind physicians, but I'd rather have my pilots and doctors be people with normal color vision, just in case that gives them an edge.

I have a feeling that I'd make a rather poor parking lot attendant, since I'd fetch the wrong cars when people identify them by color!

Is it the yellow or orange wire?

 

[Doctor Q]

Is it the yellow or orange wire?

Answer here.

 

[Jmona]

I am so humbled just by reading this thread and everyone that is struggling in one way or another. Puts things int o perspective. I applaud you all for the grace in which you conduct yourselves and keep on going with such extraordinary fortitude.
I wasn't going to post this but a friend directed me to this page after certain events happened on a thread in the accessories for apple watch forum. I wanted to share my story with those of you that know what its like to live with chronic pain.
I for one, too deal with several illnesses. Some of which have no cure, and some of which have taken me out of things I loved to do like reviewing tech products on youtube.
When I was in the Marines I got diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia so I had to get out. In a way I am grateful for having gotten sick for having not been, I would've never met my husband. My best friend and the father of our children.
Then, in 2010 after trying to conceive for nearly 5 years for our second baby we got the amazing surprise that we were expecting triplet. It was a hard pregnancy to say the least, with Hyperemesis, I lost nearly 60 pounds during my first trimester, and during labor at 34 weeks, only one of our 3 babies survived, and shortly after he was born I went in to cardiac arrest. Sent to the ICU for almost 4 months, having only seen my newborn baby, only for a week and consequently after coding in the ICU thrice, I was finally diagnosed with a host of illnesses that include Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, R.A, Fybromialgya, Raynauds, Sjogrens, Severe heart failure for which I had an eject fraction of less than 10%, and many other illnesses that follow after Lupus. I was told I wouldn't make it to the end of the year, and after I did, My ultimate prognosis was 5 years, 3 and half of which have come to pass.
This is the day I met my baby for the first time after I saw him only for 7 days after birth to not see him again until he was 3.5 months old. <3

I have been on chemo since I was diagnosed and a couple of days ago I was told that chemo isn't helping anymore so I am done with chemo and hoping to start a new drug that could potentially save my life but because the drug is more expensive than my car per little vial for which I need 4 a month, my family is now treating me like its the last time they'll see me for Tricare although the best insurance We have at home, has not approved and even after appealing, they continue to deny the approval of said drug which is called Acthar and it runs at almost $43K per 5ml vial.

Even then, I am a very optimistic person and I have gone through so much that at this point am more interest in quality than quantity. The only regret I have is not being able to see my children grow up if the inevitable happens.I do things my doctor believe is erratic, I know my body and thats why I push myself to live because I dont have to wait until things get bad to start enjoying the life I have in the now. I go kayaking, snowboarding, I'm an Archer, and hiking, trekking, backpacking, fishing, traveling, I continue to prove everyone that God has the last word.
There is more than 5 million people worldwide diagnosed with this terrible disease that is lupus and as of now there is still no cure to be found. The saddest thing of it all is that with medications priced so high, makes it impossible for many to survive, since they can't afford such treatments.

Anyhow, if it wasn't for this illness, I wouldn't be the happy woman I consider myself to be. Not lucky for I have worked my @$$ off to be where I am, but I am indeed very blessed for having an amazing support system in my husband and the small circle of people that know my struggle and they know that I am not okay, even when they ask if I am to which I reply I am doing fantastic. Why? Because, the illnesses I am diagnosed with don't define me but how I choose to deal with them does. I refuse to let this disease that is lupus take control of my life, and as such I also make the best out of the circumstances. The sky may look grim sometimes, but one thing for certain is that above those gray clouds, there's a sun that is always shinning and sooner rather than later, clouds will break allowing the sunshine to get through.
It isn't the disease but how you face it that makes you or breaks you, and I choose to let it only do one thing for me, and that is to smile through adversity because I only have this life, and I don't care that I am dying. I care more for the moments when I am alive enjoying every single breath, the warmth of my husband's kiss on my lips, and the sweet voice of my boys when they call me Mom. Those things alone are worth fighting, and they are why I continue to fight. Don't ask me how I do it. The question is actually why I do it, and the answer is my family.
Much like all of you, I refuse to give up. So I keep on hiking up this mountain and it gets hard, because the pain never goes away, but I know that at the end at the summit a fantastic view awaits and that alone is the reward for all the pain and suffering I've been through.
I also have 2 angels watching over me from above. Life doesn't get better than it is right now, where I chose to say in the mornings Thank you Lord for another breath of oxygen filling my lungs, blood running through my veins, and the heart beat that skips every time I see my children smile, and even the beautiful view each morning when I wake to my husband staring at me saying he wants to soak in every moment of me even when I sleep, worry-less about what the future holds for us but one thing is for certain is that we are doing this together and that i something that will never change and Lupus nor any other illness will ever take away from me. I live for the little moments of happiness and that alone is worth putting up the fight I continue to give every day.

I wish you all health a plenty, love till your heart burst with happiness and many years ahead to enjoy around those who love and cherish you for as long as your bodies allow you, keeping in mind, you were given this life because you're strong enough to live it. Sorry for the long post btw. Know that each and everyone of you are an inspiration to me personally. I read every single post and won't deny, I cried reading some of these posts, and as I said before I am so humbled by what you all have gone and continue to go through, I wish you nothing short of a long life because you all deserve that an more. Be well and know that you are loved, admired and thought of. <3