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The State I Am In

  
 
Smoothly
10:34 / 23.12.04
From my neck down, everything seems to be working as it should be. Pretty much. Nothing I'd fail an MOT on anyway. All my failures are in my head:

I suffer from cluster headaches, which is a chronic condition but embarrassing and unpleasant during bouts of attacks.
I have some kind of cyst on my brain, although my neurologist doesn't seem particularly concerned.
My lips are dry.

How are you? What's the damage?
 
 
Sax
10:45 / 23.12.04
You know, I feel pretty good. Totally unfit, but pretty good. I did have a really bad bout of 'flu* a while ago, and in the aftermath had a really, really bad pain in my kidneys. I told myself that when I started pissing blood I'd go to the doctors, but fortunately the pain just went away. Apart from that, no, nothing recently. Sorry.



* Proper 'flu, not "bloke with a sniffle" 'flu.
 
 
sleazenation
11:04 / 23.12.04
I Also sometimes suffer from headaches that impair my vision and have defuse brain damage, but apparently that is nothing to worry about...
 
 
Ganesh
11:17 / 23.12.04
* Proper 'flu, not "bloke with a sniffle" 'flu.

Pfft. You're obviously not man enough to just chug back some Lemsip Ultra, don your baby-blue v-neck and head into the office anyway. I bet you haven't even banged the boss.

Me, I am bloke-with-a-sniffle most of the time. In summer I call it hay fever; in winter, it can be sexed up into 'flu or even (if I employ my inhalers to dramatic effect) asthma. Oooh, I'm a martyr to me lungs, I am.

Apart from that, nowt.
 
 
Sax
11:37 / 23.12.04
Maybe your sniffles are caused by you inhaling microscopic people from your beard.
 
 
Ganesh
11:41 / 23.12.04
Mmmm, very George Morrison...
 
 
LykeX
12:38 / 23.12.04
Actually, I have the same thing. I blame it on not cleaning enough around the house.
 
 
Olulabelle
12:44 / 23.12.04
Smoothly, how is having cluster headaches embarrassing?

I am not understanding the concept of being embarrassed about having horribly debilitating headaches.
 
 
Smoothly
13:30 / 23.12.04
Cos it's a bit icky, olulabelle. They make my face contort and my body squirm; my eyes water, my nose runs and my mouth salivates to the point of uncontrollable dribbling. It's all very dreadfully unattractive, so kind of embarrassing in that way. They also come on very rapidly which can result in all those things happening at awkward moments and in inconvenient locations. Once, for example, in the middle of the second row of the theatre at the denouement of a dramatic third act. See what I mean?
 
 
ibis the being
14:00 / 23.12.04
What the hell's wrong with me? I'm a hypochrondriac, is what. This thread's likely to send me to the nuthouse. I've had this dull pain under my last right rib for months, hurts when I move certain ways and more so if I've been sitting idle most of the day. I'm wavering between "bone fracture" and "gall bladder infection."
 
 
HCE
15:06 / 23.12.04
Clean bill of health of the doctor. No longer fitting into jeans fresh from the dryer without a wee bit of struggle, but I am going with the theory that it's the jeans that are shrinking, rather than my middle that's expanding. I'm taller and stronger than I was at twenty, and my eyesight has improved a very tiny bit. By the time I'm forty, I'll be a goddess.

My wrists, however, could easily be ruined if I'm not really diligent about stretching, pausing, sitting up straight, etc. Likewise my back. Office work is much harder on the body than cabinetry. All strain, no exercise.
 
 
The Falcon
15:12 / 23.12.04
I am in the midst of what may yet culminate in proper bed-ridden, sweaty flu.

This happened to me 3 years ago, and was sanity-draining.
 
 
eddie thirteen
16:05 / 23.12.04
I just walked through a foot of snow for several blocks to buy a pack of cigarettes. Lungs burning upon my return, I immediately sat down and lit one of the cigarettes, and -- despite an inability to draw full breath that might have been a little bit disturbing to somebody else -- I proceeded to suck the whole thing down in about a minute and a half. On a rational level, I am appalled by my junkie nature; closer to the surface, I am proud of my own Viking-stylee fortitude. Also, I am coughing. Thinking...maybe I should quit? Nah....
 
 
Smoothly
10:51 / 24.12.04
This is the thing. From the neck down I seem to be pretty good shape. I smoke but suffer no noticeable breathlessness or coughing. In a general health-check I had last year, when I registered at a new doctors' surgery, I got the best score the nurse had ever seen in the blow-in-the-tube lung capacity test. My diet makes no concessions to health, but I suffer no digestive ailments. I walk a bit but have never seen the inside of a gym. I almost never get ill - I haven't had so much as a sniffle in years. I don't *look* healthy, but all the evidence (aside the noted brain-based complaints) suggests that I am.
I don't mean to sound smug. I can take no personal credit and I assume all this will change. Maybe it's just the legacy of youth. I wonder what I can look forward to. Was Jim-Bob right - You can eat what you want, drink what you want... then you turn 30 and suddenly you're a fat bastard?
 
 
modern maenad
11:08 / 24.12.04
ibis - I'm wavering between "bone fracture" and "gall bladder infection."

Don't forget large cancerous growth. I regularly have phantom tumors, most recent one was on my lip.

As for me (my favourite subject) its been a strange year health-wise. After four years of ME/CFS I was deteriorating fast in new year, and by march was starting to consider wheelchair. In desperation sought out private health care (funded by parents) and low behold, when money's involved there's loads of tests and treatments. Long story short, weekly injections, pills like you wouldn't believe and health's been improving over year. Can now do long walks and get really drunk and smoke fags. Because the whole point of being healthy is to take it all for granted and pretend you're immortal. Planning to return to more 'mortal' frame of mind/lifestyle in 2005.
 
 
Ganesh
20:41 / 24.12.04
In desperation sought out private health care (funded by parents) and low behold, when money's involved there's loads of tests and treatments.

This surprises you? More pertinently, one might speculate on whether the multitude of tests prove anything meaningful and whether the treatments work. The injections and pills have obviously worked for you, Maenad, but I'd be wary of overgeneralising your own experience - unless, of course, it's supported by a good objective evidence-base.

(New Laboratory thread, perhaps?)
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
01:09 / 25.12.04
I'd be wary of overgeneralising your own experience - unless, of course, it's supported by a good objective evidence-base.

Well yeah, but I don't think maenad was overgeneralising hir experience... I kind of read it as "well, this is what happened to ME when..."
 
 
XXII:X:II = XXX
06:02 / 25.12.04
I've not been to a doctor in excess of seven years. This is not a source of pride for me, and I've had opportunity before, though I am currently without health insurance. Nevertheless, it would seem I ought to seek one out right quick, as I am experiencing a number of... irregularities, discomforts, eVUN, that have brought to mind paranoid thoughts of dire disease that I'd rather have diagnosed to be treated or otherwise explained away. Either way you slice it, I am reaching an age where I can no longer afford to be quite so cavalier about my health if I wish to reach the dotage that 3 of my 4 grandparents achieved. I lead entirely too sedentary and unself-conscious a lifestyle, which is pretty ironic considering that I am an overly self-analytical person.

Which of course brings us to the topic of mental health, for which I was under regular therapy and accompanying medication up until I lost my job in March, so many behavioral redundancies which I'd beaten down at such time have reared their ugly heads again. Nothing, I believe, that would send me into traffic naked clutching a severed head with salad tongs, but certainly of no personal advantage, either.

So, my health, like much of the rest of my life at present, is not particularly great. Thanks for asking.

/+,
 
 
Ganesh
07:26 / 25.12.04
Well yeah, but I don't think maenad was overgeneralising hir experience... I kind of read it as "well, this is what happened to ME when..."

More the implied suggestion that there are a multitude of tests/treatments available for those willing to pay for them (which is true, but they're not necessarily useful or effective tests/treatments) which the bastard NHS witholds for reasons of pure stinginess (as opposed to lack of objective evidence).

But hey, I could be being overly defensive. It happens.
 
 
modern maenad
08:19 / 25.12.04
I see that more information is required here!! For four years I was consistently told by a string of GPs that there was nothing they could do, and was essentially told to go away and get better (find God? one of Jesus' miracles perhaps?). Within the NHS ME is treated as a largely behavioural illness, and little attention is paid to its physiology. I once went with high hopes to a specialist hospital chronic fatigue clinic and was told that all they could offer were time managment charts - yipee. Upon finding a private specialist I found that instead of acting as if it was 'all in my head' I was treated as someone with a real physical illness. Though a raft of tests were done, the key finding was that I had woefully low magnesium levels. There are two ways to measure magnesium, a serum blood test and an intracellular test. On the NHS the serum test is the only one available, which is problematic as blood serum magnesium levels are maintained at the expense of other stores (this is to do wtih keeping your heart going). So, it turns out that my magnesium levels are ridiculously low (guy at lab scribbles on test sheet that he's horrified at result) - from a test that my GP simply was not in a position to offer. So, thirty weeks of magnesium injections later, and I'm a new woman. Add to that the discovery of similarly low ferratin (iron) levels, B12 and a few others, and hey presto, a treatment regime and new found health!! My main gripe with the NHS is that they seem to refuse to acknowledge that there might be good physical reason why a woman in here prime can't walk for more than twenty minutes and is plagued by a catalogue of symptoms that make the mind boggle. And I wasn't alone with my various mineral/vitamin deficiencies. The doctor who's been treating me said that in fifteen years of treating chronic fatigue she's yet to see a patient who doesn't have magnesium and B12 deficiencies - so why the fuck won't the NHS take this on board. I mean, this doctor was medical advisor to the the UK's largest ME charity/campaign organisation for years, its not as if she's some quack out on a limb strapping magnets to your elbows. There's a lot more I could say, but hey, its christmas day so time to go indulge and chip away at some of that good health I've been enjoying recently. So, didn't mean to imply that private medicine was the answer for all, just that in my case its been a fucking miracle (and no Jesus in sight) - and has left me swinging between ecstatic delight that I can now start having a life and infernal rage that I have essentially lost nearly five years of my life unnecessarily........????
 
 
Ganesh
08:48 / 25.12.04
I am utterly happy to address this ,Maenad, but, as I suggested, I think a separate thread would be appropriate. ME/CFS is a topic in its own right, as is the whole NHS vs. private thing.
 
 
Ganesh
08:59 / 25.12.04
But.

Briefly.

The NHS is strapped for cash - always. In such circumstances, it generally doesn't fund a particular test or treatment unless there's sufficient research been carried out proving that a treatment is a) effective, and b) efficient. In the case of magnesium levels causing chronic fatigue, a conclusive link has not been unequivocally established. If an evidence-base can be assembled, it's likely that the NHS will consider adopting magnesium supplements as a treatment option (B12 is already freely available; I've prescribed it often, myself). Until then, the anecdotal recollections of a single doctor are interesting but not especially conclusive. You might want to suggest to her that she initiates some more widespread research.

Incidentally, the whole concept of "behavioural" vs "real" is, IMHO, an unfair oversimplification of the way ME/CHS is approached within the NHS. In the last few years, it's been explicitly stated that the British Medical Association believes ME/CFS has an organic root (or roots).
 
  
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