2 Specialists Down, 1…or 2 To Go

It’s official. It’s a relief to know that I have two diagnoses and two treatment plans now.

The kidney biopsy results apparently led to both diagnoses.

IgA Nephropathy

It’s an autoimmune kidney disease, as I said. The Nephrologist said the prognosis is very good. We have caught it very early — though probably I had it 4 years ago when I saw that Nephrologist who didn’t really run any tests and just dismissed me so I could have caught it even sooner. My kidney functions are still excellent and don’t appear to be damaged yet. She is changing my blood pressure medication to one that will treat both my blood pressure and the IgAN. Unfortunately, this will have to be monitored for the rest of my life at the very least annually if not quarterly to watch for deterioration of my kidneys. Worse case senarios are total renal failure and kidney transplants.

Fibromyalgia

The Rheumatologist is now convinced that my consistantly high SED rate is the result of the IgAN as he’s eliminated everything else it could be in his arsenal and the kidney biopsy proved it’s not vasculitis. He’s given me the official diagnosis of Fibromyalgia and is requesting that my GP increase my sleep med dosage (b/c she prescribed it) and is prescribing water exercise therapy, which I now need to see where my insurance will cover sending me to. Again, I have to go back in 3 months. Unfortunately because of my kidneys, I cannot take any alleve, advil, or asprin to help with the soreness in my muscles or the pain in my hands.

The frustrating thing is that for the most part, there’s not a lot to change from what I’m doing. Just make sure I get more and better sleep at night and get some exercise, preferably water-based since regular exercise aggrevates the muscle pain. Weight loss will also help but without exercise I possibly can’t lose any more without starving myself.

Next Up

I’m seeing a GI specialist next week finally who I’m supposed to discuss the lack of Gallbladder surgery and possible IBS and acid reflux issues. Good timing as the Previcid seems to be no longer working on the acid reflux.

And the GP wanted to wait until after the kidney biopsy to send me to some sort of pulmonary work-up regarding that persistant cough I’m still having, though not as bad or frequent. I’ve got to try to see her next week about a flu shot too. Oy.

So, there’s good news and lots of moving forward finally! Yay!

Tags: IgAN, fibromyalgia, GI specialist, kidney biopsy, SED rate, rheumatologist, nephrologist, blood pressure, wellness

The Good, The Bad, & The O.K.

Well, I visited the doctor today. I had an appointment to get my Depo shot on Wednesday but the daily headaches had become a 3 day migraine that left me bent over my toilet at 2am last night, so I called and got an appointment with her. Obviously the vicodin no longer works.

The Bad news, of course, is the migraine and nausea. The doctor has given me a prescription for Zomig. We’ll see if that works. It sometimes takes a while to kick in if I remember right. She also gave me something for the nausea. I’m becoming frustrated by the being forced to do nothing much.

The Good news is that she did a general physical check and says that I don’t appear to have any symptoms of a brain tumor. Apparently she can tell that by shinging a bright blinding light in my eyes.

Anyway, I figured since I’d been having hot flashes and extended migraine that my blood pressure would be sky high. However, it was 118/78 which is extremely good for me. So, that would be my O.K. news.

However, to let you know how ill I feel, I actually threw out part of my lunch. I couldn’t eat it and I didn’t snack in the afternoon. I mean, there’s a reason I’m back in my fat dress. I can’t seem to stop eating. So it’s a catch-22, I can remain ill and waste away or I can feel better and fight the compulsive eating.

Tags: migraine, Depo Provera, Zomig, blood pressure, wellness

Five Things I’m Afraid To Do

1. I’ve been avoiding getting on the scale for a month now. I really should so I’m aware of how much weight I’ve gained. Maybe it’ll be like a wake up call.
2. I’ve been avoiding taking my blood pressure the last two weeks since the daily migraines returned. I’m fairly certain it’s high. I’m taking my BP med. There’s not much else to be done. Why upset myself more by knowing just how hight it is.
3. Check my credit card balances to see just how much I spent this month.
4. Tell my parents about my nose piercing. My mom is going to flip out. I’m 34 years old…it’s sad.
5. Clean out my fridge.

Tags: Me, blood pressure

Life Going On

So, the good news is that PW does not have breast cancer. Talk about breathing a sigh of relief. She was so relieved that she didn’t mind at all that the x-rays showed she has a kidney stone, which explains the pain in her side. :crazy:

I’m glad she’s o.k.

###So, I can’t recall if I mentioned it. I saw the doctor last week. The flu/cold I had cleared up immediately after I made the appointment, of course. However, I had to go in for a Depo shot and med check anyway and I wanted to talk to her about some issues I’ve been having with my GI tract — painfully bloaty and gassy with weeks of constipation rotating in and out. Ug.

Well, first off, I walked the mile to the appointment and my blood pressure was only 110/72! She said that if I lose some more weight (I’ve only lost 5 lbs since January 16th) and keep my blood pressure down, I maybe can come of the BP med in June. Good news there.

Plus, I talked to her about cutting back on the ambien. I now don’t take it every night but only as needed like the night after a bad night. Less pills is always good.

Unfortunately, after a discussion with the shrink and the GP, it was decided to double my prosac for the time being. The GP thinks I may suffer from that seasonal disorder and wants to try cutting the prosac back again in June and then look into light therapy next Winter. Honestly, maybe that whole sun thing is a factor. I know I hate driving home in the dark. It just feels so wearing and this last month with the snow storms in March, I’ve been tired of the weather and really ready for Spring or mud season as they call it.

So, for now, I need to keep watching my food and start trying to get some exercise in and try to find ways to meet people and hopefully get through my annual review on Wed. :crazy:

###My 34th birthday was something of a non-event. I got flowers from my parents on Friday as well as birthday cards from them and one grandmother. (Oh, and two e-cards from online friends and acquaintenances.) However, that’s all I got. I didn’t go anywhere or do anything different. It was kind of sad really.

I mean, I’m not much of a birthday person, but it was kind of a precursor to my life once my parents and grandparents pass on. It was a little lonely, I admit. I felt forgotten really, though two ex-boyfriends emailed me. None of my “good” friends recognized or remembered the day. PW had called me earlier in the week on the wrong day to wish me a happy one so I guess she’s excused. Still a part of me hoped for something more. It’s really a reminder that everyone is moving on with their lives and I’m so far away that I need to let go and work harder to make new friends.

Heck, I’m so lonely, I even discussed dating in therapy. I’ve given up on dating really. I can’t find anyone who is independent and has a life of their own and yet wants to share moments with me. Everyone I’ve dated seems to need that constant attention/companionship thing that sends me running for my independence.

It’s really silly to be thinking about it. If I can’t meet new friends, where am I going to meet people to date?

Tags: breast cancer, Depo Provera, blood pressure, Prozac, birthday

Scared Straight

I remember that the first time I really sat down and said, “This is it; I’m going to lose weight!” it really wasn’t about the uncomfortableness of being overweight or the humiliation of having had to go to the “fat lady” store or the horror of seeing myself in photographs.

I had been to the ER in October for a migraine. My blood pressure at that time was 163/90-something. I was put on blood pressure medicine to help my ever-present migraine and yet my blood pressure was not going down. Two months later, I climbed the side of a mountain with my parents and when I got to the top, I thought I was going to die — my chest hurt from the pounding in my heart and I absolutely couldn’t get enough air. The resulting migraine didn’t go away all day Christmas. Yet, that really apparently wasn’t enough.

For some reason, the first Saturday of the new year, I woke up and said to myself, “I’m scared that I’m going to die before I’m 35. I have to do something. This is not how a 30-year-old should feel.” I then became completely dedicated to losing the weight for about 9 months. Over the period of a year and some months, I lost 50 lbs. Within the first 10 lbs, I felt better, my blood pressure dropped, though my migraines never really got better.

Of course, I gave up around 132, one pound from goal. I don’t know the reasons really. I can only guess. It’d been a long journey to get there and I was tired of all of it. I had gotten sick; I was stressed about work, which only got worse. I had a gazillion reasons and excuses.

At 159, I now weigh the most I’ve weighed since March of 2003 (not the most I’ve ever weighed which was 184.2). I have been to several doctor’s appointments over the last month and my blood pressure has remained rather high — today it was 154/102! The last 22 days I have had my period (something that has always been irregular). I gained 10 pounds in September alone. I have allowed myself the luxury of eating constantly and have exercised little, though last Friday I started trying to do some exercise every day, with the exception of last Saturday and today (due to scheduling, though I did walk 20 minutes to get to the doctor’s office). Just the act of walking up my own stairs sends my heart pounding and makes me slightly out of breath. I climb 4 flights of stairs to my car every day and the last month, at the top of those stairs, I’ve felt like I might keel over and die for lack of breath and I’m not even rushing to climb those stairs. A week ago last Monday, I was sitting quietly in my office with a migraine so bad that I was throwing up my breakfast in my trashcan.

Obviously, I am 33 years old and I am now wondering if I’m going to make it to 35. These things that are happening to me have today sent me looking back over my childhood for some clues. My grandfather who had been a lifelong smoker and alcoholic had been overweight as long as I could remember. He would be out of breath just standing up from his chair. I can recall seeing him with an oxygen tank. He died when I was in my teens, the result of his lifelong addictions.

My father is pre-diabetic (something I have been tested for and not found to be true for myself); he’s had high cholesterol and high blood pressure too.

My other grandfather had a heart attack; he appeared to be extremely healthy.

I don’t like how I feel. I’m scared. I feel sick and it’s really hard to focus on anything else but how awful I feel. I’m hot. My head is pulsating with pain; I feel nauseated and bloated and fat. Exercise does not make me feel better.

Hopefully this is the wake up call I needed. I want to believe that from this moment on, I’ll be good. I’ve cancelled my diet-to-go meals because I wasn’t eating them. I’d much rather go out to lunch and be social with my co-workers and it’s not always easy to make good choices when eating out. I’m going to try harder, focus on salads and not those fattening salads either. Today for lunch I had a chicken breast salad with blue cheese crumbles and balsamic vinegraitte on the side. Maybe not 100% good for me, but the best choice I had. My SF FF latte was unfinished and I only had half of the 20oz Diet Coke I bought this morning. I’m currently drinking Dasani.

I wish I had an immediate answer for how I feel, something to make me feel better right away because quiet frankly feeling this way doesn’t make me want to exercise any more than when I was feeling well. 2 minutes on the Arc Trainer and my heart beat was 179 two days ago — way scary. Sitting here in this chair where I’ve been for 30 minutes, I can feel my heart thumping in my chest and I’m scared. Quiet frankly if I never see another Twizzler, it’ll be too soon. I may even feel that way about brownies, nachos, and rice krispy treats. Heh.

Tags: obesity, migraine, blood pressure, wellness

I’m Getting Ill Over This Stuff

SQ still won’t give up the game and now she’s mad that I got the original creator of the game to “harass” her. What I did was talk to the original creator and she was upset and agreed to appeal to SQ. SQ also thinks I put NetPoet up to his angry email, but honestly I didn’t talk to NetPoet until after his email. I figured since he had stepped down as an admin to just be a player because of other interests, he probably wouldn’t care one way or the other if the game died as it would free up some of his time. I was wrong and he’s angry. Lots of people are hurt, angry, confused, or some combination.

Meanwhile, J says she forgives me for inadvertently being hurtful the other night but she doesn’t want to take sides. I hate to tell her that by not standing up for the game and the other players, she has chosen her side. NetPoet said he talked to J on the phone and she was just as surprised as the rest of us.

Meanwhile, one of the players got a weird email back from SQ stating that she had her reasons and to trust her. He thinks this is some sort of stunt to get everyone riled up and going again. While the conspiracy theorist in me wants to hope for this, I’d still be very pissed off since I was more than a player and my biggest complaint has been a lack of communication between the moderators of the game. This is a prime example. :angry:

I’m supposed to meet up with SQ online in IMs tonight after my art class but I’m wondering at the moment if I’m going to make it through the day. My blood pressure has steadily gone up since Monday morning and this morning it was 140/105! My resting heart rate was 101! A few hours later it was 134/93 and 128! I’ve taken a lorazepam in hopes of calming myself down. At this point I’m not sure if this condition is due to the stress over the game, the new sleeping med I started taking Friday night, or the first phase of the South Beach Diet that I started on Monday. Maybe it’s too many new things all at once?

Part of me now wishes I could just go curl up in a corner and have the whole thing go away. I wish I cared a little less about the game I put four years of my life into and sadly, if I hadn’t gotten so many positive responses from people rallying to the cause, I would have let it die. I still would have been grumpy about it, but I would have eventually accepted it. But now I’m the player’s champion and I’m leading the show. I can be a leader; I just don’t usually care to do it, especially for long periods. The responsibility weighs on my mind. This is what happened to me before which led to me handing control over to SQ. I should have listened to Uncle Ben: “With great power comes great responsibility.” In the short term, SQ did a fabulous job. Real life and other unknown factors got in the way in the last few months — it did for all of us (me especially) — and now rather than letting go and moving on, she’s being selfish and squashing the dreams and wants of the people who counted on her.

But now the ball is in motion and I have to do every possible thing I can so I can at least say I gave it my best shot. Meanwhile, it’s all making me sick quite literally, I think. The high blood pressure is triggering a migraine and I can feel it coming on. Now I can record another known trigger at least. :satisfied: I just don’t want to have to go to the ER over this…how would I explain it to the doctor?

Meanwhile, I’ve been invited to play in another pbem set in the Marvel Universe. I’ve heard about the game before and I think it’s been running awhile. One of my better players is the mod. The one thing I’m wary about is that I think SQ is in it and I heard from another player that she is being obstinate in the games she’s in. I’m not sure I want to play in the same playground with SQ at the moment. The wounds of betrayal are just a little too fresh and we still have unfinished business.

All of this makes me wonder what is going on in SQ’s real life. What sort of stress is she under? Everyone keeps commenting on how uncharacteristic all of this is for her, but some have noted that in the last few months, she has changed from her usual bubbly, if blunt, self. Certainly she’s been staying away from IMs, even before the new job. She’s been slow to respond to some e-mails while answering others right off. She has been my friend in the past and I worry for her. I hate being angry and suspicious and I would think that if I did something this unfair, inconsiderate, and disrespectful to the other people in the game, people we call our friends, that she would call me on it…or she would have.

If she were Superman, I’d wonder if someone had given her a good dose of red kryptonite. :hehe:

Tags: PBeM, dysfunctional drama, wellness, blood pressure, anxiety