Changing Medications (Level of Trust Required)

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

5:19 p.m. CDT 20170706. Damn. Looking at the previous post, I realize I forgot to call pain management doctor #3. I've had to deal with stomach cramps (and more) that have wiped me out today. The Parmesan sausage and coffee helped briefly, but the cramps soon followed. Spent most of the day unconscious when not in the bathroom. I'm not blaming the sausage—it was probably something that had just been overdue.

To cross threads, if I may, I haven't heard a peep from Loudmouth, so that's kept the stress level down. We had a thunderstorm come through last night that officially brought 8,000 lightning strikes from 4:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. CDT. They kept everyone's stress level up, including mine. Might have been responsible for triggering (or at least planting the seed of) today's cramps.

If you remove the letter "m" from the word "cramp," you'll get the word that describes the real problem I've had today. Hence all the related unconsciousness.

One bit of good news: I'm getting to where I can walk—carefully—without a cane through the house sometimes. I'm still clomping along due to the uneven gait the orthopedic shoe gives me, and I'm careful as all hell around computer wires on the ground (the things that caused my fall). I can't rely on being able to do this, though. I've still got pain from my sesamoid bone that makes it hard to walk at times. The podiatrist keeps telling me there's nothing that can be done for it, short of removing it, and that's usually worse than leaving it in place. I'll take his word for it.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

7:01 a.m. CDT 20170707. Zofran emergency. Right in the middle of eating breakfast, and I get the urge to throw it back up. Reach for the Zofran post haste. Crisis averted. Lord only knows why. I mean, I'm GERD negative. The only thing I can think of is that I had taken my morning pills about 15-20 minutes earlier and may have developed a gas bubble in my gastric bypass pouch. I really don't understand.

I've got to ask for a refill of my Zofran today. I hope my doctor will refill it.

Today is also pain medication refill day. In about 45 minutes, I get to call and ask for a refill of my hydrocodone. I then get to wait until they call me back, at which point Mrs. Prof can drive me up there so that I can pick up the prescription. It's all very convoluted, thanks to the current paranoia over opioid medications. I'm one of the people using them legitimately, and I have to deal with the crap resulting from those who are abusing them. Not fair, I tell you.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

Are you still in touch with some sort of bariatric surgery person?  I worry there are quirks to the rearranged gut that a PCP might not be familiar enough with.  Either way, sounds like this is happening often enough that you should be mentioning it to someone.

Best of luck with your meds!  Every time I need (real) Sudafed after hours I make the same grumbles about those darn meth cookers.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

12 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Are you still in touch with some sort of bariatric surgery person?  I worry there are quirks to the rearranged gut that a PCP might not be familiar enough with.  Either way, sounds like this is happening often enough that you should be mentioning it to someone.

I did go through a thorough re-check of my gastric bypass a few years back. I basically begged for a revision, since one of the pain medicines (gabapentin) had made me regain almost 40 pounds in a couple of weeks (if memory serves). I was told that my stomach is emptying normally and that a revision is not something that would be covered by my insurance.

So, for now, it's my PCP and a bottle of Zofran, which he kindly refills when I need it.

12 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Best of luck with your meds!  Every time I need (real) Sudafed after hours I make the same grumbles about those darn meth cookers.

I hear you. Why does Afrin have to have a 3-day limit on it before it starts rebounding? It's the best stuff in the world for 3 days, then it'll kill your sinuses. That's when I need Sudafed, for the 3-day break you're supposed to take between Afrin courses.

Anyway, I got the paper script today and was told to fill it on Monday, when I'm due to run out of my other supply. This one's a full 120 pill supply, not a piss-ant 110 pill one like my back doctor gave me. The question is whether or not CVS will honor it on Monday. If not, I'm screwed badly for a couple of days.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Oh, BTW:

8:51 p.m. 20170707. As usual, Mrs. Prof is out and about this evening. When she gets home, we're going to tackle a rather odoriferous problem: my left foot.

I haven't been able to give it a good bath since I broke it. It's been wrapped up in gauze until lately, but when showers are concerned I still have to keep the orthopedic shoe on. I can't step on the flat of my foot, or even come close to it. Mrs. Prof has been wrapping my foot in plastic this entire time, but there's one thing neither she nor I have been able to do: give it a good washing. You can tell, too.

We're going to chance that tonight, but in a safe way. I'm going to soak it in Epsom salts. I figure if they were safe enough to use when I had ingrown toenail surgery, they should be safe enough to use with just my surgical scab. So, she's going to mix up a tub of them and let me soak for a while, then do some gentle scrubbing on the rest of the foot (which is still sprained and broken in spots, if you'll remember).

BTW, did you know Epsom salts have an expiration date? The pack we had expired in 2014. Had to buy a new one when we picked up some other prescriptions today.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

11:17 a.m. CDT 20170708. Mrs. Prof can't find the plastic pan she uses to soak feet in for my Epsom salt bath. So, naturally, this gives her an excuse to tear the entire kitchen apart and do the equivalent of a spring cleaning. Sigh. I've advised her not to complain about the smell of my foot for now.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

4:24 p.m. CDT 20170708. Leave it to Mrs. Prof to turn a foot bath into a torture chamber. Not the whole thing, mind you—just several moments of it.

She finally found the foot tub and mixed up some Epsom salts. She did two batches of it: one for scrubbing off dead skin and one for soaking. The scrubbing wasn't too bad, and of course, neither was the soaking. It was the drying that hurt like hell. She was bent on rubbing off all of the skin she didn't get in pass one, and she hit some very sensitive sprained areas and other bits connected to my sesamoid bone. I had to use a safe word at one point to get her to stop.

Anyway, I've suspected that my big toe has been turning red again, and this proved it. It was nice and flesh-colored and unswollen at my last appointment. Now, it's red and looks bruised and swollen. Time to call the podiatrist again sometime on Monday.

There *was* one bit of good news: my surgical scab fell off during the Epsom salt soak! Bet that'll freak out the podiatrist.

[mlooney 3,417]

I need to fine tune my Adderall dose a bit.  I've been up for just about 23 hours now and am not sleepy.  Tired, yes.  Sleepy, no.  This is less than optimal.

 

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

23 minutes ago, mlooney said:

I need to fine tune my Adderall dose a bit.  I've been up for just about 23 hours now and am not sleepy.  Tired, yes.  Sleepy, no.  This is less than optimal.

Yyyeeaaaahhhh, I'd say you have an issue there.

[mlooney 3,417]

16 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Yyyeeaaaahhhh, I'd say you have an issue there.

It's also the first week back on it, which hits a bit harder.  

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

11:00 a.m. CDT 20170709. Damn. I slept through the whole Austrian Grand Prix, except for the first few laps. Hydrocodone relieves your pain, but it often relieves you of your ability to stay awake as well. Oh, well—guess I'll watch some IMSA SportsCar Championship racing from Canada instead before the IndyCar race from Iowa kicks in this afternoon. Hell, I can't even remember if I took anything other than my hydrocodone today.

I'll admit that one of the problems with not using a pill reminder for all your pills is that you can't be sure that you've taken all your pills. I took my hydrocodone this morning, and I rarely take it by itself except at 4:00 a.m., but I stayed up until the F1 race started, so I think I took my pills ... damn, this is frustrating. It's too late in the day to take them anyway. I'll have to do with my midday doses and hope I can hold off until my nighttime doses.

Problem is, I can't use a pill reminder for all of my pills. As I count them now, I've got 12 types of pills to take in the morning (in varying numbers), 3 types at midday (varying again), and 14 types of pills (in varying counts) at night. This does not include the hydrocodone, which I take four times a day.

Do the math on that grouping. Daily.

I've tried different pill reminders, and they're all more trouble than they're worth. Did I put pill X into Tuesday PM? Oh, smeg, dump everything out and count. No, with the individual bottles-in-a-shoebox method, at least I know if I've taken the pills once I get started. The only problem is remembering whether or not if I got started.

In other news, I had another damned Zofran emergency last night. Mrs. Prof brought home tortas (Mexican sandwiches) from a local place called Pepper's. I've eaten their Holandesa (sp?) many times, but I've always had to eat it in two parts: first half warm, second half cold the next day. Well, I'd just made it through the first half last night when, all of a sudden, it decided it wanted to come back up. Grab the blue bottle, stick the pill under my tongue, and hope I've done it quickly enough.

I did, thank goodness. Of course, I was useless for the rest of the night, but I didn't have to run to the bathroom again.

This is a frustrating situation. I've got the other half of my torta in the fridge, but I'm afraid to touch it. Give me a couple more hours to work up the courage.

One last thing to mention: my PVCs have been hitting me worse than they have in a long, long time. Gallows humor: Mrs. Prof is outside sawing PVC pipe for a project. Coincidence?

[mlooney 3,417]

Finally got a few hours sleep.  Going to eat a light lunch of pasta salad then go back to bed.  Tomorrow I'm going to split the Adderall into 2 doses and see what that does.

[mlooney 3,417]

I woke up from my nap with a hacking cough.  One dose of the Q later and I'm not coughing.  This also means I'm highly likely to get several hours of sleep.  The Q does that some times.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Coffee in the afternoon. Trying to fight off the sedating effect of the hydrocodone long enough so I can watch the IndyCar 300 lap race at Iowa (a 7/8th mile bull ring). I do not want my medication to make me miss this.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

I debated whether to put this here or in the "things that make you worried" thread. You see, there is a possibility that I might not get to see pain specialist #3, and it's worrying me sick. I've kept it inside since the possibility surfaced on Friday, when I was in the shower, or actually a bit before that.

I finally got around to calling pain specialist #3 Friday morning after calling my PCP for a refill of my pain medicine. I eventually got a call from my PCP that my prescription was ready, so I went and took a shower. Of course, pain specialist #3's office calls while I'm in the shower. At least they'll let Mrs. Prof know what's going on. My folder is sitting on his desk with several others, and I should hear from him in a few days ...  if I qualify.

WTF? If I qualify? I've got level 10 pain going on here without pain meds, and I have to find out if I qualify? What kind of deal is this? Do I have to prepare an audition routine or something for an initial consultation?

Oh, dear God, please tell me I'm not headed toward another UT Southwestern situation again. Or worse, toward a rejection. What am I going to do if he says no?

I'm sorry, but this has been bubbling under the surface all weekend long. I debated whether I should say anything about it, but in the end I had to get it off my chest.

[mlooney 3,417]

On 7/9/2017 at 11:47 AM, mlooney said:

Finally got a few hours sleep.  Going to eat a light lunch of pasta salad then go back to bed.  Tomorrow I'm going to split the Adderall into 2 doses and see what that does.

Well, I know what a half dose does now.  Works for about 5 to 7 hours.  Next question, do I want to take the other half now, noonish, and risk being up all night?  I'm leaning towards "nope", take a nap, but that could be the sorta cold I have got talking.   I know that NyQuil and Adderall don't mix well, so it's one or the other, and I think the Q is winning the fight for my hearts and minds right now.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

Ah, the Q.

When they include a shot glass with the medicine bottle, you don't really need to guess the active ingredient.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

2:55 p.m. CDT 20170710. The day of reckoning, pill-wise, is at hand. We've already made two phone calls and had two arguments, so things aren't starting off well. Mrs. Prof is going to have to drive all the way over to a CVS located, ironically enough, across from the hospital where I broke my ankles. They're the closest place that has enough hydrocodone to fill the prescription. Neither our regular CVS nor our nearby Albertsons had enough (Albertsons was dead out). Of course, Mrs. Prof originally wanted me to go with her so that I could do the arguing in the event that there were any "problems" (i.e., State or Federal regulation run-ins) getting the prescriptions filled. She eventually relented and allowed me to call instead, but it turned out that the "problems" would be numbers and not regulations.

The last CVS said that as long as our insurance covers it, they'll fill it. Pray for Omarion. And Harambe, while you're tossing memes about.

Earlier, I got a phone call from a rather confused nurse who works for pain specialist #3. She said the doctor wanted to know when the last time was that I'd seen the spine doctor/pain specialist #1. She was also confused about my UT Southwestern situation, so I straightened that out for her. She said thank you and left me in limbo. God, I'm going slowly crazy over this situation.

Finally, one of the reasons Mrs. Prof relented is that I've been feeling terrible again today. Part of it may have to do with my left big toe. It's still swollen and turning red again—possible re-infection. I also felt something shift under the ball of my foot earlier today when I stepped on it. It's rather painful. I've called and made an appointment with the podiatrist for Thursday afternoon.

I hate days like this. They remind me of how dependent upon others (and upon the mood of others) I am. Things can get more depressing, but not by much.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

10 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

I hate days like this. They remind me of how dependent upon others (and upon the mood of others) I am. Things can get more depressing, but not by much.

It can get difficult, especially when one's loved ones are stressed. But as my father reminded me once, at least you are still there to stress them, which is better than the alternative. He was trying to soothe me because I was fretting over my brother, who was very sick at the time and having a difficult time with his wife over it. (She was running a more than full-time job at the time, having to cover for her partner at the clinic they ran because the partner could only work half-time due to troubles of her own.)

My brother has been fighting periodically for his life for a decade and a half now. He used to suffer from a genetic blood disorder that was slowly killing him. A stem cell donation from me almost took. Almost, but not quite. It cured his blood disease but he has been struggling with aftereffects on his organs ever since. I didn't cope well with that either even though I knew I was not to blame. It took my father to remind me that if I hadn't been there to donate stem cells, he would have been many years in his grave by now.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

44 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

My brother has been fighting periodically for his life for a decade and a half now. He used to suffer from a genetic blood disorder that was slowly killing him. A stem cell donation from me almost took. Almost, but not quite. It cured his blood disease but he has been struggling with aftereffects on his organs ever since. I didn't cope well with that either even though I knew I was not to blame. It took my father to remind me that if I hadn't been there to donate stem cells, he would have been many years in his grave by now.

And it takes a story like yours, tOH, to put me back in my place. I had to fight for my life after my gastric bypass went south back in 2009 (leading to my broken ankles), but that was only a blip in time by comparison. Your brother's story makes the problems I'm having right now look like I'm fighting a hangnail. Thank you—I have to keep that in mind.

[Vorlonagent 442]

9 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

IMy brother has been fighting periodically for his life for a decade and a half now. He used to suffer from a genetic blood disorder that was slowly killing him. A stem cell donation from me almost took. Almost, but not quite. It cured his blood disease but he has been struggling with aftereffects on his organs ever since. I didn't cope well with that either even though I knew I was not to blame. It took my father to remind me that if I hadn't been there to donate stem cells, he would have been many years in his grave by now.

For what it's worth, I'd say your stem cell donation completely worked.  It did everything it was supposed to do. 

8 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

And it takes a story like yours, tOH, to put me back in my place. I had to fight for my life after my gastric bypass went south back in 2009 (leading to my broken ankles), but that was only a blip in time by comparison. Your brother's story makes the problems I'm having right now look like I'm fighting a hangnail. Thank you—I have to keep that in mind.

Please don't start kicking yourself, Prof.  That isn't any better.  If what you're dealing with doesn't seem that bad now, you can afford bandwidth for some added serenity and humor.  Which will in turn further improve your situation.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

19 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

Please don't start kicking yourself, Prof.  That isn't any better.  If what you're dealing with doesn't seem that bad now, you can afford bandwidth for some added serenity and humor.  Which will in turn further improve your situation.

It's a hard thing to remember when you're already depressed for various reasons, as I was when I wrote the statement in question. I promise I'll try to work on bringing the sine wave back up. Today's tales in the Loudmouth journey thread have already helped a bit. Sorry for last night's response.

[Vorlonagent 442]

6 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

It's a hard thing to remember when you're already depressed for various reasons, as I was when I wrote the statement in question. I promise I'll try to work on bringing the sine wave back up. Today's tales in the Loudmouth journey thread have already helped a bit. Sorry for last night's response.

Don't apologize for venting.  I'm there with you.  I'm fighting depression and I'm healthy. 

With myself I've found it's not the emergencies or crises that drag me down.  It's the annoyances.  And they often travel in packs..  Your life seems to have several really large, really ugly annoyances in it, plus any number that don't get posted.

I know what's needed is to break them apart and deal with them individually because I am stronger than any one of them.  But doing it?  Not always easy, which is why it's perfectly OK to vent here if and when you need to.  Serenity and humor.  Get back to those and treat yourself with understanding and forgiveness when you leave that space because you are simply going to.  It's human nature.  If you figure out how to do this regularly, please post it.  I'm having lots of trouble myself.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

40 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

If you figure out how to do this regularly, please post it.  I'm having lots of trouble myself.

I might patent it and sell it in a bottle. I'd make billions.

12:40 p.m. CDT 20170711. Finally, maybe some good news, although that's what I thought with UT Southwestern, too. I'm guardedly excited. I've been given a consultation appointment with pain management doctor #3. It's not until August 2nd, but that's still within my current supply of pain medicine. I'm going to have to let Mrs. Prof do some of the talking at the appointment, mainly about why we've sought him out in particular (it's on advice from a husband of a friend of hers). God, I hope this works. I'm so tired of chasing my tail when it comes to pain management.

Speaking of pain, I'm having pure hell with my sesamoid bone in my left foot today. It flat out hurts beyond what the hydrocodone can control when I step on it. Way beyond—enough to make me stop in my tracks and back up off of that foot. I can't even sit comfortably, due to the pressure on it from my orthopedic shoe. It's a stabbing pain, like having a 10p nail thrust through the sole of your foot. I'm going to try and get some rest and see if the bone will settle back into position.

[mlooney 3,417]

1 hour ago, Vorlonagent said:

It's the annoyances.  And they often travel in packs..

Mean vicious snarling packs.