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ProfessorTomoe

Changing Medications (Level of Trust Required)

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A connection has been made between the itching and the 400mg of Topamax. Turns out that, in rare cases, Topamax can cause diffuse itching without an accompanying rash. I seem to have fallen into that crack. I have no rash, and I must scratch. :o

If it weren't for the stuff keeping me from having daily migraines, I'd go back to the 200mg dose. I'm still getting migraines, but they're few and far between now.

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Had to visit the doctor today. Been having sore throat issues, along with congestion (nasal & chest), sinus pain, non-migraine headaches, and a generally foggy head, making it unable for me to write music. Diagnosis: upper respiratory infection that has spread to my mouth.

Additional: while showering, I noticed a black spot on the second toe of my left foot. That's the one that had the toenail removed back in February due to infection. Well, the toe is now ulcerated and infected again.

I'm on a 14-day course of Augmentin. I haven't been able to write music today or yesterday, although I'm hoping I can by tomorrow (or at least by Saturday).

Mrs. Prof is now complaining that I've given her the same disease. I hope not.

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Turns out I did give Mrs. Prof the same disease, and thanks to her stubbornness she let it get worse than mine. She now has an acute maxial infection with water behind the ear, according to the folks at CareNow. And, for some dumb reason, she's going to continue with plans to conduct a feral cat round-up on Sunday. She's going to make herself worse, especially when you consider that she's got to take me to my pain med checkup on Monday.

To add to the agony, the stupid Windows update made Google Drive try and sync with every file on my system, and in my anxiousness to get them off, I wound up deleting most of what was there, including my medical records. That's it - I'm using Dropbox from now on, because I'm going to have to restore a recent image backup to an empty drive and then restore what I had from Google drive just so I can access my medical records.

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Had a pair of steroid injection procedures into my back last Friday at the hospital. One was into my lower right side of my back , while the other was into my sacroiliac joint (basically, my tailbone) on my left side. The latter was done to fix, believe it or not, a problem with my left leg. I couldn't lift it onto the threshold of a car in order to enter, or up onto a stool to dry it off after a shower. The pain was excruciating.

After the procedure, half my butt was numb for a day (the left half, obviously). I gave it a test the next day. Carefully, I lifted my left leg and put my foot on a chair.

No pain! None at all.

Today marks four days since the procedure, and I still don't have any pain lifting my left leg. It's almost like I never had any pain there in the first place. The story with my right side is a bit different: just a tiny amount of relief. Still, I consider the left side relief a miracle.

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At work, I often deal with alarms.  The most frequent alarm to go off on weekends or in the middle of the night is a "Trouble Alarm".  That means a technician, who won't get to work for up to four days, needs to look at a piece of equipment and reset a sensor.

In the meantime, I am left with a alarm that I can not reset, silence, or even acknowledge without permission from maintenance and the alarm company.

Pain is an alarm.  It lets you know something is wrong with the body.  But once the pain is acknowledged, does it need to keep screaming?

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10 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Pain is an alarm.  It lets you know something is wrong with the body.  But once the pain is acknowledged, does it need to keep screaming?

Judging by how many people forget an alarm or warning almost as soon as it stops....

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I'm waiting for insurance approval to have an operation that will supposedly help with debilitating pain down my right side and right leg. We're talking about an 8.0 to 9.0 on a zero-to-ten scale. The pain kicked in out of nowhere on Monday of last week and hasn't left.

The operation I'm waiting for is something called "radio ablation" of my right side nerve endings along my spinal cord. It's hard to describe, but it's supposed to make things feel better. I damn sure hope so.

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TMI post below

 

It seems that I'm off what ever it was that made me constipated.  This is mainly good, but I sorta had gotten used to only needing to have a BM once every 3 or 4 days.  This twice daily is sort of unsettling me.

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I've been having this weird need to take a deep breath.  I don't feel like I'm suffocating or anything dramatic like that, but when it happens it doesn't feel right unless I get full expansion that I can feel in my diaphragm and ribcage.  Sometimes it'll turn into a yawn, maybe because that's the closest thing in the regular world, but most of the time it's just inhale deeply, then exhale.

I'm wondering if it's because of the CPAP.  I've been using it for over two weeks now, and I sleep just fine with it but I don't really feel any different during the day.  I am, of course, asleep when using it so I can't tell whether it's helping me until I see the sleep doctor again and he downloads all the saved data from the machine.  Is wearing the mask and breathing into it until I fall asleep making me more aware of my breathing?  Is it some sort of effect from breathing against increased pressure retraining my lungs on what feels normal?  Am I just weird?  Guess I'll find out when I see the doc again.

Don't worry, if I get any shortness of breath or other signs of hypoxia I'll call sooner than that.

Interestingly enough, in order for insurance to pay for the darn thing, I apparently have to use it at least five hours a night for most nights, so it has given me another incentive to curb my tendency to read, internet, or otherwise keep myself awake far too late in the night and ending up short on sleep.  You'd think that and fewer apnea incidents would make me feel better rested....

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Just for variety, I woke up last night around 4am in a cold sweat and very nauseous.  Unproductive retching.  No improvement by 7am so I called in sick to work, at first just for the morning but there weren't a lot of appointments in the afternoon so I let them convince me to take the whole day.  Nausea was mostly gone by mid-day but still slept most of the afternoon.  I had some ginger ale and Jello, this evening I went to the grocery store long enough to get crackers and Rice Krispies, my go-to bland diet since I was a kid, and some Gatorade and juice.  Tomorrow is my day off.  Here's hoping it works itself out by Weds so I can get back to work.

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1 hour ago, CritterKeeper said:

Just for variety, I woke up last night around 4am in a cold sweat and very nauseous.  Unproductive retching.  No improvement by 7am so I called in sick to work, at first just for the morning but there weren't a lot of appointments in the afternoon so I let them convince me to take the whole day.  Nausea was mostly gone by mid-day but still slept most of the afternoon.  I had some ginger ale and Jello, this evening I went to the grocery store long enough to get crackers and Rice Krispies, my go-to bland diet since I was a kid, and some Gatorade and juice.  Tomorrow is my day off.  Here's hoping it works itself out by Weds so I can get back to work.

Feel better, Crits. We're relying on you to make this forum a better place, so we would like you to be healthy. Don't push yourself too hard, your health comes first!

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2 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Feel better, Crits. We're relying on you to make this forum a better place, so we would like you to be healthy. Don't push yourself too hard, your health comes first!

SECONDED

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I'll make a long story short (or avoid repeating a story) and say I have an infection in the tip of my second toe, left foot. It's a leftover from an ingrown toenail. At one point, the infection was quite large. My podiatrist keeps treating it, and every time we think we've got it knocked out, it comes roaring back again. This time, he decided to try attacking it with Bactrim double-strength. Big horse pill.

I'm not having fun with it.

I've been tired all day long, but at the same time I've had insomnia. I can't sleep until I wear myself out. Both are side effects of the Bactrim. I'm starting to get other side effects as well, such as loss of appetite and a feeling that my head is spinning. Most recent of all, I'm getting discomfort in my lower back - bad enough to Google it to see if kidneys ever get involved.

I'm going to give the doctor a call later today to see what he wants me to do.

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Got back from my main doctor about 30 minutes ago, after being told to see him by the podiatrist (we'll call him Dr. P). Dr. P told me to stop taking the Bactrim and get my back pain checked out for possible kidney problems. My main doctor did just that and found that there may in fact be kidney problems, based on where and how bad the pain is. He ordered labs stat and should have the results tomorrow. In the meanwhile, he suggested putting a lidocaine patch over them if my oxycodone isn't giving me enough relief.

This one's got me a bit scared, folks. I don't know what's going to happen.

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1 hour ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

This one's got me a bit scared, folks. I don't know what's going to happen.

Understandable, Prof. But we are with you. Don't hesitate to come to us if you need to vent, or to PM me in private if you want to talk but don't feel like putting it on the forums. Let's hope it is something that is not too difficult to deal with. And take good care of yourself.

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I had some trouble with the patient portal this morning. It sent me an e-mail that said I had new test results available. However, there was a system glitch that wouldn't let me log on to see it. I called the doctor's office and reported it. I did eventually get in around 1pm - the test was a simple CBC, showing normal results.

Around 4pm, I got a phone call from the nurse, asking me if I got in. She also told me that the doctor had all of the test results, but hadn't had time to go through them yet. I'm now waiting for either a phone call or another e-mail from the doctor via the patient portal with results.

Meanwhile, I'm still having discomfort in the kidney area. The Bactrim DS side effects of weakness and dizziness are going away, at least - I was able to do some music writing - but whatever it did to my kidneys, if anything, is still hanging around.

BTW, the Bactrim DS is going to be replaced by Keflex 3x a day. It's been a long time since I've taken that stuff.

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Just got my results from the doctor. His truncated reply:

Quote

I got your lab results and your sugar, liver, kidney functions, and electrolytes are normal. The urine was cloudy but there was no protein or sediment, and there weren't any blood cells or pus present, so this is reassuring.

The blood count is all normal as well.

Again, I'm happy with the results but it doesn't tell us what is causing the symptoms.

So, it's cross-your-fingers time and hope the discomfort goes away.

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2 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

So, it's cross-your-fingers time and hope the discomfort goes away.

Well, it is extremely annoying that you haven't found out what causes the pain but I am also immensely relieved that your internal organs seem to be working okay. I will take that as a comfort and be grateful for it.

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I have had a nasty turn for the worse.

I first reported trouble with the second toe on my left foot back in February, specifically with an ingrown toenail. The toenail had to be removed, and I was placed on antibiotics for the infection that had developed around it.

I've been on antibiotics of one kind or another almost non-stop since then. The infection never did completely go away. I had Silvadene cream and other ointments prescribed. None of them totally wiped out the infection.

In the past few weeks, the toe itself has become extremely painful to the touch. The infection was just a small spot on the outside, but the pain involved the skin covering the two end bones of the toe. My podiatrist had no explanation. A week ago, I began to experience swelling in both my legs from the foot to the knee. Walking became almost impossible. The podiatrist finally ordered a nuclear bone scan to see if anything was wrong with the bones of the toe itself.

As it turns out, I have a bone infection. Osteomyelitis of the tip end bone and possibly the second bone. There's no way to confirm with a biopsy or MRI, since the bones are so small. He gave me two options - a referral to an infectious disease specialist, or amputation of the toe. I had an appointment with my regular doctor to discuss an upper respiratory infection later that same day, so I decided to let him consult on the decision.

My doctor immediately recognized what was going on with my foot and legs, and connected the two. He said that the bone infection was causing the swelling (edema) in my legs. He prescribed a diuretic for the swelling, but couldn't do much about the pain since I'm already on oxycodone. He then checked out my mouth and throat and confirmed the upper respiratory infection, complicated by a case of thrush in my mouth (a fungal/yeast infection). He switched out my antibiotic to Augmentin and added Fluconazole tablets to my already huge mix.

In the end, he ordered a stat referral to an infectious disease specialist in an attempt to save my toe. I'm hoping the referral comes as early as Monday. I doubt it will, but I'm going to ride them hard on the matter. This hurts too bad to leave it alone.

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Oof, Prof!

I just did a thread binge to catch up, and boy howdy have I missed a roller-coaster!  Hopefully things go well from here on.

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Okay, this was kinda creepy.

Today I realised that I was running out of every single medication I am taking practically all at the same time. Sure, not a big deal. All I have to do is request new prescriptions and these days I can do that in like 30 seconds online. And by tomorrow at the latest I will receive confirmation and can head straight to the pharmacy for refills.

Still, it was the sheer timing of it. It creeped me out. I am very glad it is this easy to deal with these days. It has long been my nightmare scenario to be cut off from my medication and this gave me a reminder of it I really didn't need. :icon_eek:

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