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ProfessorTomoe

Changing Medications (Level of Trust Required)

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9 hours ago, mlooney said:

Can they fix it?

I don't know. I've heard from some sufferers on FB that their atrophy is permanent. Others have had to undergo long periods of physical therapy. My atrophy is pretty severe, now that I know what to look for. We'll see on October 3rd, when I see the doctor.

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Medical Update 9/19/22:

I saw my shoulder surgeon today. His diagnosis: a full-width rotator cuff tear. Solution: major surgery, incapacitated for a couple of months, with it taking a full 9 months to a year to fully heal. However, he told me to see my arm/hand surgeon and talk to them about getting my Cubital Tunnel Syndrome dealt with and my left hand working better than it is now before I go ahead and schedule shoulder surgery now. My arm/hand surgeon appointment is on October 3rd, so my shoulder surgeon follow-up is on October 10th. We'll get things coordinated somehow.

Gonna be a lot of surgery in my near future.

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For the first time in quite a while my blood pressure was high.  Need to test it again later today and of course keep testing of a morning for the rest of the week.  This may be related to me getting crappy sleep last night.

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Just got off the meeting with my shrink.  Major change is to move my Invega to evening as it can cause drowsiness, which may account for may lack of energy of an afternoon.

 

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The thing is I've been taking them with Wellbutrin, which has a "keep you awake" side effect, so I suspect that what is happening is that the Wellbutrin effect is running out of an afternoon and the Invega is taking over.  At least that's what I hope is happening.

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I have a rather long update. Please bear with me.

I had an appointment with a hand and arm surgeon this past Monday morning to see what needed to be done for me. She came highly recommended, and had in fact treated my daughter-in-law some while earlier with excellent results.

After the doctor ran some tests, she discussed the situation with me. Put simply, I'm going to need a double, possibly triple procedure done during a single surgery. It turns out I not only have Cubital Tunnel Syndrome with left hand atrophy, but I have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome as well. She's going to release the Carpal Tunnel and the Cubital Tunnel, and she may have to also perform a traverse of the Cubital Tunnel tendon or nerve (not sure which). All in all, my recovery time is going to take 8 to 11 weeks if everything goes well.

There is a downside. The atrophy of my left hand muscles, severe as it is, is permanent. There is no way to regrow the muscles. Not at my age. Put simply, this means I've lost the use of my pinky finger and most of the use of my ring finger, and I've lost considerable strength in my thumb and in the rest of my hand that I'll never get back. Suffice it to say that I'm going to have to figure out another way of playing bass lines on my Arturia Keylab 88. I'm also going to be a bit slower when it comes to doing input on Cakewalk by Bandlab, especially when Control keys are involved.

The surgery is not a waste of time, though. It will keep my hand from getting worse (e.g., it won't develop a claw posture, nor will it lose more muscle). The tingling sensation I have in it 24/7 is supposed to improve as well. For these reasons among others, I'm going through with it.

There is just one small matter that really irks me about the surgery, and that's the surgery date. Wouldn't you know it, they scheduled it for the release date of my fourth album, "Lady Tygress' Suite and Other Commissions," smack dab on November 4th? There's no way I can reschedule it, either. I'll work something out so that the album gets released on time, but good lord, this is an inconvenience!

Oh, well - such is life.

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Thanks to the muscle atrophy in my left hand, I'm going to have to do something that no beefy, testosterone-hopped, masculine-addicted man would ever admit to doing. I'm going to have to have a manicure. I don't have the muscle strength in my left hand to operate a fingernail clipper, and Mrs. Prof doesn't trust herself enough to keep from drawing blood.

Even though I don't mind admitting to the experience, I'm not looking forward to it. It's a control freak issue. That bit about drawing blood is part of it. Plus, my fingertips are super-sensitive in the fingers that still do work. I can just imagine my hand pulling back in a reflex action and me getting a cut that way.

Will report afterward if able.

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9 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Plus, my fingertips are super-sensitive in the fingers that still do work. I can just imagine my hand pulling back in a reflex action and me getting a cut that way.

Warn your manicurist. The good ones can make allowances that drastically reduce the chance of getting cut.

(Note though that "drastically reduce" is not "eliminate".)

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The nail trip is over. I didn't get a full manicure - just a nail trim and a buffing. The whole experience was, thankfully, quite painless, and quite quick. Just what you'd expect from a nail trimming, except that someone else was doing it for you. End of story. B)

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I have just had to take more pain medicine than I would like. Hear me out before you judge me.

I'd been asleep, until the pain in my right shoulder from the torn rotator cuff woke me up. It was bad. Bad enough to double me over on the right side. My timing was good, since my pain pill alarm went off shortly after I woke up - time check 12:30 a.m. I took a dose of the medicine and let it do its work.

An hour later, it had not alleviated the pain, which had grown much worse. I was getting waves every second that were debilitating me. I couldn't think straight, my vision was affected. It was a 9 on the 0-to-10 scale. I had no choice - I took a second dose of my pain medicine. Time check 1:38 a.m.

Fifteen minutes later, I started to feel relief. It's now 2:10 a.m., and I'm feeling a haze which has knocked back the pain at last. It's back down to a 7.5, which I can live with.

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I had an iron infusion today to combat iron deficiency anemia. The doctor prescribed Venofer, which is used in cases of iron deficiency anemia with chronic kidney disease. She must have seen something in the blood tests - I don't know, the CKD's never been discussed with me. Anyway, it was a 4-hour-long infusion process, beginning with a dose of Tylenol, followed by some dexamethasone (a steroid to prevent rash/itching), followed by the Venofer itself.

The infusion went well - no pain, no problems of any kind. It wasn't until after I got up and started moving around once the infusion was finished that things started getting weird. I started having bad dizziness and some weakness to go along with it. Time went on, and the symptoms did not improve. I had to cancel the physical therapy appointment I had after the infusion.

I got home, and things still did not improve. I went in and out of sleep for the next several hours. It took me several hours to get to where I could type up this update. The infusion started at 9am, finished at 12:30pm, and it's just now past 7:30pm. I'm only now beginning to feel the least bit recovered, and I really do mean the least bit. I hope to be recovered from this mess tomorrow morning, or at least by noon.

I've got another infusion scheduled for the morning of Friday, October 28th. I won't dread it, but at least I now know what to expect from it. The end result is to make me feel better overall. I sure as hell hope it works.

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