Just Health

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Dave Loudin
OMG! This is quite a revelation to me. My life has gone sideways of late, with my marriage falling apart and my career in a low point. I had been blaming my funk on the pinched nerves in my neck that had been sending out a constant "white noise" if you will. I've had those nerves zapped by RF and that has been quite a relief. However, I've still had real trouble getting going on anything, feeling like I'm staring uphill at a mound of trouble of my own creation. Trying to force myself to get away from the computer and get to work leads to sleepy bouts.

Now that I think a bit more about the last few years, I was having these issues before the accident. I've got a follow up with my doctor to discuss results of my physical (which I had delayed for months until I was about to run out of synthroid.) I'm definitely going to bring this up.

I'm sorry that you've been having such a hard time, Dave. I hope that your doctor can do something for you.

You should be in bed asleep, J-Will

I'll sleep when I'm dead. So, next week some time, probably.

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bahamut
were you guys hyperactive kids? it changes as you become an adult and hyperactivity is one of the things that most people lose.

No. I was never a hyperactive kid but my inattentive habits were textbook ADD from the very beginning.

Well losing yourself in an activity to an unhealthy degree, losing track of everything else, or hyperfocus is very much a symptom. And yes, things change over time.

How often do you lose things? For me it's a few times a day, easily.

If you're talking to me, I rarely lose things. But I never remember where I put anything. The way my brain works is odd; I don't have any memory of where I put things, I have a set of associations of objects with locations. "If I'd used the calculator, I'd have put it in the drawer in the kitchen island." Having kids screwed this up for a while since they love to move stuff. Things are chaotic for a while when I move to a new house.

The same thing applies to my routine activities. I have what I call my scripts, sets of activities to be performed in a specific order. I run one every day when I get up, to get ready for the day. If something interrupts the process (phone call, household emergency), I can easily forget stages and go to work unshaven or even take my blood pressure medicine twice (fun). Fortunately, I've never forgotten to dress. (Yet.)

In each case, it feels to me that I have coping mechanisms working around a fundamentally flawed memory. But I've never been sure what "normal" is in this area, if everybody has these mechanisms in one form or another.

Seems like a lot of it, at least by our age, is finding ways to cope with our problems……

ADD and Loving It!

Yes, the host is Patrick McKenna, better known as Harold from The Red Green Show... hard to recognize him with the beard (and without the glasses).

Nearing the end of two days of testing to see if I'm a candidate for Nissen fundoplication surgery for reflux disease. After having an alarmingly hefty-looking tube inserted up my nose and down into my stomach, then pulled up to various points in my esophagus for swallow tests this morning, I now have a somewhat smaller tube inserted for a 24 hour test. The former was unpleasant, the latter is more annoying than anything. Tomorrow, after the tube is removed, I have another upper GI endoscopy (I had one two years ago). Having followed Bill's story, I'm not messing around with this. Medications have only partially controlled the reflux, and longterm use of the meds causes osteoporosis, which is also something I'd rather avoid. I feel like a walking, talking "Welcome Back Kotter" tagline: "Up your nose with a rubber hose!"

I am glad to hear you are taking this seriously. Wishing you the best. All I can say is from personal experience that what you are going through is worth it if you can avoid what I went through. And of course avoid the other bad outcome if left unchecked/treated. The only test that made me cringe was the enteroclysis. Thoroughly, uncomfortably disgusting.

Hey, better through the nose than other orifices...

I once had to have one of those nasogastric thingies for three weeks. Very glad to get it out...

Thanks, Bill. Tony: three weeks! Ugh.

Glad to hear your Arnold Horshack phase is nearing an end. Hopefully the end result is good news.

I think that was Vinnie Barbarino, but it's been a while. Best wishes, Jeff.

Today's test wasn't the endoscopy I was expecting, but just a normal upper GI. Much easier. And the tube's out. Now we'll see what the surgeon says.

Arrgh… taking 36mg (up from 18 last week) of Concerta and it seems to do nothing from me now except inspire me to clean up a little bit more and lesson a little better. It's an improvement, but my work life is still floundering weeks later, which is why I went to the doctor in the first place…

As I mentioned, 36mg did nothing for me. I'm on 72mg.

I'm just thinking my doctor is not going to believe me … But yeah, there was a kid in the next yard and I was brought to my knees all afternoon.

I can clean up after myself better, but concentrate at work… no way.

I'm great at putting together dozens of ideas… last night I spent 8 hours on ancestry.com and did a huge amount of work on our family tree.

But how is this project I am doing right now?

Well, I'm here right?

My shoulder is still horrendously painful (torn rotator cuff, bicep tearing off of arm, I've bored you with this before.) I went back to the doctor today.

He gave me another cortisone injection. The last one was near my rotator cuff, this one was deeper into the joint. How I react to these injections tells him more about the nature of my problem. I am to give it two or three weeks and see if pain diminishes and/or I regain some range of motion. With this information, I can proceed to either 1) continue to get the shots every four months (if it fixes all of my problems) or 2) Have exploratory arthroscopic surgery to check the joint out. Depending on the nature of the damage he can perform an operation to detach my bicep from the bone it's tearing off of and re-attaching it to a point on my humerus. This would be done if the joint seemed otherwise functional. But he's seen in the MRI and/or the X-Rays that it looks like my cartilage is thinning and may be gone in some places. In this case, shoulder pain would continue until I had a shoulder replacement surgery. He considers me too young for shoulder replacement to be a good idea. It's possible that I might get the bicep operation to relieve the pain in my arm, and stop the "drop outs" that I've been getting, where I lose all strength in my arm for a second or so, but keep my de-cartilaged shoulder and live with that pain.

So I will assess my pain and motion range in a few weeks, and if things are not sufficiently improved, I will get the exploratory surgery to see how to proceed. This may seem to be somewhat depressing, but I'm actually pleased that things are moving forward. After all, this weekend I was prepared to do a home amputation with a kitchen knife, except that I'd've neeeded my right arm to do it.

Hang in there J-Will.
I have never had cortisone shots. Chap at work has a ruptured disk, thought he'd need surgery and be out for three months. His first cortisone shot has brought him back to 95% as he puts it.
I guess I am befuddled by exactly what/how a cortisone shot works and all.
Either way, I wish you the best.