Posts Tagged ‘health’

25
Apr
2021

I stand corrected. I completely stand corrected.

categories: personal; word count: 198 words

I got the results of my blood work back, and in a twist that is going to surprise everyone that has anything to do with my care… I do not have diabetes. At all. My fasting blood sugar was 86, and my A1C actually dropped from 5.8 to 5.5. The only thing that was outside of normal bounds was my good cholesterol, which was four points from being within normal bounds. My bad cholesterol was within the acceptable range, though. So that kind of makes you think… if one’s good cholesterol is a bit too low, shouldn’t you expect your bad cholesterol to be a bit too high? Except that wasn’t the case here. But I suppose my doctor can explain it.

Now that I don’t have diabetes, we need to figure out what is causing these wounds, because something has to be. I’ve had the worst one for going on a month and a week now. You don’t just get wounds like these for no reason. Google hasn’t been particularly helpful, either. It keeps telling me that the most likely cause of these wounds is uncontrolled diabetes, and I don’t even have diabetes, which throws that out the window.

13
Apr
2021

It also took nine years for this to happen.

categories: personal; word count: 236 words

I have a smaller wound next to the… largest wound.

Since I had been preparing for that likelihood, taking oral antibiotics in addition to using antibiotic cream on the infected areas, I was quickly able to find it. This one formed a bit more painfully than that one, although that one formed slightly painfully as well (and was misattributed to “chub rub”). It formed almost like a burn would have, and it certainly looked like one, although now I know what the most likely cause of these are.

With my third stimulus check, I bought an indoor bicycle since that is more my “style” and can easily be put together and stored in my room. If I can keep this at bay with exercise, I fully intend to do so, although I also know that I have an extensive family history of early-onset type two diabetes… so I may not be able to outrun this. Not entirely. I can see me needing to be put on some kind of medication for it in the (near) future.

To be honest, I did expect cellulitis to be a diagnosis because of how some of these wounds formed. To know that there is a specific cause behind them connected with family history has been a bit depressing, though.

But in case it needs to be said, I also spent a portion of my third stimulus check on exercise equipment.

11
Apr
2021

It took nine years for this to happen.

categories: personal; word count: 320 words

So I made an appointment with my primary care physician over a wound that would not heal. I began taking 60mg of prednisone to break a migraine that persisted in coming back in spite of my medication regimen for it with the intent to stop taking said prednisone once it had broken for twenty-four hours… you know, standard operating procedure here. Within a few days, I had noticed a wound beginning to form on my left leg that I thought was “chub rub”, as it certainly looked like it. I began to bandage and medicate it with Neosporin four times a day just to see another, smaller wound appear on my right leg. So I began to bandage and medicate that one as well, curious as to why they had appeared — and why, as a friend that saw them had stated, they looked like burn marks. Four weeks came and went without them healing at all. They didn’t get any worse, but they didn’t get any better, either. And frankly, they were kind of weird…

I had enough foresight to take pictures of them and save them on my phone, which I showed my doctor in lieu of having to take my yoga pants off since they were on the insides of my thighs. He became concerned that I had begun to develop steroid-dependent diabetes as a result of the nine years that I’ve done taking prednisone as needed and started me on some antibiotics in an attempt to help these wounds heal up. If they don’t, or if they heal very minimally, we’ll be talking wound care to the tune of having a skin graft placed on the worse one since it is causing me significant pain and is impairing my ability to sit normally. It’s weird.

I did some blood work for my doctor and will be getting the results of that (diabetes? no?) at my next visit.

21
Feb
2021

Since I promised that post, here goes nothing.

categories: personal; word count: 330 words

I had my first seizure in April of 2019 when my mother was still alive.

It woke me up from deep sleep, and I went through the whole aura, seizure, and postdrome.

Since this was my first seizure, I didn’t know what was going on and felt like I was dying. It lasted a few minutes, but my sense of time was heavily distorted — to me, it felt like absolutely forever. And symptoms of it left as quickly as it came on, although I felt exhausted at the end of it. For me, the aura often involves experiencing an intense feeling that does not quite match the situation, and the seizure itself feels like my brain is being shocked or an egg that is thrown against hot concrete to cook. I can vocalize during these, although the people that I have vocalized to have told me that I seem “off” having these conversations. I don’t want to vocalize while I’m having them though, not unless I have to, because it feels like I’m taxing the small part of my brain that is completely aware of what is going on. I can also do very basic things during some of my seizures, which perplexes me. Others, I have to wait until it passes. There is no rhyme or reason.

Sometimes I can go months without a seizure. Other times, I have multiple seizures in a month.

I also do not have any involuntary motor movement. However, I am known to hold my head with my hands and rest my elbows on my lap, and the quieter my surroundings are when they can help it, the better. Almost all of the time I still feel the peculiar emotion that was present during my aura, although by the end of the seizure my feelings have returned to normal. Being on Gabapentin for migraines has really helped me out.

Another feature of my seizures are racing thoughts, which also completely stop when the seizures stop.

20
Feb
2021

This is why I am not playing Cyberpunk 2077.

categories: personal, RPGs, survival horror; word count: 188 words

When Cyberpunk 2077 came out, I was initially excited to play the game.

However, that was short-lived when I found out that a certain part of it caused people to have seizures.

I am epileptic myself, although I retain awareness and consciousness during all of my seizures, and I have no involuntary motor movement. Even though I do not appear to be photosensitive, it wasn’t — and isn’t — a risk that I was (am) willing to take, especially if I had a seizure that… laid me out, so to speak. Even though that was almost immediately patched and friends of mine have told me that that section of the game is a lot “tamer”, I still haven’t played our copy of Cyberpunk 2077. I’m waiting for a lot more information to come out about it, especially that part of the game. My seizures feel like something is shocking my brain, like my brain is an egg thrown onto hot concrete, immediately cooking. If I can avoid them, that would just be awesome.

That also reminds me that I would like to write a post all about my epilepsy since why not?

11
Feb
2021

So apparently I have a new diagnosis now, fun.

categories: personal; word count: 184 words

In addition to having chronic, intractable migraines, I have occipital neuralgia now.

This was, as the kids like to say, “sussed out” by the location in which my migraines almost always start. Apparently it’s not a common diagnosis or even a common thing, although I am not surprised to have been diagnosed with… wait for it, something that isn’t common. This would explain why triptans do not really work on me, or they only work a little bit. The pain from occipital neuralgia can not be ameliorated by triptans because that pain is not actually migraine pain, even though I have both diagnoses at present. However, it can be lessened with targeted Botox shots as well as steroid shots along the location in which the nerve travels. I am open to both of these things if they can in any way meaningfully help. My pain management clinic is actually trying to get Botox injections approved for me, so I will see how that goes. It has taken awhile, but apparently these things predictably do. I will just bide my time here and wait, heh.

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