Posts Tagged ‘health’

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.

06
Feb
2021

My history with anxiety to diagnosis.

categories: personal; word count: 374 words

Since I had done a post about my depression, I figured… well, why not add this in as well?

This seemed to be something that was exacerbated by being pregnant, although I think I’ve always had some degree of anxiety beyond what normal people feel in certain situations. When I contacted my primary care physician and explained to him how the 20mg of nortryptline that I had been put on was alleviating symptoms of depression, I added anxiety in there as well. I figured that if I was going to medicate one of them, I should medicate both of them… and as it turned out, nortryptline at a higher dose than what my neurologist had prescribed me could be used to alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression. In my mind, unchecked, what can go wrong “does” or “should” go wrong, if any of that makes sense. Prior to beginning treatment for anxiety and depression, I always braced myself for the idea of what could go wrong actually going wrong, even though my mind knew that me doing this was beyond how most people normally… deal with things. At around the time that I got sick of having a chronically low mood and lack of desire to participate in hobbies and interests, I got sick of the anxiety and the hypervigilance. I wanted a change.

Until I began taking medication for it, though, I didn’t quite realize how much anxiety had taken over my life, and how the… decrease in anxiety (does any of this make sense? I hope it does) freed up parts of my brain that could be used on other things, or for other pursuits. It was like it became a part of my personality, one that I didn’t want other people to know about if I could avoid it, but one that crept out enough to the point that people close to me could guess or were aware that I had anxiety. I’m glad to have admitted that I have it, that it is a part of me, and am seeking appropriate treatment for it in the form of taking daily medication.

At some point in time, probably earlier on in my life, anxiety actually became a facet of my personality.

20
Dec
2020

I should have done this awhile ago…

categories: personal; word count: 406 words

For the most part, I’ve transferred my neurological care from the neurologist that I was seeing one town over to the local pain management clinic here in my city. My primary care doctor was, and has been, in full support of this and thinks that it was (is? how do I phrase this?) the right thing to do. We discussed Botox when I was seen for the first time, which I am amenable to attempting… we just need to get insurance approval for it, or know that insurance denied the clinic’s attempt to seek approval for it from me so that we can appeal the denial. So far, no one relevant has heard anything back about whether it was denied or approved… so I guess that’s a waiting game, and we’ll see when we see. In the interim, and to have it on hand in the event that I need it, I’ve been prescribed Fioricet again, and we are currently working on getting me the highest dose and frequency of that medication which works, but not go beyond that unless we have to so that I don’t inure to it the same way triptans do in that they no longer work on me at all. “Fioricet is love, Fioricet is life” has become one of my biggest inside jokes, because to be honest, it works decently…

For me, for someone who very often doesn’t get a lot of pain relief other than by waiting it out, this is huge.

I also found out that I am on nearly the largest dose of Gabapentin. That is 3,000mg, and I am currently on 2,700mg. I’m also not sure if I’ve mentioned it here, but I’ve begun to develop peripheral neuropathy on my left side due to it… but as long as it helps migraines, which it does, I am reluctant to give that up unless I am made to give that up. The only major downside to this is that I am left-side dominant. My left ring finger, left pinkie finger, and the area going downward from that to my elbow is numb now. I also can’t bear weight on or with my left hand. But like I’ve said, if it makes a sizable dent in the pain, I am willing to live with all that.

The back of my left foot is also numb, which means that I have to be careful walking, but… see above, heh.

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