Month: June 2017

How Come My Disability Check is So Small?

Posted on by akiwifreund

This is something that I was trying to explain to people who don’t receive disability, but it’s something that’s invaluable to know if you DO receive disability or anticipate that you will be receiving it in the near future in the U.S. as well (as I hope to be by next year, dammit). Thank you, as always, sleepygirl.
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How to Get On

eightfoundlingsredoFoundlings by Marion Michell

Many people get a low Social Security check for many years and do not understand why this is happening or if anything will change it.

Lucky you! You have come to the right place to figure some stuff out.

Reasons Your SSDI Check Might Be Low

Reasons Your SSI Check Might Be Low

Reasons Your SSI May be Denied or Cut Off

What is the Difference Between SSI and SSDI?

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Big Help In A Little Package – TechCare Pro24 Ultimate Massager Review

Posted on by akiwifreund

People often ask me just what it is that I do with all of my time now that I’m stuck in bed. I love writing and I count myself lucky to have been included in the Chronic Illness Bloggers network, and given many opportunities to try products I wouldn’t otherwise have access to. I have been given this product as part of a product review through the Chronic Illness Bloggers network. Although the product was a gift, all opinions in this review remain my own and I was in no way influenced by the company.

Back in 2007, I had a beast of a knee operation. My right patella (“knee cap”) was tracking wrong, meaning it was slightly dislocated, so it would cause all kinds of problems as I bent and straightened my leg and my patella slid all over the place – but not exactly where it should have. I also had damage to the underlying cartilage. Before surgery I was required to go through months of physical therapy to strengthen the surrounding muscles, and after surgery of course I had to recover. It took me a year to straighten my leg.

Anyone who has been through orthopedic surgery has had a run-in with a TENS unit. I was issued a big, black carrying case with a handle, multiple square pads and a control box with a dial. The controller had an on/off switch and the dial to change the intensity of the charge, and that’s it – no frills. You got what you got.

I didn’t have any expectations with this TechCare Pro24 Ultimate Massager, deliberately.
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In actuality, I was pleasantly surprised. The controller feels like it’s made of high quality metal, not cheap plastic. It has the capability of running two lead lines at a time, though the user can choose to run one lead at a time. The lead lines themselves are considerably long, which is useful if you need to reach around to the back of your body for any reason (which, if you’re anything like me, you will).
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I’ve been trying to walk outside while the weather has been cooperating, because I’m trying to get stronger. I have a lot of joint pain because of fibromyalgia, plus I’m in bed a lot to keep the pressure off of my brain, but the downside is that the rest of my body pays the price. Since I’m walking outside there’s a lot of variation in the elevation and terrain and my muscles and joints very quickly and loudly rebel. It’s the perfect time to put the TechCare Pro24 Ultimate Massager to the test.

I want to pick the right size of pad according to where on my body I want to attach the pads. This unit comes with three sizes:
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I chose to work on my right hip, which never fails to make its presence known. The big, rectangular pads are the best for that area of my body, so I decided to slap one on my back right flank, and then one on the top of my right femur.

The TechCare Pro24 Ultimate Massager doesn’t run on willpower alone; it needs actual electricity to roll. I’m always in front of my laptop, so I chose the option to hook up the unit to the USB portal for the juice.
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So as I had everything hooked up and charging, the next step was to choose the actual mode that would work best for what I wanted to accomplish, which would be to relax my right hip. I pushed the slide button over on the top so that the unit turned on, and then I could see the different choices for the massages for the most helpful option. Every time a different mode out of the six options are chosen, the strength returns to the lowest intensity so that the user can change it to his or her most tolerable level. I think this is a good thing because some modes felt more stinging than others, depending on the intensity.
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My favorite option that I found for my hip is the one that appears with the number “1” in this picture. As you can see, I didn’t even have to go to half intensity to feel the effects. The timer starts at 15 minutes but can be reprogrammed all the way up to 60 minutes.

At one point a friend called during one of my sessions, and I was so relaxed that he asked me if he had awakened me from a nap.

I did try it on other areas of my body – my neck, my left shoulder, my right quadriceps – and I tried out the other modes. The best thing to do is try the modes and strengths and find the best combination of style and length of time, because there’s no one-size-fits-all like there used to be with the old TENS units.

One extra goody that is included in the package is a chart of the human body and suggestions of where to place the pads to relieve certain pains.

This TechCare Pro24 Ultimate Massager is light years past that unit I had to use ten years ago for my knee rehab, and is much more affordable to boot. You can find it here – check it out!

Pat, I’d Like To Solve The Puzzle

Posted on by akiwifreund

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This week I’ve been taking care of stuff; taking care of me by walking to make myself stronger, taking care of medical records, taking care of clogs in my sinks and taking care of throwing out excess trash. It’s the medical records that sent into emotional pits, though. I was angry after reviewing a bunch of misinformation and it was rolling around in my head. But then I had an epiphany.

Back when I started having operations on my cranium, when my shunts were relocated from my back to my brain, my neurosurgeon remarked that my meninges were incredibly tough to break through. I don’t believe he’s ever noted that on my medical records, though. But his memory is like a steel trap so if I went back to him, he will probably be able to recall it with certainty. It certainly stuck with me. He said he had only seen it once before in his lifetime.

And then there was this published paper by Jonathan Kipnis where he explains that he and his team discovered lymphatic drainage vessels in the cranium. They weren’t known about before because when autopsies and dissections were performed, the lymphatic vessels were torn and destroyed because of their fragility. This paper was published in July of 2015; I traded emails with Jonathan in November of 2015. He explained that he doesn’t actually work with humans in clinical trials so he couldn’t help me, but after I connected the dots this week, I emailed him. I’m not sure I’ll hear from him.

Lastly, I have this mast cell activation disease diagnosis from Dr. Afrin. When I saw him in January, he told me that my outrageously high histamine level is probably what is making everything change and grow into scar tissue, including the tumor, as well as the tract along the shunt.

So here’s what I think is happening: Back in 2010 when I first started having the really bad symptoms, the meninges had already turned tough because of my high histamine levels, and the fluid can’t drain properly into the lymphatic drainage vessels like it normally would. That’s why I need shunts. The shitty part is that I’m allergic to the shunts. Just as an aside, this whole time I thought that the underlying cause was an autoimmune disease, but of course I had no idea what it would be.

So what now? That’s the question my mom asked. The tissue that has changed cannot be changed back. There is nothing on the market that I’m not allergic to. I’m at a high risk for aneurysm or stroke. This is going to kill me, there’s just no telling when. I mean really, who else do you know that is going through this? None of my doctors would be able to begin to guess.

Of course, I have to check with my doctors…but again, I’m the one leading them, not the other way around, which is almost always the way it is with rare disease. First I’ll see the neurologist and explain all of this to her, and hand her Dr. Afrin’s notes and Dr. Kipnis’ notes. I’ll see Dr. Afrin in August. After that, I’ll contact my neurosurgeon in Phoenix and roll this past him. I hope that he remembers that I was right about everything that I told him, even though some things took as much as 2.5 years to admit.

So for now I’m still waiting for my disability hearing. I talked to my attorney’s office and they called the person who sets the dates for the hearings, and they were told that hearings were being set for 18-22 months past the appeal filing. My last appeal was filed in February of 2016 (the initial filing was April 2015), so by the time I’m in front of a judge, I’ll have been waiting for nearly 3 years. Every state is different. I can’t get a rush unless I’m homeless, stage IV cancer, a danger to myself, or I have no access to care.

So I wait.