Month: August 2017

Oh Ye Of Little Patience

Posted on by akiwifreund

Well-meaning people direct me to online support groups all of the time. Why don’t they work for me? Because I’m a snob.

A couple of days ago, I was summoned across the street to my sister’s place of business, because one of her co-workers knew an artist’s husband very recently had had brain surgery, and thought it might be beneficial for us to visit. As luck would have it, I had just finished showering and slapping on some makeup, so it wasn’t a big deal to finish getting my clothes and wig on to hobble across the street. When I walked in the door, I immediately recognized the woman. We had briefly visited during a previous show at the gallery. She and her husband were very pleased with the surgeon and her husband’s recovery, so I got the name of that doctor and another from her.

However, she looked over the top of her glasses at me and started with, “Have you gone to a chiropractor?“ Yes, I explained, many times, and they did absolutely nothing for me. She wanted to know if I had gone to an herbalist. Yes, again, I sighed wearily, I had, and I’m taking supplements out the wazoo, because I need to, because my diet is very restricted. But they don’t make me better. My issue is mechanical and I need surgery. Then she wanted to know if I had tried the Chinese herbalists next door. I held up my hand and said that I’m very good at researching and am 1 to 7 years ahead of everyone else’s suggestions, so there’s no need to make suggestions. Then she moved to food. Was I juicing? I really needed to juice everything! I said no. She started listing everything I should be eating, so I started cutting her off, telling her that each item caused a release of histamines, so it was actually dangerous for me. (Plus, with the few things I can still eat, why would I juice??? I get so little fiber now, and juicing removes most of the fiber.) Did I try an accupuncturist? Again, yes, and they did nothing for me. I know, I know, hard to believe.

God, I hate getting advice, especially when I don’t say, “Give me advice, I have no idea what to do or where to look.” She did write down the name of her otolaryngologist surgeon, whose specialty is cancer tumors of the head and neck. I’m still going to contact him. My tumor is not cancerous and he may not want to deal with it because it will probably grow back, but it’s worth asking him. However, I may be blacklisted because of my negative encounters with three other doctors within the same university system who said my problems were psychosomatic.

So, back to support groups: I hate them. I also can’t keep my mouth shut. One week, someone posted something about how she wished our rare disease doctor would team up with another doctor who researches the same disease. Unfortunately, the other doctor doesn’t have a license, so he can’t see other patients. I pointed this out. She said fine, then everyone needs to take care of themselves and stop smoking so they’re not on oxygen. That really pissed me off because the majority of us in the group can barely eat any foods safely because we’re always dealing with hives, have a really hard time finding medicines that don’t cause hives/asthma/anaphylaxis, and don’t smoke. I’m fucking allergic to smoke. I told her she was lecturing the wrong group. Other people got pissed off too. But then another person singled me out and told me to tone it down, and then it just went downhill from there. I was told that I should have just kept scrolling if I didn’t like what I saw. Then the original poster said she didn’t know that doctors needed licenses and not everyone knows that. I got so angry that I said that the leading doctor in this field most likely already considered the option of teaming up with other leaders, but they were in situations he was trying to get away from, so it was a moot point, and we should use common sense.

I admit it, I’m a snob. (For some reason, the woman who was trolling me told me that I was going off on a tangent because of that last remark. I told her that there was nothing that I was saying that was off topic, and I was responding to everything she and the OP were saying. I don’t think she understood what “tangent” meant.)

I’ve talked about this with my counselor. She agrees with me that a group setting isn’t what suits me best. I tend to steamroll people. Just today, someone in a group asked, “How many of you have NOT had _______?” and a bunch of people said “I didn’t,” but then a bunch of other people said, “Oh, I did, and it was like this and this and that.” So I wrote a message saying, “So, I thought this was about people who didn’t?” I got a reply that basically said that people wanted to share no matter what the question was.

Why don’t those fuckers write their own blogs if they’ve got so much to share?

Give Me Liberty (In A Dropper)! – Product 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.

Unfortunately, one theme that is constant and recurring in the chronic illness community is pain and fatigue. No matter the ailment or diagnosis, these are our constant companions. In my family alone we are a soup of autoimmune diseases – where there is one, there are many. I have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, alopecia universalis, hidradenitis suppurativa and mast cell activation syndrome. Other immediate family members have lupus and RA, and branching out we have polymyalgia rheumatica and MS. The only one on my personal list that doesn’t cause me pain and fatigue is the alopecia, and that’s because I no longer get 75 shots in my scalp every three weeks.

I was really excited to have the opportunity to try the Liberty Lixir Ultra High CBD Tincture.
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Now, I don’t know how much you, dear reader, know about CBDs. I also don’t know how much you know about hemp vs. marijuana. I can give you a quick and dirty explanation since I was on the medical marijuana program through the State of Arizona for some months because I’m allergic to the shunts that have been implanted in my brain and it’s incredibly painful. Hemp = legal, made into all kinds of products including paper, clothing, balms; can be cooked to extract chemicals at certain temperatures called CBDs, which are natural painkillers. Has less than 0.3 percent THC on a dry-weight basis, therefore making it nearly impossible for you to get high off of hemp. Weed = much less legal across the board relatively speaking, beloved for its much higher THC content and therefore “trippy” effect, also can be cooked at a certain temperature to extract CBDs.

This particular product is made from hemp. Because it still has that trace amount of THC, you have to be cautious about consuming this if you are going to be subjected to any testing. It’s a bummer, I know, because it’s not like you’re doing something you shouldn’t be – you’re just going for some pain control.

And this little bottle does a stellar job. Liberty Lixir packs a good wallop with the 1,000 mg of CBDs. It’s a very simple formula too. The hemp oil is mixed with coconut oil and vitamin E, and as noted on the bottle, you don’t have to worry about GMOs or anything unnatural. As you can see, the solution is completely clear:
20170804_200759-1 The instructions are simple. 10 drops under the tongue, hold them there for 60 seconds (so they can absorb sublingually). It’s the fastest and best way to deliver meds to your system instead of trying to absorb them through your acidic stomach.

I’ve been walking lately and working on my physical therapy exercises to make myself stronger and improve my balance, because I have a lot of little falls during the day. But this also makes me incredibly sore and tired. I just can’t win! Sore from being up, sore from being in bed all day. As soon as this arrived, I started with the doses.

In about two days’ time, I started feeling a marked difference. Now, I feel like I should be a skeptic and say that CBD oil seems like it’s too good to be true. Maybe it’s a placebo effect. But I am going to be very specific and say that I’ve been on the medical marijuana program and used the edibles and those still got me very loopy – unfortunately. I didn’t like them. I want to be in full control AND feel better. And I feel like I achieved that with Liberty Lixir. [If you want even better results, you can eliminate foods that cause inflammation and allergies, which I had to do out of necessity because my lips swelled up and I lost the entire lining of my mouth.] But I feel like my joint pain is down to about 30-40% of what it was before.

There were only two small things I had to get used to with this product: 1) The oil base. I’m not used to having straight-up oil in my mouth. 2) There is a hint of “green” taste that is particular to hemp/marijuana products that I always notice and others may not be bothered by – I’m just a super taster.

Liberty Lixir is something that I (and you) will want to continue using once it’s started. I can’t imagine not having it as part of my daily regimen now because I feel so much better. If you haven’t tried CBD oil for pain control before, this is a good hemp product to give it a whirl. This bottle lasted me approximately one month.

Who Wants To Live Forever?

Posted on by akiwifreund

1912 was an awfully long time ago. World War I didn’t even start until two years after that. Not everyone had a car, or electricity, or running water. The stock market crashed in 1929. The dust bowl and the great depression happened after that, and World War II.

But I’m getting way ahead of myself, so let me go back to 1912, because that’s the year that my Grandpa Ed was born. And now, maybe in a matter of hours and maybe in a few days, at the age of 105, we are going to say goodbye to him.

Imagine what it would have been like to see what he has seen. He grew up in a tiny rural town in a large family and didn’t speak English until around age 12. His family came from the area that is now known as Slovenia; then it would have been either Yugoslavia or Hungary, depending on whatever local wars had been fought and won or lost. 

When he was 17, the stock market crashed, and it was the beginning of the great depression. It was also the beginning of prohibition. He knew who was running booze out of the church basement, but he never got in on it. He just kept his head down and his mouth shut. The county where he lived all of his life is actually the moonshine capital of the U.S. and still has active backyard stills to this day, now that making your own hooch is back in vogue.

Grandpa really wanted to be a baseball player. 

Eventually he married my Grandma. We didn’t hear much about their courtship. They were far from the romantic types. They were married for 62 years when Grandma passed away, and by that time, they knew each other very well. Grandpa would sometimes turn off his hearing aids if he didn’t want to listen to Grandma – he’d call them his “ears.” After Grandma was gone at nearly age 92, most of the eight kids were sorting through old papers in the basement and they happened upon the most romantic note from Grandma to Grandpa from before they were married. It said something to the effect of, “I’ll be playing the organ at church next Sunday, I hope to see you. Sorry I was so crabby the other day.” 

With 8 kids to raise and a farm to run, Grandpa had to just be content with listening to ball games or reading about them in the paper instead of chasing his dreams. He really hated farming sometimes. He knew how to fix things out of necessity, but on many occasions he could be heard swearing and cussing up a storm at the tractors. One time he walked in on my mom and her three sisters while they were cooking and baking in the kitchen, imitating his ranting and raving. He didn’t think it was so funny.

Like with a lot of things, he had to do certain tasks simply because no one else would or wanted to. They raised chickens, pigs and cows. When I was very little, Grandma became attached to an orange-colored chicken who was quite social whom she named Henrietta, and that girl followed Grandma everywhere. Henrietta couldn’t be spared at butchering time. Grandma couldn’t do it, so Grandpa had to, and Grandma cried and cried.

Grandpa gave up driving around the age of 91. Since he lived way out in the country he could wait that long, but even then it was getting to be a stretch. But he still would take out this old Volkswagen Rabbit for a spin in the fields once in a while if he felt like it. After our Grandma died, one of our aunts lived with him for a few years and took over driving duties; following that, responsibilities were split between the siblings until at age 101 it was decided that he had to leave home and live in a facility.

After Grandpa got settled in the nursing home, he got on with playing blackjack.

This is a picture of Grandpa from yesterday along with my stepdad. The headphones are super amplifiers.
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A Slap And A Poke

Posted on by akiwifreund

It’s crazy being me. I say this so many times. I had mentioned the rare disease in my regular every other Tuesday get-together (most everyone has heard about it at some point), and a new guy had it in his head that he was going to school me on how he was going to cure me with diet and a holistic doc. He had the usual probiotic and chelation recommendations but also insisted I should eat sauerkraut. He couldn’t believe that said sauerkraut would instantly release histamines and give me hives. He also couldn’t believe that the Mayo would turn me down. I told him that I don’t ask for advice because I am always 1-7 years ahead of anything anyone can ever tell me, and I’ve never met anyone with my particular neurological symptoms with the mast cell disease.

<sigh>

On Monday, I was supposed to get a high volume lumbar puncture. That was the way it was ordered. This meant that the opening pressure was supposed to be read AND fluid was supposed to be taken off. When I was in the fluoroscopy room, I asked the radiologists and staff if they could carefully document everything before and after because my symptoms would change. They then offered to have a physical therapist evaluate me. I said great, yes, no one has ever offered that to me so I didn’t know it was an option. So they called the doctor to see if he would change the order.

However, when they got the doc on the phone, he changed the order and said forget it, only get the pressure reading and don’t take any fluid off at all. I was floored. First he wanted at least four vials (which is a lot), and then he wanted nothing?? I said that even if the opening pressure was normal, if they took some off, they would still see an improvement in my symptoms for a few hours. The doc said no way. Do not take any fluid off.

The radiologist hung up with him. He told me that he couldn’t go against this new directive and I had two choices: go ahead and get the pressure reading only, or stop everything and come back some other time. But here’s the thing: I only got this lumbar puncture because I called this neurosurgeon that I saw two years ago and begged for it, because I haven’t had my pressure checked since then. My current neurologist has been telling me I’m overdraining (even though no one has checked me) and I’ve been saying that the pressure in my head is high when I’m upright, and I felt like getting this check would help settle the fight. But the neurosurgeon wouldn’t agree to see me in the office. This was all I was going to get. So I went ahead.

I don’t metabolize Lidocain properly, so even though the radiologist juiced me up liberally, it wasn’t enough. It was also tough for him to penetrate my dura – possibly because of the sclerosing issue caused by my high histamine levels. After all of that pain my opening pressure came up as a boring normal level. Nothing to see here, folks. Except it completely rules out what my neurologist is saying about my shunt overdraining. My guess about why it’s not giving me a high reading is that the pressure lowers when I’m flat. There’s only been a couple of times when I’ve had high readings and I’ve been flat.

On Monday night, I ate some homemade spaghetti sauce and woke up the next morning to find that my entire mouth had swelled up, and the lining had sloughed off. I also had sores all over the inside. So tomatoes are now a big no-no. That’s a bummer because I make killer chili and lasagna.

Also kind of new in the past few weeks is another diagnosis. I’ve been struggling with this for at least the last 7 years as well. Doctors were telling me that I must be doing something wrong, blah blah blah. It’s super painful. I have hidradenitis suppurativa. I’ve had it come up in two different areas not close to each other and had to have “surgical intervention,” which makes it officially grade II. I’ll be seeing a new doctor Monday to talk about injections; it’s controlled by a medication that is similar to Imuran, which I was on in the past. The crazy thing is, I saw a very extreme case of it a month prior on a British show on Netflix called “Embarrassing Bodies” but had no idea that it was the same as what I had brewing. (Let me tell you, if you are fascinated by all things medical, that’s a good one to watch.)