Friday, August 13, 2010

Got Labs: More Nothing

Considering how sick I am, I am always amazed at how nice things look on paper...lol

Creatine Kinase 55 (33-194)
Lactate 0.57 (.50-2.20)
Pyruvate 0.89 (0.30-1.50)
Copper 87 (70-175)
Ceruloplasmin 25.1 (18-53)

Monday, August 9, 2010

Wrist pain is fading

Just wanted to let everyone know the wrist pain is way way better. I don't need the stupid bandage anymore!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

My "Go-to" for Ovarian, Uterine Pain

I'm not sure I ever documented this before on my blog. I think these health problems were LONG before I ever started blogging and it was so long ago that I just never really thought about it. I really have come a long way in my health journey.

This isn't the first time I've had uterine pain. I also have it about 5-6 years ago. Right around this time is when my trust in doctors started to rapidly fade away. I was having A LOT of uterine pain during intercourse and it was really causing me a lot of emotional distress. I sucked it up and finally decided to see a doctor about it. It's sort of an embarrassing problem to have, so I didn't want to tell anyone about it especially at age 20-21!

I went to see this gynecologist who was supposed to be "one of the best" in the area and after examining me, he decided that there was indeed something wrong and he wanted to do exploratory surgery to see if he could find anything. He wanted my permission to remove any endometriosis he saw during the surgery. Well I told him I would have to think about it. I don't take surgery of any type lightly. He also suggested, if I didn't want to do that, then I could be placed into early menopause at the lovely age of 21!! WOW I told him that wasn't even an option!! I knew nothing back then about the medical system and was completely dumbfounded that a doctor would even suggest this for someone my age who was newly married last year... I opted for the ultrasound which ultimately showed nothing, but I knew I wasn't crazy.

This is really when my search for alternative treatments started. The lack of answers from this doctor sent me down the "rabbit hole" as they say. After looking up the symptoms of uterine fibroids, I decided this was probably what was wrong. My husband found a supplement that was supposed to dissolve fibroid tumors and we ordered it. I figured I had nothing to lose right?

Within the first few days of taking it, I noticed pain in some of my joints and in areas where I suffered injuries years prior. When I was ~10 years old, I stepped on a toothpick which went straight into the heel of my foot. That exact foot and heel was hurting terrible while taking these supplements! I could not walk on it at all for an entire week. I thought it was really weird and didn't put 2 and 2 together until a few days went by. It turns out this supplement eats away fibrin from current or past injuries. I knew that it must be working, so I continued taking it.

Things started to get better. The uterine pain was lessening and lessening and lessening. Then after some time I realized I just wasn't having the pain any more at all!..This didn't happen overnight, but it also didn't take like 3 years either. I believe I finished off two 450 capsule bottles and then decided to stop taking them to see what would happen. Well nothing bad happened. The pain was gone and stayed away for a long time.

Well since the pain appears to be bad again, I figured I better get back on the supplement to see what happens. Thankfully we had an old bottle in the refrigerator! I took 5 pills right before bed and woke up with some wrist pain. I thought to myself, wow this is really odd. What the heck did I do to myself while I was sleeping? At first I thought I had slept on it weird. I took my next dose that morning, once again not thinking about the supplement. We were out at the store when it just hit me like a ton of bricks. OMG it's the pills making my wrist hurt!

Once again, just like the last time, the Vitalzym is making my joints hurt for some reason. It's obviously dissolving fibrin or some type of scar tissue. Not only is wrist hurting really really bad--I have it wrapped up in a bandage--but my left ankle bone started to hurt tonight too. haha You have no idea how incredibly painful writing this post has been and it makes me wonder if it's healing damage I've done from working on the computer all of these years.

I guess there's a new reformulated Vitalzym that's supposed to be even more potent. I still have the old stuff. If I can find the funds to buy the new stuff once this bottle runs out, I'll let you know how it works. I guess you don't have to take as many pills to get the same strength which is great. Right now I'm taking 15 pills a day, which can be hard to get down. If you are interested in Vitalzym just do a google search. Lots of online stores sell it, but I recommend doing some price checking! Some websites are WAY cheaper than others.

I'm curious to see how this works and I'll keep updating.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

The PVC's are gone finally

Yesterday I noticed a drastic improvement in my heart rhythm and today it is about the same. I had about 5 or 6 PVC's compared to 1 every single minute or more! I don't know if it's because I stopped the B vitamins or if I added in some extra potassium and magnesium. I'm sure those didn't hurt at all, but I really think it was discontinuing the B's that did it. Now this time, I'm starting each B vitamin on their own and giving it a week to see what happens. That way I know RIGHT AWAY which vitamin(s) is causing the problems.

I might need to go to the gynecologist. Not to be too gross, but I was having a lot of mid-cycle pain this month which I haven't had for a while. I also noticed that my ovulation discharge was a weird orangy-red color which I've NEVER seen before. Now when I urinate or move a certain way I am getting ovary pain and making love to my husband was so painful I nearly threw up! Sorry if this is TMI, but I think it's important to document this. I've NEVER experienced pain like this before. I stood up and nearly collapsed. The nausea was soo bad, I had to just lay down for a while until it all passed. My abdomen is feeling kind of odd right now too...

I have no idea what is happening here. I always feel like something new is showing up.

Monday, August 2, 2010

I hate doctors

The PVC's are just not going away, so after a long internal debate I decided I should go to the local urgent care to make sure everything is ok. I just wanted to make sure that the rest of my heart rhythm was normal. I've been getting the PVC's just about every minute, which if you look online isn't THAT bad. But still, it is pretty darn uncomfortable especially when this is happening with HR's into the 140's!!

I get into the exam room and the nurse says they usually just send heart palpitation patients to the ER as they can't really do much here. "I'm not a doctor though, just telling you what normally ends up happening". I was thinking to myself. Well I didn't go to the ER because it's not to that point.

They do an EKG and of course it's always lying down and when you aren't symptomatic. I hate that. The EKG comes back completely normal which was great, but it didn't capture what I was experiencing. Literally 5 seconds after she printed that stupid sheet out I had like 2 or 3 PVC's upon sitting up! /sigh

The doctor comes in and he is insulting and patronizing me immediately. I'm thinking to myself, what did I do to deserve this type of treatment? I come in here because I wanted to make sure I wasn't in SVT or something and this guy is just lecturing me about stupid shit that doesn't even matter to me.

He tells me that I need to start working again because it's clear that I need more structure in my life and I need to be "part of a team". He said that when you don't work, your heart doesn't have anything to respond to so it starts to race at times when it shouldn't. If I had a job that would be the best thing for me. Can I say WTF? I just let him continue because I wanted to make sure he dug himself the largest hole possible with no way out. He keeps telling me that I need to find out what my triggers are for this "POTS" and I need to stop doing it.

"How long have you had POTS". Diagnosed 1-2 years, but I've had it for about 10 years. "Well you need to stop thinking about it and just live. You are worrying too much about this POTS and need to work. This is when I stop him and correct him about what POTS even is because he kept using the wrong words. He was saying Paroxysmal tachycardia or something like that and I told him NO it is called POSTURAL orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. Then I went on to tell him that I used to work. Quite a lot actually and I eventually had to quit because I COULD NOT WORK ANYMORE due to my heart. "Well you need to find a job that you can handle because that's the best thing for you." WOW WOW WOW. I was so mad at this point, I picked up my purse and said, well there is nothing you can do for me, so this is over.

He stopped me. That's when he realized that I wasn't a freakin' idiot and said, "I know that what you feel is real. I'm not saying that your HR's aren't high or that you aren't having PVC's, you just need to realize that this will never go away and you need to live with it. I told him, what the hell did he think I've been doing for the past 1o years. I've been DEALING with it.

That's when I brought out the big guns because you have to think like a doctor. I said that I had been to Cleveland Clinic and they diagnosed me with this and they believe it's a dysfunction of the autonomic system and has nothing to do with the fact that I'm not working. That's when he started telling me about his lovely daughter. She's such an amazing basketball player. Very very fast runner and can do so much stuff. Thanks asshole for reminding me how much shit I can't do on a daily basis. He said that she has nervous system problems too, but she learns to deal with it by playing basketball. That's her way of channeling it. WTF? I asked him if he's ever had a 140 HR just from standing up from a chair. He gets a bit quiet and tells me that he had a fast HR a few times and it can be scary. That's when I pushed even further and said, what if it happened EVERY TIME YOU STAND!!! He had nothing to say about that.

He asked me what Cleveland Clinic was doing about "POTS". Oh to interject, he was talking about POTS like it was herpes or something. HAHA Just weird. Anyway, I told him that they wanted me to increase my florinef dosage and salt intake. The look on his face was "I have no idea what this girl is talking about, but I'm going to pretend like I do". He said, oh how has that worked for you. I told him that I had already tried that last year and it does nothing for me at all. The only thing that worked was a beta blocker, but as the weather got warm it stopped working because of my severe heat intolerance. To further prove that he had no idea what he was talking about, he said that "Every 5 years or so, car companies come out with new model cars. There are new computers available too. Maybe next year they will come out with a new beta blocker that won't give you heat intolerance." ROFLMAO!! This guy thinks the beta blocker gave me heat intolerance. haha Then I told him about my elevated catecholamine levels upon standing and that has a lot to do with my rapid heart rates. Once again, he had no idea what I was talking about. I totally out-doctored him right there, but this was all on purpose.

Towards the end I was shifting a lot on the exam table, looking at my purse, floor, purse, floor. He said, well I'm very sorry I can't give you a pill here today. I immediately interrupted him and said that's not what I wanted!! He seemed confused by this comment and then he got up and left. He told me I should contact one the hospitals in the area because they have a very prestigious cardiologist/EP department. I told him that I had already...I see the head of the freakin' EP department of that hospital! I also explained to him that I had a tilt-table test. "Oh you had one of those?" I said yeah that's the only way you get diagnosed with POTS and I've had 2. One at the local hospital and Cleveland Clinic. That was basically it. He said to "keep in touch". Why? So I can come back to you to hate myself even more?

What an asshole.

Basically this office visit made me have more PVC's because I was so pissed off by the doctor. I am writing a letter to the corporate office about this. He was the biggest piece of crap I've ever seen since that ER visit like 4-5 years ago who said I was a heroin addict looking for drugs. I believe to this day that was an adrenal crisis...