Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Almost Human

For those that care (which is 2 of you apparently :) an update on my medical saga. It's kind of interesting I guess.

I saw the neurologist last week. He put me on a med that was supposed to help with my chronic headache and it has. It has dampened the ringing in my ears a bit, but maybe that's not due to the med. I don't think it's supposed to help that.. just the headache, but who knows.. I'm still having that feeling of just being completely toxic. It's a weird sensation that's hard to describe, but it's not pleasant.

The odd thing is that I woke up Sunday and felt.. rather okay. That toxic sensation was nearly absent, the ear ringing was low if noticeable at all, and the headache gone. As it got later in the day, it all started creeping back up on me and by the evening it was just about back to the level I've had. Monday I felt toxic, Tuesday was again feeling better then back to toxic in the evening.

Even stranger, over the weekend my eyes started to dilate.. huge pupils. I called the neuro doc on Monday morning, his nurse called me back at 4:45pm (not cool) and I was instructed to take half of the Nortriptyline and see my eye doctor. It's not easy to take half a capsule. You can't really cut them in half.

So, yesterday I saw the eye doctor.. they say my eyes are normal and think the dilation is due to the meds. I have no idea what that's all about. At least they're reactive and equal so it's not like there's a major brain malfunction.

The interesting part of the eye doctor visit, though, was that I talked to the tech about my symptoms and she said that she went through an episode of really bad headaches for months.. consulted with a neurologist who couldn't figure out what was going on. They wanted to do some study on her that involved putting her in a drug induced coma for 7 days and running tests with different meds and such.

Instead, she went to see a nutritionist who did some blood work on her, wrote her up a list of nutritional supplements to add and the headache went away quickly. She's been normal since then.

Naturally that got me to thinking. We haven't been eating all that well. I haven't had much appetite. Maybe that's causing my issues? I'm going to write up a note for my PCP and ask her what she thinks. She did something similar for John and figured out he had a vitamin B3 deficiency, which got fixed up with a cheap supplement.

If it turns out my issue is related to food, or some vitamin issue, I'm going to be really irritated with my PCP and the neurologist. If that's all it is, that would be nice though. I've been fixated on reading about cerebral spinal fluid leaks. The neurologist is sure I don't have one, but there is a form of leak referred to as "second-half-of-the-day headache" that has symptoms that pretty much match up to mine. It's a slow leak, so doing something like laying down doesn't immediately resolve the headache as in a conventional leak.

I'm taking a med for a possible serotonin imbalance, and it's been 2 weeks, which meant that last night I took the entire pill instead of half. It's made me feel wired on caffeine. Combined with the toxic feeling, it's just nasty. I don't think I even need that one, but I figure I might as well go at least the month with it. If I don't notice any effect, then that might imply that I don't have a serotonin issue.

So that's where I'm at now. I really hope to get it all resolved soon because I'm going back to work after the first of the year and it'll be really hard to code with this condition. I don't want to do much of anything, which I suppose is part of the problem. At least I'm getting the sense that my problem really isn't something drastic.

6 comments:

kris said...

sometimes, these quacks use a sledgehammer to try to crack a nut.

If you feel that your nutrition has not been as good as it could be, there is a solution.

I had lady issues about 10 years ago. The consultant wanted to do surgery.

I felt like he wanted to put me on a conveyor belt.

My GP said I should try evening primrose oil and B12.

Bingo.

Anonymous said...

So much stems from bad nutrition. It certainly won't hurt to do a consult and see what is up. Yea, one of two that do care what happens. You seem like a cool guy. Hope you get better soon.

Steve said...

For the record, I care, I just don't comment unless it's some riddle or something. :)

Hope you can put all this behind you soon.

Bill said...

Your ins should cover you gong to a nutritionist and they will run some blood work and then set you up on a special diet. Check into it. I care.

Tom said...

Thx.. and I wasn't really fishing for sympathy with the "For those that care (which is 2 of you apparently)" comment... just trying to lighten the mood a bit..

I'm actually almost normal again tonight.. it sort of comes and goes. I think it'll be okay.

Steve said...

Ha, I know, glad you're feeling better. Not a bad christmas present, even if you're not celebrating this year. :)