I had a busy day Thursday. I drove through the blinding rain to Dr. Boddy's office by 9 am. He said he wants me to get a glucometer (I got a free one from Rite-Aid!!) and take my blood sugar twice a day for 2 weeks, then come back and do another fasting blood test. Then I went to Starbucks and used the gift card my wonderful husband gave me and got a tall soymilk mocha, which was heavenly. Then I sped back to the cardiologist office, where I did a treadmill stress test. They did an ekg while I was resting, then while I was on the treadmill. The speed and incline went up every 3 minutes. My asthma was acting up a bit because of the rain and I had to stop to use my inhaler after only 15 minutes. I was afraid they weren't going to be able to get an accurate reading since I wasn't really exerting myself much, but they said 10 minutes was sufficient. The doctor I had first seen wasn't there, but his associate came in and introduced himself to me, looked at the ekg results briefly and said "Everything looks fine. I don't think Dr. Lourie had great expectations that it was your heart anyway." Then I asked if the echo results were in and he asked the technician/nurse/whatever she was who had done it. She called it up on her computer, looked at it for a few minutes and said "I'm looking at your results right now, and everything looks normal." So, I was glad to hear that, but almost got the feeling they weren't even taking me seriously, like they were expecting not to find anything on the test results of a 30 year old woman who wasn't obese or a smoker, so they didn't bother looking too hard, know what I mean? I could just be reading into this, of course. I am VERY glad that there weren't any glaring things wrong on the tests. I still want to discuss with Dr. Boddy the prolonged qt as it relates to my asthma meds and share more of my history/theories with him from my ridiculously long previous post.
Then I went to Rite Aid where I scored a free glucometer, Quick Trip to get gas, Target, where I found a broom but they didn't have the coffee maker I wanted and got a Vitamin Water (my favorite drink other than water and coffee!!), birthday presents for a niece and nephew, Cash 4 Clothes where I got a fall shirt for me and necklace for my friend Karen, then Value Village where I got a shirt for my mom, and an awesome illustrated dictonary of Star Wars, then BK- where I got a mayo free, onion free Whopper (which I really shouldn't have eaten the whole thing of, but I did), then back to Newnan, to One Roof consignment where I got a bunch of movies for the kids, then I stopped at Espresso Lane and got a small soymilk raspberry mocha, (yes, a TWO mocha day....I am a spoiled brat!), then to Great Clips where I got my hair cut into layers (pics later), then to Target where they also did not have the coffee maker I wanted but did have some really cute shirts for the girls on the clearance racks (I love when they match), then Wal-Mart to see if I could get an eye appt. (no dice), then Kohl's to see if they had any bras on sale (none for me), then to see the wonderful Dr. Poli at Alternacare, who fixed me up so well, and totally made me laugh because during my adjustment, my back cracked like 4x in a row, and he said "Hey, I crack you up!" (I love corny jokes like that) He said to come back in a month or sooner if I felt like I needed it. Then I went to Publix next door, where I *almost* confronted a guy for following me around, but just bought Safflower Oil instead, then went to JC Penney's, where I was sad to see that the running shoes I have been wanting are no longer $39.99 but $49.99 :( Then home, where I was greeted by Claire in a unicorn costume, then hugged and kissed by all and enjoyed a great dinner of "fridge rejects" as Nathan called it, then read to children, sent them to bed and watched the Office and 30 Rock with Nathan, ate lots of popcorn and went to bed.
On an incredibly positive note, I am amazed to report that I really think the apple cidar vinegar is helping my asthma!! This is the fourth day that I have been taking 2+ tbs. of it and last night, in the humidity and rain, with having accidentally skipped my Advair dosage the night before (because I wasn't reminded by my wheezing), I was actually able to take a full, deep breath. This is super unusual for me, especially during a rain storm. I have joked with Nate that I am a natural barometer, I can predict the amount of humidity in the air/chance of thunderstorm by how my lungs feel. This is what landed me in the ER almost every spring I lived in Florida. So, understand the significance of me being able to breathe even BETTER than normal while it is completely humid and raining out. I was astounded. And the only thing I've been doing differently is the acv. Usually if I skip a dosage of Advair accidentally, I feel twice as bad the next day, but I didn't even realize I had until afternoon, when I went out to get the mail and automatically thought "Okay, where's my inhaler, I bet I'll have to use it when I get back in." Then I realized I wasn't even wheezing a tiny bit, and that I had forgotten my Advair the night before. Wow. And I have found that mixing the acv with raw honey in a little glass of apple juice and holding my nose while I drink it goes down a whole lot better than straight 2T acv to 1T honey. I had the nasty dry heaves for about 5 minutes after that first dosage. Blech. I used my Advair again last night, figuring I will try to do it every other night instead of every night.
About the blood sugar thing, I took it yesterday morning and it was 57. Then before lunch it was 97. Dr. Boddy had told me to take it first thing in the morning and one other time during the day, after not eating for a few hours, like before lunch one day, before supper one day, etc. or if I was feeling dizzy or shaky or confused to take it then. So, I have been paying more attention to how I am feeling. And I realized yesterday at about 5 pm as I was staring into the fridge and nothing I was seeing was actually registering in my mind, that I feel that way almost every afternoon. I stood up, I felt dizzy, I held my hand out, it was shaking. And this is absolutely totally normal for me. If I don't plan dinner ahead of time, or have something in the crockpot I go through this miserable routine every day. In the late afternoon, at about the time kids are waking up from naps, I feel really tired. I used to have a little cup of coffee then, but I am trying to cut back, so I don't anymore. I dread having to figure out what to make for dinner, it is so the worst part of my day, (besides getting out of bed in the morning). I just feel like I can't think straight or figure anything out and I don't feel well, now that I actually think about it. I used to think it was just because I do not enjoy cooking in any way, but, I thought, maybe it is a blood sugar thing? Anyway, so yesterday afternoon I was feeling like this and finally realized I could make grilled chicken on salad for supper, so I started making that, then ate an herb biscuit and drank some water. About an hour later I thought to take my blood sugar, but by this time I was feeling much better. I took it anyway, though, and it was 127, which just seems WAY high, at least for what it has been. So, I really don't know!! :P This morning it was 91 and I haven't taken it since. I will be very curious to see if there is a pattern to this or if it really is hypoglycemia. It would really make me happy in a strange way to know that my feeling loopy and not able to concentrate actually had a medical reason, instead of just my own incompetence or "mommy brain." We shall see.
Right now I should be cleaning my house and cooking since Nate's family is coming over for his mom's birthday party tonight. I still need to wrap presents and put decorations up, not to mention scrub the bathroom, clean the kitchen, sweep all the floors, make a cake, take a shower and get ready. Hmmm, maybe I should get off the internet????
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Heart, and Lungs and Doctors..OH MY!!
I suppose I should update here, as I have actually some information to relate and not just inane babbling like I usually do. I don't know why whenever I actually do have news to record, I get so busy with it all I don't update here, but when I have nothing to say, I post. Anyway....
My treadmilling had been going great, my asthma was totally under control, I was getting in shape and feeling great. Then, I started getting wheezier (is that a word?) and a couple times had some stabbing chest pain when I ran too fast without warming up adequately on the treadmill. I also had some general health questions for Dr. Boddy, concerning allergies, St. John's Wort, natural sleeping agents, kidney function and of course my lungs and chest pain.
I went to see Dr. Boddy and he said he thought my kidneys were fine, that my theory about having so much protein during my four pregnancies in five years really wouldn't have adversely affected my kidneys, and that the last time he tested, my kidney function was excellent. He said St. John's Wort was really unpredictable because the time of year it was grown and harvested, the exact part of the plant harvested and the manner of production all affected the potency of the product so much that there was great variation in it, even bottle to bottle from the same company. He said it wouldn't hurt me, but he wouldn't waste my money on it. He was surprised that melotonin makes me sleepy after 20 minutes but then I wake up after sleeping 30, but said I could certainly continue to take it if I wanted to, it wouldn't interact with my other medications.
I asked him if the chest x-ray I had had in the fall when my asthma first started acting up had anything on it that would explain the chest pain or heart stuff and told him that a dr. in the past had told me that my heart was not in the right place in my chest, which was why I had chest pain sometimes. Dr. Boddy said he had forgotten about the pectus excavatum (http://www.pectusdeformity.com/) that I have and that it could be affecting my heart and lung function. Then he asked me if I had ever considered surgery to correct it, that he had two patients in the past that had greatly benefited from it. I had *never* been told by any dr. that there was a surgery to correct this, and now I wish I had had it done years and years ago. My mother said she had never heard from any dr. during my childhood that it could be corrected either. About my heart, he said he really didn't like the chest pain story and wanted to check that out. So, they did an EKG, which showed five abnormalities, including a prolonged qt, which concerned him.
They also did a blood test to check my kidney function and a bunch of other things. Dr. Boddy told me to go back to the full dosage of the Advair 500 twice a day, from the once a day I had been able to go to when I cut out dairy. He referred me to a cardiologist. I made an appt. with the cardiologist for Friday. I wanted to take the readings from the chest x-ray in the fall with me to the cardiologist, so I stopped by Dr. Boddy's. Cara, the nurse said they had the results from my blood test back and that my blood sugar was supposed to be between 65-99, but was 44, which I guess is pretty low. She asked if I felt shaky or dizzy or had been fasting. I said no to all. I had eaten breakfast a few hours previous and felt the same as I always do. So, I had to make another appt. with Dr. Bod to discuss that.
I went to the cardiologist and he asked me a bunch of questions and listened to my heart for a long time. I asked him about the pectus surgery but he said he would think long and hard before jumping into thoracic surgery. He said that it might affect my lung function, but he didn't think it was affecting my heart. He said that all our questions would be answered by an echocardiogram and a treadmill stress test. I did the echo right then, which was extremely uncomfortable. The treadmill guy wasn't there, so I scheduled that to be this week, the same day as the appt. with Dr. Boddy. Dr. Lourie, the cardiologist, didn't actually tell me much, just said that the tests would answer our ?'s. I suppose I will be discussing the results of them Thursday after my stress test. He was very warm and seemed to really listen well.
Friday night I came home after all that and decided to do some internet searching for prolonged qt and low blood sugar and all of that. What I found totally freaked me out. Here is a link talking about prolonged qt: http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/common/standard/transform.jsp?requestURI=/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/prolonged_qt_syndrome.jsp It says basically that there can be too long a space between the beats of the heart, which can cause fainting, cardiac arrest and sudden death. This, needless to say, was what totally freaked me out. One site listed things that set off a prolonged qt episode as: strenuous exercise, emotional excitement, anger, being startled by loud noises such as alarm clocks, or sometimes it can happen while sleeping. This did not do much for my sense of security and to be honest, left me in tears and consumed by anxiety and confusion, at least that night.
The next day I got brave enough to keep researching, and along the way looked up my low blood sugar reading, which seemed to indicate hypoglycemia, possibly, or diabetes?? I have a lot more questions about that, which I will discuss with Dr. Bod Thurs. I researched if any medication I am taking could be affecting my heart function, and I found a resounding "YES!" See here: http://www.healthsquare.com/drugs/105074_2.htm and here: http://doublecheckmd.com/EffectsDetail.do;jsessionid=DEA45ABF8B759EC3A1588E9D184FD568?dname=salmeterol&sid=13389&eid=1692 and here: http://members.kaiserpermanente.org/kpweb/drugency/drugdetails.do?drugID=255421&name=Advair+Diskus+500+mcg-50+mcg%2FDose+for+Inhalation&index=true (Scroll down to Precautions)
So, perhaps I already had a physical predisposition for this and the medication has made it flare up. Now I am very anxious to find something else I can take for my asthma that will not affect my heart. I am interested in this on apple cider vinegar: http://www.earthclinic.com/CURES/asthma.html and oil pulling, which seems to be a general health thing, not specifically for asthma, but will help it as well: http://www.oilpulling.com/ This sounds really weird, but I am willing to give it a try.
So, right now I am just trying to avoid the things that could make my heart stop. Unfortunately, the only one I have complete control over is the exercise, which is the only one I really want to be doing. :( Looking back now on my medical history, it seems I have had trouble with this prolonged qt before. I had to go home from college one semester because I was fainting, and having terrible chest pain. I should mention that previous to this, I had relapsed into my old bulimic habits. I was also taking Serevent and Flovent, steroid inhalers which can do the same thing as the Advair I am on now. My aunt took me to a health food store where a woman did "muscle testing" on me and said I had a severe potassium deficiency, along with some other minerals. My aunt and uncle bought me all the expensive supplements the lady recommended and I started feeling better almost immediately when I started taking them. Now, I have not been bulimic since then, but I do always sweat a lot, and since I have been running about 10 miles a week for about 2 months now, (and sweating like crazy the whole time) maybe I have been depleting my electrolytes faster than I can replace them, and that is exacerbating this. Maybe I need to start taking a potassium supplement. I have already started a magnesium supplement, as I read that could help my asthma.
So, in a really big nutshell (haha) that is what is going on with me. After my appt. on Thursday, I will update. If you actually took the three hours to read all this, you are a better friend than I deserve and I thank you! :)
My treadmilling had been going great, my asthma was totally under control, I was getting in shape and feeling great. Then, I started getting wheezier (is that a word?) and a couple times had some stabbing chest pain when I ran too fast without warming up adequately on the treadmill. I also had some general health questions for Dr. Boddy, concerning allergies, St. John's Wort, natural sleeping agents, kidney function and of course my lungs and chest pain.
I went to see Dr. Boddy and he said he thought my kidneys were fine, that my theory about having so much protein during my four pregnancies in five years really wouldn't have adversely affected my kidneys, and that the last time he tested, my kidney function was excellent. He said St. John's Wort was really unpredictable because the time of year it was grown and harvested, the exact part of the plant harvested and the manner of production all affected the potency of the product so much that there was great variation in it, even bottle to bottle from the same company. He said it wouldn't hurt me, but he wouldn't waste my money on it. He was surprised that melotonin makes me sleepy after 20 minutes but then I wake up after sleeping 30, but said I could certainly continue to take it if I wanted to, it wouldn't interact with my other medications.
I asked him if the chest x-ray I had had in the fall when my asthma first started acting up had anything on it that would explain the chest pain or heart stuff and told him that a dr. in the past had told me that my heart was not in the right place in my chest, which was why I had chest pain sometimes. Dr. Boddy said he had forgotten about the pectus excavatum (http://www.pectusdeformity.com/) that I have and that it could be affecting my heart and lung function. Then he asked me if I had ever considered surgery to correct it, that he had two patients in the past that had greatly benefited from it. I had *never* been told by any dr. that there was a surgery to correct this, and now I wish I had had it done years and years ago. My mother said she had never heard from any dr. during my childhood that it could be corrected either. About my heart, he said he really didn't like the chest pain story and wanted to check that out. So, they did an EKG, which showed five abnormalities, including a prolonged qt, which concerned him.
They also did a blood test to check my kidney function and a bunch of other things. Dr. Boddy told me to go back to the full dosage of the Advair 500 twice a day, from the once a day I had been able to go to when I cut out dairy. He referred me to a cardiologist. I made an appt. with the cardiologist for Friday. I wanted to take the readings from the chest x-ray in the fall with me to the cardiologist, so I stopped by Dr. Boddy's. Cara, the nurse said they had the results from my blood test back and that my blood sugar was supposed to be between 65-99, but was 44, which I guess is pretty low. She asked if I felt shaky or dizzy or had been fasting. I said no to all. I had eaten breakfast a few hours previous and felt the same as I always do. So, I had to make another appt. with Dr. Bod to discuss that.
I went to the cardiologist and he asked me a bunch of questions and listened to my heart for a long time. I asked him about the pectus surgery but he said he would think long and hard before jumping into thoracic surgery. He said that it might affect my lung function, but he didn't think it was affecting my heart. He said that all our questions would be answered by an echocardiogram and a treadmill stress test. I did the echo right then, which was extremely uncomfortable. The treadmill guy wasn't there, so I scheduled that to be this week, the same day as the appt. with Dr. Boddy. Dr. Lourie, the cardiologist, didn't actually tell me much, just said that the tests would answer our ?'s. I suppose I will be discussing the results of them Thursday after my stress test. He was very warm and seemed to really listen well.
Friday night I came home after all that and decided to do some internet searching for prolonged qt and low blood sugar and all of that. What I found totally freaked me out. Here is a link talking about prolonged qt: http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/common/standard/transform.jsp?requestURI=/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/prolonged_qt_syndrome.jsp It says basically that there can be too long a space between the beats of the heart, which can cause fainting, cardiac arrest and sudden death. This, needless to say, was what totally freaked me out. One site listed things that set off a prolonged qt episode as: strenuous exercise, emotional excitement, anger, being startled by loud noises such as alarm clocks, or sometimes it can happen while sleeping. This did not do much for my sense of security and to be honest, left me in tears and consumed by anxiety and confusion, at least that night.
The next day I got brave enough to keep researching, and along the way looked up my low blood sugar reading, which seemed to indicate hypoglycemia, possibly, or diabetes?? I have a lot more questions about that, which I will discuss with Dr. Bod Thurs. I researched if any medication I am taking could be affecting my heart function, and I found a resounding "YES!" See here: http://www.healthsquare.com/drugs/105074_2.htm and here: http://doublecheckmd.com/EffectsDetail.do;jsessionid=DEA45ABF8B759EC3A1588E9D184FD568?dname=salmeterol&sid=13389&eid=1692 and here: http://members.kaiserpermanente.org/kpweb/drugency/drugdetails.do?drugID=255421&name=Advair+Diskus+500+mcg-50+mcg%2FDose+for+Inhalation&index=true (Scroll down to Precautions)
So, perhaps I already had a physical predisposition for this and the medication has made it flare up. Now I am very anxious to find something else I can take for my asthma that will not affect my heart. I am interested in this on apple cider vinegar: http://www.earthclinic.com/CURES/asthma.html and oil pulling, which seems to be a general health thing, not specifically for asthma, but will help it as well: http://www.oilpulling.com/ This sounds really weird, but I am willing to give it a try.
So, right now I am just trying to avoid the things that could make my heart stop. Unfortunately, the only one I have complete control over is the exercise, which is the only one I really want to be doing. :( Looking back now on my medical history, it seems I have had trouble with this prolonged qt before. I had to go home from college one semester because I was fainting, and having terrible chest pain. I should mention that previous to this, I had relapsed into my old bulimic habits. I was also taking Serevent and Flovent, steroid inhalers which can do the same thing as the Advair I am on now. My aunt took me to a health food store where a woman did "muscle testing" on me and said I had a severe potassium deficiency, along with some other minerals. My aunt and uncle bought me all the expensive supplements the lady recommended and I started feeling better almost immediately when I started taking them. Now, I have not been bulimic since then, but I do always sweat a lot, and since I have been running about 10 miles a week for about 2 months now, (and sweating like crazy the whole time) maybe I have been depleting my electrolytes faster than I can replace them, and that is exacerbating this. Maybe I need to start taking a potassium supplement. I have already started a magnesium supplement, as I read that could help my asthma.
So, in a really big nutshell (haha) that is what is going on with me. After my appt. on Thursday, I will update. If you actually took the three hours to read all this, you are a better friend than I deserve and I thank you! :)
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Is it Spring yet?? My open window says so. It feels perfect to me right now, warm and breezy and lovely. We've been out playing soccer and throwing around a football (teaching children to throw a good spiral is a challenge, let me tell you!) and George has learned to ride his bike without training wheels in the last two days. Nate took off his training wheels last June and George hasn't wanted to get on it since then, but the warmer weather and my coaxing have made him brave the worrisome "new-ness" of it. He's done so well, I'm very proud of him. He took three good tumbles yesterday, but got right back up and wanted to keep practicing. I showed him the scars on my knees and legs from some bike accidents when I was a kid, which I think made him a little less worried. Considering the fact that he hates new things and pain, he has done great!!!
I just ordered the kids vitamins finally, and need to do my Melaleuca order soon, although I don't hardly need anything. Ian did a bunch of reading to me today from "The Big Yellow Book", he's doing really well. I think his lack of short term memory makes me think his entire memory is lacking sometimes, and it always surprises me when he picks right back up something we haven't done in a long time. Grace traced numbers and letters and matched rhyming words and George did his reading and reading workbook. We are really pitifully behind where we need to be, but I have started making reading together more of a priority and slacked off a bit on the worksheets. At this point, I can probably get away with us focusing more on together time than on scholastic over achievement. George and I are reading Swiss Family Robinson together. At about chapter 3, I had the happy realization that "Who needs a vocabulary curriculum when you are reading things like this??" In the last few days, George has learned the meaning of words such as tempest, prospect, sustained, resigned, tranquil, contrive, impending, recollect, exhort, embarkation, glutinous, and renounce, just to name a few. :)
Nathan is plunging headlong into busy season, and his canker sores have arrived, just on time, as they always do when he is stressed out and eating and sleeping badly. A happy note, though, the website he has been working on for about a year and a half is finally up (www.brownspools.com) and Matt could not stop raving about how wonderful it was, which was, of course, GREAT for Nathan to hear. It's always wonderful for me to hear that his hard work is being appreciated.
I can't think of anything clever to close with, but I have to run to Food Depot as soon as the Claire Bear wakes up, we are in desperate need of paper products and produce (hmm, that sounds like a Dr. Seuss book...) and I didn't have my act together enough this morning to go. I guess that's one good thing about Nate's work schedule this time of year, I can go run errands in the late afternoon if I want to. Bye for now!!!!
I just ordered the kids vitamins finally, and need to do my Melaleuca order soon, although I don't hardly need anything. Ian did a bunch of reading to me today from "The Big Yellow Book", he's doing really well. I think his lack of short term memory makes me think his entire memory is lacking sometimes, and it always surprises me when he picks right back up something we haven't done in a long time. Grace traced numbers and letters and matched rhyming words and George did his reading and reading workbook. We are really pitifully behind where we need to be, but I have started making reading together more of a priority and slacked off a bit on the worksheets. At this point, I can probably get away with us focusing more on together time than on scholastic over achievement. George and I are reading Swiss Family Robinson together. At about chapter 3, I had the happy realization that "Who needs a vocabulary curriculum when you are reading things like this??" In the last few days, George has learned the meaning of words such as tempest, prospect, sustained, resigned, tranquil, contrive, impending, recollect, exhort, embarkation, glutinous, and renounce, just to name a few. :)
Nathan is plunging headlong into busy season, and his canker sores have arrived, just on time, as they always do when he is stressed out and eating and sleeping badly. A happy note, though, the website he has been working on for about a year and a half is finally up (www.brownspools.com) and Matt could not stop raving about how wonderful it was, which was, of course, GREAT for Nathan to hear. It's always wonderful for me to hear that his hard work is being appreciated.
I can't think of anything clever to close with, but I have to run to Food Depot as soon as the Claire Bear wakes up, we are in desperate need of paper products and produce (hmm, that sounds like a Dr. Seuss book...) and I didn't have my act together enough this morning to go. I guess that's one good thing about Nate's work schedule this time of year, I can go run errands in the late afternoon if I want to. Bye for now!!!!
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