Monday, June 4, 2018

Guts and Medication Roulette

I haven't done a medical recap in awhile and there's a few new things because OF COURSE.

So a few weeks ago I had seen a gastroenterologist to evaluate my stomach pains. They come randomly, it hurts on both sides evenly, it's worse than labor pains. I'm not kidding, I would rather be in full labor than deal with these. I've got constipation on top of it so I wanted to know if the pains were just because of constipation or something else. I go, the doctor is pretty nice, pushes on my stomach and it hurts, orders a ton of tests. An endoscopy, which is coming up later this month, which I'm terrified for. It's not the actual procedure itself, that's fine. It's the anesthesia. People who have not died on an operating table truly do not understand the fear of being put under to any degree. You just can't. That should have been routine and fine and it wasn't. This should be routine and fine and it probably will be but the idea of being put under is scaring the living daylights out of me.

Anyways.

So he orders an ultrasound too, and that seemed pretty uneventful. Fast forward the next day and I get a frantic call telling me I need to go in for an ultrasound immediately, like that week, it was imperative.

OBVIOUSLY when you tell a person with an anxiety disorder this they will start Googling their ailments and clearly decide that they are probably dying and dammit they knew it all along!

I go to the MRI and they tell me they can't say anything in regards to what they saw, someone will contact me. OK, not a problem.

I went TWO WEEKS thinking I was dying and then I finally called and was asking WHAT THE HELL.

Turns out, I have gallstones but no obstruction or something else, so that seems alright. I have a liver lesion, which is why I had to go in for an MRI. It's either cancer or it's not. Mine is NOT but I will have to have a repeat scan in six months because I have symptoms and issues related to a liver lesion. It could be the start of something, or it might not be. They are pretty sure it's benign and I get to wait six months.

Which, again, for an anxious person this is the worst thing ever. I'm going to give myself a damn ulcer worrying. But we still don't know what the issues with my gut are and I'm telling you, sometimes it hurts so bad I have to lay down and wait for it to pass. Sometimes it's gone within a few minutes, sometimes it lasts longer than an hour. There appears to be no rhyme or reason to it, not with certain foods, or medications.

Oh, that's the other thing. I have slow motility constipation (TMI, sorry) which is kind of a given considering all of my ailments. This is kind of par for the course with them so he isn't surprised by that at all and I can take laxatives daily forever or just deal. <== that's what he actually said. I'm not kidding. So I'm just always going to be constipated. If you've ever been it's NOT FUN and I'm just frustrated. So frustrated.

Next up is mental health, because WHY NOT. I was taken off of the Rexulti because it gave me tremors within the first three days and put on Vraylar. Brand new and super expensive, it was a low dose, normally used for Bipolar 1, also works as a mood stabilizer. I gained 14 pounds in two weeks despite eating less and exercising more, and guess what else I got?

TREMORS.

Seriously. It was sporadic and super mild at first and only at night so I figured if this was the worst it got then I would be fine, I could handle that if it meant I didn't want to fly off the handle and break everything like Hulk. Except last week they got so bad I could barely do anything and it was during the day and I was getting nauseous from basically being a bobblehead all day. I couldn't open things, make the girls' lunch, couldn't operate a damn Swiffer, it was ridiculous. So I'm off of that and in a few weeks I'll try something else in a different class of drugs. But at this point I'm pretty frustrated and it feels like I'm playing roulette with side effects, it's kind of ridiculous.

1 comment:

Life Love & High Heels said...

I really think there should be better "bedside manners" when it comes to letting people know about results. Even if you're relatively healthy, waiting for results or being told "it could be something" is horrible! I hope your new meds work out better. They've gotta find something that works sometime! :)