Health Problems

Mrs. Gravy said:

but the nipples remain excellent and a good bra falsely advertises very well.
If I can access my mammogram images, I will post!

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Lettuce define excellent please. Are we talking british Lady Sonia status? *dodge*

Alright alright! Another time, another place!

Olebass said:

Went in today and according to the doc these two are nearly identical prescriptions. -2.0 -1.25 92 is almost identical to -3.5 +1.5 180. He said it was a different way of doing the eye math. Seemed odd to me as -2+-1.25 would be 3.25 and slight adjustment -3.5 is fine but how does the now +1.5 play into it and the axis rotated completely. I'm not sure but going to take his word for it and just order some glasses. Looking back on all my eye prescriptions over 20 years I never saw it done that way but hey, he is the doc.

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I somehow narrowly avoided a driving restriction recently. I've had 1 eye just barely astigmatized enough to be incorrect my whole life-- both long distance and short distance. It atrophied over a decade or so focus-wise because my other eye is perfect and took dominance for everything, but mostly reading. If I cover my good eye, the other eye will burn out focus/msucle wise after only a short moment, and I can physically feel its weakness in focusing/muscle movement. I considered wearing an eye patch to strengthen it but it quits so fast and its so weak when its forced to do the work on its own that I'd get a headache.

The eye has also become "dumb" and I can look at letters and read letters but it won't make sense of the words without me sounding each word out one at a time like a 2nd grader rather than immediate recognition of what something says. Its the most complicated problem I've heard of, and its all from a little astigmatism I guess. The eye is so weak now that when I try to make it do all the work, it micro-shakes while trying to read losing and gaining focus very rapidly, despite the fact I can technically read it.

I figured I'd buy some new glasses just to give my eyes a break from long distances. That did not go over well. Then I called the glasses place and asked if they can reproduce my glasses again and made up a car runover story. Only to find out every single one of these eye centers are racketeering sons of bleeps-- lining the doctors pockets and they don't want to sell me any glasses without him. You'd think if you lost your glasses they would make an exception.

jayrebb said:

I somehow narrowly avoided a driving restriction recently. I've had 1 eye just barely astigmatized enough to be incorrect my whole life-- both long distance and short distance. It atrophied over a decade or so focus-wise because my other eye is perfect and took dominance for everything, but mostly reading. If I cover my good eye, the other eye will burn out focus/msucle wise after only a short moment, and I can physically feel its weakness in focusing/muscle movement. I considered wearing an eye patch to strengthen it but it quits so fast and its so weak when its forced to do the work on its own that I'd get a headache.

The eye has also become "dumb" and I can look at letters and read letters but it won't make sense of the words without me sounding each word out one at a time like a 2nd grader rather than immediate recognition of what something says. Its the most complicated problem I've heard of, and its all from a little astigmatism I guess. The eye is so weak now that when I try to make it do all the work, it micro-shakes while trying to read losing and gaining focus very rapidly, despite the fact I can technically read it.

I figured I'd buy some new glasses just to give my eyes a break from long distances. That did not go over well. Then I called the glasses place and asked if they can reproduce my glasses again and made up a car runover story. Only to find out every single one of these eye centers are racketeering sons of bleeps-- lining the doctors pockets and they don't want to sell me any glasses without him. You'd think if you lost your glasses they would make an exception.

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Which is why I been using Zenni's. The place I went was a actual doctor office instead of a store. They do sell contacts and do surgery there but don't sell glasses which is what I wear. Despite the Hannity thing I ordered my glasses frames and all for 16.95 shipped today. Same price as I paid 2 years ago. In 2014 I paid over $400 to ValueVision or I think they are ValueWorks or something now. Never again. Picking out frames online is the only bad thing but they go through pretty tough attempts to show you what it will look like and stuff. All you need is your prescription. They don't even care if it is old or check it.

Also I have some of the same issues with dominant eye and spasms. Lots of times if I am not paying attention my eyes will even tell me I did something I didn't like type a word. It's not that I see the word, just that it has told my brain I typed what I thought I did, then I read what I typed and the entire word isn't there so I end up with a sentence like," I to the store yesterday" instead of, I went to the store yesterday.

I've had glasses for 30 years but I haven't had issues with cloudy, fog, spasms, pain, not being able to read up close, word skipping and a slew of other crap until the past year or so.

Vanderhoof said:

CBT is good evidence based treatment for anxiety disorders. Evidence does not support using THC as treatment for anxiety disorders. So far, there is no convincing evidence that marijuana helps mental health conditions at all.

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She saw her Dr and he basically laughed at her when she brought that up, told her no, changed her from lexapro to effexor. idk, I told her that we need to find another Dr if this one isn't supportive when she says she wants to find a way off the pills. Of course with insurance concerns etc it isn't that easy, but I'm going to keep pushing that.

Yeah, that sounds like one of those pill salesman doctors.

Of course, the way off the pills... honestly... is therapy. Therapy doesn't have to be sitting on a couch and talking about your mother. In fact, that's excessively bullshit therapy. That's renting a parent for an hour a week.

There have to be coping mechanisms. An awful lot of it is philosophical. And diet, and exercise. It's just a whole life thing. It's not easy. God damn, if it was easy everyone would do it.

Anxiety attacks are bad business. And i'm not saying that your wife should bootstrap herself into happiness. That's also a bad plan. There's obviously more to it than a pill, though. And if the doctor was coming from a place where he was thinking she just wanted to substitute cannabis for something concocted in the lab... then yeah, that's sort of a laugh. It's not going to help any more than the pill is.

But the good in it is as you say. It's her realizing that there's more to it than this shit the doctor sells her, and starting to really want to do the work.

Her approach is just she wants off the pills, she heard about some people having success with medical mj so she thought "why the fuck not?" You saw that list of stuff she takes, what would you rather do if given the option?

I used to think, deep down, that it was something she just needed to get the fuck over. Because I didn't understand it. I still don't, but I understand it a little more now to at least get the gist of it that it isn't something under her control, which is exactly the frustrating thing for her.

Therapy is going to be a hard sell, which is another reason I thought sure why not when she brought up the pot stuff. I worry that it may have to get worse before she'll want to do that.

Mrs. Gravy said:

I hope she is being titrated off the lexapro and onto the effexor...and she should def. not just stop the effexor, that needs tapering too.
Vanderhoof yes??

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They have her ramping up the effexor over the course of a week and tapering off the lexapro in that same time period. I hope that's enough of a timeline.

chaos said:

Her approach is just she wants off the pills, she heard about some people having success with medical mj so she thought "why the fuck not?" You saw that list of stuff she takes, what would you rather do if given the option?

I used to think, deep down, that it was something she just needed to get the fuck over. Because I didn't understand it. I still don't, but I understand it a little more now to at least get the gist of it that it isn't something under her control, which is exactly the frustrating thing for her.

Therapy is going to be a hard sell, which is another reason I thought sure why not when she brought up the pot stuff. I worry that it may have to get worse before she'll want to do that.

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Yeah, I've never had a full bore panic attack. Well, I mean sober. But you know sometimes when you're a kid you get all lost just to find your way home and that's the entire point. But sober i've never had one. I've seen some bad ones. I've seen women curl up like a baby.

The closest I've had is... you'd have to call it bad moods. Nearly crippling despair. That can last for days. It really is something that happens to you. It helps to be a little bit psychotic so that you can disassociate, and be a man so that you can compartmentalize.

Like last week. Two full days of complete fucking bullshit touched off by a spider dream. I just woke up and it was god damned miserable. But i've cut my sugar and caffiene a whole lot two weeks ago, and I think my body finally noticed. There are chemical triggers, too.

It seems like learning how to avoid them is the thing. Harder to do when you're female. Their hormones run faster than ours.

Lexapro typically isn't hard to stop via taper but Effexor XR can be a real motherfucker to stop. It's bad enough that I avoid prescribing it because people feel shitty if they miss a dose.

Relying on medication is, ultimately, an ineffective way to treat any mental health condition. I remind patients that it is likely a combination of social, psychological and biological factors mixing together that creates symptoms and it is impossible to pick it apart and determine exactly what is causing symptoms. Focusing solely on medication and biological factors while ignoring social stressors and distorted thinking typically does not lead to the best outcomes. I smash my head into the proverbial wall over this daily.

iannis said:

Yeah, I've never had a full bore panic attack. Well, I mean sober. But you know sometimes when you're a kid you get all lost just to find your way home and that's the entire point. But sober i've never had one. I've seen some bad ones. I've seen women curl up like a baby.

The closest I've had is... you'd have to call it bad moods. Nearly crippling despair. That can last for days. It really is something that happens to you. It helps to be a little bit psychotic so that you can disassociate, and be a man so that you can compartmentalize.

Like last week. Two full days of complete fucking bullshit touched off by a spider dream. I just woke up and it was god damned miserable. But i've cut my sugar and caffiene a whole lot two weeks ago, and I think my body finally noticed. There are chemical triggers, too.

It seems like learning how to avoid them is the thing. Harder to do when you're female. Their hormones run faster than ours.

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The thing that sucks about panic attacks is that you are permanently scarred for a few days and it takes serious time to feel not scared shitless of an intangible. (few weeks or so I'd say before the terror has faded enough)

Only had 1 fortunately. You don't even want to return to the same room you had it in. The impending doom is so real and so severe, you can barely go back the next day and have to really reason yourself through just returning to your own house lets say to go to bed. Its so deep you can't put it into words. When you have one, you will know. The sense of fear and doom is so strong and its nothing you have ever felt before. Its insane.

So to me, anything that keeps her from having panic attacks is ideal. They leave you a shell of a person I'd imagine when you are having them regularly. One was enough for me. NEVER AGAIN would I ever do anything to put myself in the position of having another panic attack. I realized how fundamentally changed as a person I would be.

I just can't take those kinds of risks as a man.

jayrebb said:

The thing that sucks about panic attacks is that you are permanently scarred for a few days and it takes serious time to feel not scared shitless of an intangible. (few weeks or so I'd say before the terror has faded enough)

Only had 1 fortunately. You don't even want to return to the same room you had it in. The impending doom is so real and so severe, you can barely go back the next day and have to really reason yourself through just returning to your own house lets say to go to bed. Its so deep you can't put it into words. When you have one, you will know. The sense of fear and doom is so strong and its nothing you have ever felt before. Its insane.

So to me, anything that keeps her from having panic attacks is ideal. They leave you a shell of a person I'd imagine when you are having them regularly. One was enough for me. NEVER AGAIN would I ever do anything to put myself in the position of having another panic attack. I realized how fundamentally changed as a person I would be.

I just can't take those kinds of risks as a man.

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Imagine getting those all the time, like at least once a week, sometimes multiple times per day. Sometimes it seems like they never end, like the attack just goes on for hours on end. That's her anxiety, or where it was before. Then she got on those meds, and at first she would have agreed I am sure. Anything that makes that go away is good. Then the side effects of the medications kick in, and she's dealing with that. And it's pretty fucked up. And the attacks never entirely go away, they're just diminished in frequency.

I wonder if you moved to the country when the kids are 17ish if they'd go away.

I obviously don't know anything about it.

But you live in the DC area. It's not exactly the most chill place on the planet to exist. She's got 3 girls to ride herd on. I mean there is stress in her life. She's obviously not very good at diffusing it. So it just builds up and CRUSHES her. And yeah, she probably does have chemical triggers. Obviously she must, there's a physical root for these things. Was she having them when you were courting? If she was i'm sure she hid them from you, but i'm sure you've asked and gotten an answer since you put a ring on it and obviously ain't going anywhere.

Not questions that I particularly need or want an answer to. That's your business, and it's personal. But since the problem has been medically mediated, it's a line of thought that might help you and her to explore again.

Are you letting her unload her daily dose of bullshit on you? If you've got an hour at night prompt her. So, sweetie, how fucked up was your day? And then let her unload that pile of misery straight into your mouth and don't advise her. It seems to help women. I dunno why man, they're fuckin stupid. But it does seem to help. It won't fix anything, but it might help her destress a little to just rant. That's what husbands are for. When they're older, it's what her daughters will be for. That's just being human.

I dunno shit about fuck. I'm sure you've tried that. This is at least partially her internal world view. I do remember that when she started working, you said she got better. That's not a coincidence.

DC's not so bad. Traffic sucks, sure, but there's a ton to do and stuff.

I will say that her symptoms definitely got worse once the kids showed up, financially we had no choice but for her to stay home. This fall the kids will officially all be in school. I'm not sure how things are going to change, especially because I'm planning to transition jobs in the fall as well. She's doing this craft/etsy thing on the side and doing ok at it. It's something she enjoys, anyway. We will see how the new meds are doing. As of right now she's up all night, can't sleep.

Good luck with your surgery Mrs. Gravy. Protip: Pretend your itchy as fuck and demand some IV Benadryl. Good times will be had.

Surgery is confirmed for tomorrow at 730. Check in is at 530. There shouldn't be any traffic driving into Boston at that our but Boston can still suck a fat dick.
They've got me penciled in for a 6 hour surgery and they estimate a 7 day stay. The last hernia surgery similar to this was 10 hours and a 10 day stay so we'll see how that goes. Once I'm relatively coherent I'll post an update. High on IV narcotic pain meds leads to some interesting texts so I'll be interested in seeing what I posted after the fact haha.

Since it's July 3rd your drive in should be really easy

Source: worked in Boston for a year