Whatever I Feel Like

Well I said I was going to take care of all my issues at the doctor today and I did not lie. I feel like I spent the entire day doing things in some form with doctors. First was the appointment with my primary care physician.

I go to a family practice so there are a few doctors there. I’m new to this practice, so I don’t know any of the doctors yet, really.. Today while I was in the waiting room, a doctor called a patient in and just by his abrupt manner, I thought, “I hope that’s not the doctor I’m seeing.” Sure enough, it was. All was well, though, as I turned out to really come to love his no-nonsense style once I was his patient. So here’s the low-down of what he told me.

1 – About the arm – he didn’t really have any idea after looking at it and asking questions – so he gave me a referral to an orthopedic specialist
2 – About the dizziness – he did a bunch of tests – had me walking on my tiptoes, had me watching his finger, had me do resistance testing when he pulled on my limbs, etc. all kinds of stuff. After he got done, he told me those were tests to see if I had a brain tumor or a stroke!! Ack! Thankfully, he doesn’t think I do, and thinks it may be related to the “allergy” or hearing loss problems. He told me the name for the dizziness I have is benign positional vertigo. Sounds important, huh?
3 – About the allergies – he says he doesn’t think I have allergies, but that I have something called vasomotor rhinitis. The symptoms are similar to allergies, except not too much itchy, watery eyes and the causes are related to the weather, changes in temperature, etc. – all things I have problems with. So he gave me a prescription for Flonase for that and also Zyrtec D if the Flonase isn’t enough. It will take 3-5 days for Flonase to start working. So he said if after about 2 months of the new drugs I’m still experiencing the dizziness, then he wants me to get an MRI of my brain to make sure there are no tumors or anything. He also was interested in my history of hearing loss and was surprised that I don’t have a regular doctor that I see to monitor it. He sort of read me the riot act about that. He gave me a referral to an ENT so I can establish a relationship with a doctor for my ears, and also to discuss the possibility that my vertigo is related to the problem with my ears or vasomotor rhinitis.

Whew, right? So now here’s my schedule of doctor’s appointments for the week.

Today I also called the the hearing aid doctor and was able to get right in – so my hearing aid is fixed. Yay! I also stopped back at my primary care doctor’s to pick up a script for an X-ray to have taken before I go to the orthopedic specialist. And, I called the GYN to reschedule my appointment I missed yesterday.

Tomorrow morning at 10, I go to the ENT. Thursday night I go to the orthopedic specialist and some time before that I need to get the x-rays. And my GYN appointment is rescheduled for August, in case you’re interested – ha!

So there you have it – I’m officially falling apart. Heh! I actually feel really good about taking care of all this today. I feel hopeful and positive about my treatment options. I’m still kind of stunned that the doc doesn’t think I have allergies since I’ve been taking Zyrtec for years now. He said he was surprised it’s been doing anything on its own.

I’ll be sure to keep you all apprised of the progress.

Edit: I forgot to add the best part! My doctor wrote down the names of the things I have and told me to Google them. Then he told me to email him any time!! LOVE HIM!!! LOL! I almost asked him if he read my blog.

Okay, so I called about my arm and I’m headed to the doctor’s office tomorrow morning. I had a list of 3 things I want to talk about when I go in.

1 – My arm
2 – My allergy medication. Right now I take 10mg Zyrtec every day for “seasonal” allergies. However, there are still a lot of days when I’m congested, too, and end up having to take an OTC remedy for that. I want to get another prescription for Zyrtec-D and also talk about upping the dosage if possible. I feel like the 10mg wears off way before the 24 hour period.
3 – My dizziness. I don’t want to continue treating it with Antivert – I want to get to the root cause and treat that.

Of course I was not congested today nor was I dizzy. So now I’ve convinced myself that I’m a hypochondriac for wanting to talk about both of those things. I’ve also convinced myself that my arm isn’t so bad, either, and that maybe I just pulled it when I was swimming. Why do I have such reservations about going to the doctor? It’s not that I’m afraid of going… I think it’s more that the doctor will think I’m exaggerating or something. I think this stems from my parents having this reaction any time I got sick when I was little. It was a bother to them usually, and I had to do some convincing on occasion that I was actually sick. Who knows what the reason is, I just know it’s annoying. I am going to the doctor tomorrow, though, and I am telling them about every single one of these issues.

Incidentally, I looked at my calendar for something tonight when I was at a meeting and realized I missed my annual GYN appointment today. Woops! I didn’t get a phone call either. Weird. I guess I’ll have to call them tomorrow, too.

Oh! And I really need to call the hearing aide doctor. One of my aids is messed up – the tubing separated from the inner ear piece. It’s been like this for over a month now and I haven’t called yet. Dang. I didn’t think I was one of those people who didn’t call the doctor when it was necessary to do so. I guess I am those people. Gah.

There’s something wrong with my arm. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s been bothering me for a couple of months now. I just keep thinking it will work itself out and stop hurting on its own. The thing is, it doesn’t always hurt – just when I move it certain ways. The pain is on my left upper arm, just below my shoulder on the outer side. It radiates down almost to my elbow when I move it the wrong way.

One thing I thought would help would be to start lifting weights. I don’t know why that occurred to me, but I thought if my arms were stronger, they wouldn’t hurt. That makes a lot less sense when I type it out than it does in my head. Today I went swimming in my sister’s pool, so I thought getting in some laps would be good for my arm. Boy, was I wrong. I couldn’t even go a full length of the pool before my arm completely gave out on me. I was in the deep end by then, though, and started floundering a bit while trying to get to the side. I called Rob over to help me; he, of course, loved mimicking me and poking fun the rest of the time he was in the pool. Jerk. Hee!

So now my arm is in constant pain instead of the occasional pain I was experiencing before. I guess this means I’m going to have to finally cave in and call the doctor about it. I have no idea what it could be, maybe I need to do some Googling first. Because we all know how well a diagnosis from Google works.