busybee fluffy rambles

Vertigo

My vertigo has definitely been getting worse over the past few days. It matches BPPV pretty well, in that it’s mostly triggered by changes in head position, but I’ve tried all of the various BPPV self-treatment exercises (particularly the Epley maneuver and the Half Somersault), and while they definitely trigger even more intense vertigo while I’m doing them (as they should), the vertigo doesn’t resolve.

Alarmingly, I’ve also been having more frequent and severe bouts of tinnitus as of late, which makes me worry that I’m actually developing Ménière’s disease, which doesn’t have a great prognosis.

Today while I was finishing up my acoustic panels and hanging them in the basement I had a severe vertigo attack — the worst I’d ever had — and I chalked it up to the outgas fumes from the spray adhesive I used. My basement VOC alarm was also going off from the fumes, so of course I left the basement and went to cleaner, fresh air. But it’s been a few hours since I did that and I’m still feeling dizzy. It subsides when I keep my head still but as soon as any movement happens, bam, the room is spinning.

I’m sure the glue fumes didn’t help at all but it feels like they really just triggered something that was already about to happen.

I was going to go grocery shopping today but now that seems to be off the table.

Joint problems

My knees are absolute garbage right now. My hips, too. And my toes. And my wrists. And shoulders. And sometimes my fingers. And elbows.

Basically, everything sucks.

I’ve got an appointment with a rheumatologist in two weeks. The last doctor I saw had ordered some labwork but the only “interesting” thing that came back was an elevated C-reactive protein, which is one sign of rheumatoid arthritis, but none of the other standard markers came back. But those tests are just indicators and never completely rule things out, despite the defeatist/cavalier attitude expressed by the doctor.

Like, you know how sometimes you’ll be walking for a little bit and then your kneecaps just go out of alignment and then need to be cracked back into place?

No?

Well, they do for me.

Chronic pain

I fucking hate healthcare providers. They see “chronic pain” and immediately say “mindfulness.” It’s the new “diet and exercise.”

There are clear, physical symptoms going on, things that are underlying to my pain. All the fucking mindfulness in the world (and pain relief) doesn’t help if there’s unaddressed underlying conditions that are causing the pain in the first place.

They look at my weight and assume that I’m eating too much and am eating junk food. My typical meal these days is a salad with:

• Lettuce
• Chickpeas
• Dried cranberries
• Sunflower seeds
• Not very much salad dressing

Or for dinner I’ll have fish, or soup.

But they never fucking believe me, and direct me to “eat less fast food.” They don’t want to believe that someone could be overweight for reasons other than diet.

It’s like they’re guessing which video games I play based on the color of my hair.

Also I’d love to be exercising more! But it fucking hurts to do so. How can I exercise if after five minutes of basic movements my knee gives out under me? And a similar thing happens to my shoulders after a couple of minutes of lifting 5-pound dumbbells.

GERD

My severe acid reflux also came back, about a week ago, in the form of, oh, I just bent over to pick something up and suddenly my throat was full of stomach acid! And every morning I’d been waking up with bad stomach acid problems as well. It’s the worst that the GERD has ever been.

When I brought this up with the doctor, of course the answer was “diet and exercise.”

I’ve been taking a course of OTC omeprazole again since in the past that’s usually helped things to clear up, and it’s helped somewhat, but it hasn’t solved all the issues. It’s just tolerable right now.

Fucking doctors

So, my usual GP is on a leave of absence due to a family emergency. She doesn’t have any appointments available until May.

I needed to see a GP in order to get a referral to a rheumatologist, and Virginia fucking Mason at least agreed to give me an appointment with someone other than my designed GP in order to do so. This other doctor was grumpy about needing to see me and the appointment was about 10 minutes of her grilling me about my entire medication list (especially with some severe misconceptions about my HRT), 5 minutes convincing her I needed referral to a rheumatologist and the supporting labwork, and then 10 minutes of her lecturing me about diet regarding GERD.

I didn’t get any time to ask about vertigo; when I tried raising it she just said that the appointment was over and walked out of the room.

The physician’s assistant who came back afterwards said that she’d schedule me for a followup to talk about the vertigo. And then this followup got canceled because I “need to see my assigned doctor about it,” and that if it’s something urgent I should go to urgent care.

You know the saying, an ounce of prevention is better than a ton of cure. But the prevention is not in stock, these days. And urgent care isn’t going to want to see me for things that aren’t ongoing “minor inconveniences” like vertigo, even though it’s preventing me from, y'know, living my life.

I fucking hate the medical industry right now.

Things to consider

• Rheumatoid arthritis would explain the joint problems and pain; also my grandmother had it (at least, based on the diagnostic criteria in the 70s/80s), so I have a genetic risk factor for it
• Psoriatic arthritis would explain all that plus the vertigo and tinnitus (and also the couple of weird rashes I’ve had recently, although of course those have all cleared up on their own)
• Or maybe this is me having weird side effects to one of my many medications, who even knows at this point
• Or maybe I’ve had a stroke and I’m gonna die soon anyway, in which case, it was nice knowing y'all

So anyway I’m not particularly thrilled with how things are going at the moment.