Heigh Ho (with an accent on the Ho)

[muninnhuginn]

(To explain, the notion that some of Shakespeare's comedies, Twelfth Night's probably the best example, are not entirely comedic and, indeed do not, for all characters, have a "happy ending" can be neatly summarised in the two words heigh and ho. Not my idea, but I've always rather liked it.)

So, on the "heigh" side:

• the blood tests done three months ago show nothing at all unusual
  
• I have different second line pain killers that shouldn't leave me in a state of calmly plotting murder when I stop taking them
  
• we're not trying any extra drugs, say the anti-malarials, yet

On the "ho" side:

• the blood tests done three months ago show nothing at all unusual, so we still don't know what's wrong
  
• I have different second line pain killers and I really seem to need them more and more
  
• we're not trying any extra drugs, say the anti-malarials, yet: the rheumatologist seems to be waiting for something to get worse first

And the lets-sample-every-possible-out-patient-clinic saga continues. I go back to the rheumatologist in six months ("unless things get worse before then" he said), am still waiting for the ophthamologist's appointment to come up (six month waiting time) and now have to a the dermatologist too.

Ho hum. It's all such a nuisance, both the symptoms and the rapidly multiplying visits to out patients.

Comments

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

hmmmm ...

Has the possibility of an infectious-disease vector been sufficiently investigated?

I ask because I have Lyme disease (Borrellia burgdorferi - a spirochete, generally tick-borne), which it took a very dedicated primary-care physician several years to diagnose. (The most common screening test, still, is the ELISA, or titre; but it has a very, very high rate of false negatives. I finally was diagnosed when, for the first time, they did a Western Blot test, and it was off-the-charts positive.)

Now, if I stay on my antibiotics, and get plenty of rest, and don't get sick with anything else, my fever stays low, my joints don't get swollen and sore, my hair doesn't fall out, my skin doesn't get dry and fragile and irritable, my vision doesn't get odd (and the "incipient cataracts" I was told I had have gone away), and the tinnitus stays to a dull roar.

This is not to say you have the same illness ... though if you'd like to find out more, the Web site lymenet.org can be helpful, especially the writings of Dr. David Burrascano, who has a few questionnaires on there somewhere (one on environmental risk level, plus one symptoms) that helped me get the test that got me Dx'd and Tx'd ... but there are a number of difficult-to-diagnose infections (mycoplasma, for instance) that can and do cause rheumatoid-like symptoms.

In fact, a small but growing minority of rheumatologists (including my uncle, now retired, but a brilliant diagnostician in his day, who helped many "hopeless" patients) believes that many, if not most, such illnesses are secondary to infection.

Just a thought ...

Glad nothing nasty's turned up in your test results.