Health Issues

Let’s touch on the issue of my health for a moment here. You may or may not recall that I’ve been in poor health as of late. My doctor thought it was acid reflux, and naturally so did I for a while. But when the symptoms did not improve (I’ve had it for nearly a year now), even with medicine, and the symptoms kept getting worse, I figured it was time to do some research of my own.

The fact that I was sick as a dog and in extreme pain for 3 days when I got down here probably helped motivate me as well.

The pain in my upper abdomen/lower chest was aboslutely insane, and it radiated to my back and left me incapacitated for the better part of a day – with residual pain for the following day, usually. Having quite a bit of time while I was down here to note my symptoms in detail allowed me to find that gallstones seem to be the best description of what is ailing me – at least, as far as symptoms go. Before I left I met with my doctor and basically said “the medicine isn’t working, I’m in a lot of pain, what else can we do?” As a result, when I get back I’ve got chest X-Rays and abdominal ultrasounds scheduled to figure out what the heck is wrong with me.

One thing that really shocked the doctor was the amount of weight I’ve lost as a result of this pain – which often makes me vomit, and leaves me unable to eat for most of the day as well. I was 212 lbs when I finished the courier run – I weigh 145 lbs now. That’s 67 lbs lost – which is quite a bit! In fact, I look rather scrawny now – my arms are very skinny and let’s just say I don’t have “six pack abs.” It’s rather embarrasing, actually.

I think I may still have a bit of acid reflux, or maybe just occasional heartburn that sometimes coincides with the gallstones. I know that reflux isn’t an issue because I’ve been able to eat all sorts of normally “bad” food for reflux and be fine – such as beer, wine, tomato based foods (i.e. italian food, chili), spicy food (tacos, thai food, etc.), and other things that would normally aggrivate acid reflux. It is definately odd, and it confuses both me and my doctor.

So hopefully the tests when I get back will indicate something straightforward that I can treat and/or fix quickly, because frankly this pain is getting out of hand, and I’d like to be able to eat again.

Here’s hoping…