Doctor Awesome

Ok, so I came to my parents' for the holiday yesterday, and I'll be here until Sunday. Since my prescriptions are out of refills, I went to my doctor today to get some new prescriptions. I cannot even put into words how amazing she is. She's so fantastic that I'll drive 2 hours to see her instead of getting my own doctor where I live. I hope she stays in this area forever.

It just so happened that I developed the plague over the last few days, so I had her check that for me, which turned out to be some sort of sinus infection. She gave me antibiotics and Nasonex for that, for free out of her office and a coupon to use to buy Mucinex. (See? Awesome!) Then, I laid out my laundry list for her.

She upped my Lamictal to 200 mg. because I told her that while I'm mostly controlled, I still have breakthrough spells sometimes. So now I'm to take 100 mg. of Lamictal in the morning with my Wellbutrin, and then another 100 mg. of Lamictal at night before bed. Ok, super, this will probably help. She even prescribed them differently this time for me to make the price cheaper. Go, Dr. M!

After that, I told her that sometimes I have a hard time going to sleep, but that I generally stay asleep once I get to sleep. But, of course, any sort of sleep disturbance starts sending me spinning my wheels in one direction or the other. I didn't get a full night's sleep last night or the night before, and I've got that whole hypomanic inner vibration going on inside me. I told her that I normally take Unisom over the counter, but that they knock me out for much too long--as in 14+ hours at a time, which is ridiculous. I told her that I tried cutting the 25 mg. pills in half to make 12.5 mg. pills, but that it didn't help, either. So she said, "No problem, I'll get you a prescription for Ambien." Awesome!

Then, I talked to her about migraines I've started back having again and asked her about a certain med that I used to take for them when I was younger and saw a neurologist for migraines (read: when I still had insurance). She told me that she couldn't write me many because they could be habit-forming, and I said that'd be fine because I wouldn't need that many, anyway. So, yay, a prescription for a barbiturate to be used whenever I take my over-the-counter Aspirin/Tylenol/Caffeine migraine pills. Fabulous!

Next, I mentioned some problems I've been having with regards to muscle weakness, in my hands and jaw muscles, especially. These are big problems when it comes to doing things like opening jars and bottles with my hands and trying to eat. My jaw muscles get tired partway through my meal, and I have to stop and rest. So she asked me some questions and then said she wanted me to go and have a thyroid test done at the hospital. So I'm gonna try to go over there on Friday. *Fingers crossed*

As she was looking at my tonsils, she asked me if I snored. I told her yes. She told me that she figured I had to, given the size of my tonsils. Then, she went on to say that when I get insurance, I need to have a sleep study done because I most likely have sleep apnea. I don't doubt this in the least and when I get insurance (hopefully in the next few months), I'll go do the sleep study.

Finally, as she was listening to my lungs and heart, she found something odd. Odd enough for her to order an EKG right then. So I laid there, wondering WTF? They did the EKG, and she came back to show me the print out. Apparently, I have a type of cardiac arrythmia called Premature Ventricular Contraction, or PVC. (Yes, I totally had to Wiki PVC when I got home to see what the letters stood for, LOL. At the top of the page, it says "ECG without significant abnormalities." Then, it's also got "sinus rhythm (rapid)" and "premature ventricular complexes."

Anyway, it amounts to me having an irregular heartbeat and a too-fast pulse. Over the next couple of weeks, I'm to keep a check on my pulse to see if it continues to race and see if it's still irregular. It was pretty much there the whole time through the EKG, and if it doesn't get better, she's going to look into it farther and probably put me on some meds to chill it the hell out. She said it would probably help with my feeling tired all the time if we could get my erratically galloping heart to slow the hell down and start trotting in time again.

So, basically, this doctor is exceptional times a million, and I am so happy to have her.

The questionable thyroid thing doesn't really bother me, but the questionable heart thing does. Though I suppose that if I must die at some point, going out via heart trouble is better than a lot of things. At least it isn't usually painful if I remember correctly. And how ironic that my heart will be the death of me, since it's been broken for years, anyhow? *Sigh*

Now, if you will excuse me, the letters on the page have been dancing for awhile, and I'm drunk off my ass from the Ambien I took earlier. So I'm going to have myself a snack and go to bed before the hallucinations start--which they will if I don't get to sleep soon.