Ill be back
Aug. 30th, 2005 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4More notes from an ill badger -- not so much because I expect people to take an interest (being ill is boring. Fact.) as because I know how annoying it is to only hear half a story...
Whatever-it-is flared up badly over the weekend, and instead of spending the weekend doing exciting things like going to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ultraruby's barbecue (sorry!) and going interesting places, I spent much of the weekend writhing about in pain/discomfort and alternating between feeling sorry for myself, feeling guilty about being useless, and feeling just plain pissed off at having to be ill on the only sunny August Bank Holiday EVER. I say "pain/discomfort" because if I had this level of pain in, say, my knee or something, I wouldn't really worry that much. What's pissing me off is the way it feels like someone's twisting my insides around all the time, and I can feel them shoogling around but they never quite get comfortable. It wears me out and it makes me not want to do anything. Eating toast and drinking Coke seemed to be the only thing that helped, and by Sunday night I was feeling well enough to invent words in Scrabble in an attempt to beat addedentry, and by Monday I was feeling well enough to go and clear out the shed (taking breaks to lie down on the lawn and try to straighten myself out again -- from there I could almost pretend I was having a holiday!). On Monday evening I managed to have a proper meal, so hurrah for being able to eat again.
My mum told me that she'd had something similar when she was my age, and they said it was IBS and gave her some magic high-fibre medicine drink, which she said tasted so foul that it just made her sick. So she decided that if it was just high-fibre she could do that with Real Food instead of icky medicine, and she did, and she says it got a bit better, but she still gets stomach problems whenever she's ill with anything else. Since food doesn't seem to make very much difference on the whole I'm happy to try eating higher-fibre stuff for a while; it's not as if it'll do any harm. Her latest suggestion is that I might have a hiatus hernia, which sounded pretty nasty but actually doesn't seem to be that drastic. The funny thing is, I had a dreadful cough back in March and thought I'd pulled a muscle from coughing, and now I'm wondering if what I actually did was give myself a hernia.
The web's great for hypochondria, isn't it?
Anyway, the hernia is something they can test for, so I'll suggest it next time I go back to the doctor. In the meantime, if the pain/discomfort stays at the level it's got down to today, I'm happy to wait the 2 months or so for the ultrasound rather than making a fuss and jumping the queue / demanding to be referred to specialists / whatever. If it gets worse again, I'll probably go back to the doctor, and see what the options are.
FWIW, my mum also said she'd've been on the Pill at the time when she was having the stomach problems. Not that it's by any means clear that that's anything to do with it. Anyway, I get to find out soon, hopefully as I'm very nearly at the end of this pack, & I'm stopping after that. I'm fairly worried about the effects that stopping the Pill might have, but honestly, I'd rather know what I'm like without the fake hormones, and then I can decide if I'd be better going back on them again. I'm not all pseudo-mystical about reclaiming my natural rhythms blah blah blah or anything like that; I really just want to do a proper experiment.
Oh, but I'm so bored of the whole 'ill' thing, though. And so are you, no doubt, so I will shut up now.
Whatever-it-is flared up badly over the weekend, and instead of spending the weekend doing exciting things like going to
ultraruby's barbecue (sorry!) and going interesting places, I spent much of the weekend writhing about in pain/discomfort and alternating between feeling sorry for myself, feeling guilty about being useless, and feeling just plain pissed off at having to be ill on the only sunny August Bank Holiday EVER. I say "pain/discomfort" because if I had this level of pain in, say, my knee or something, I wouldn't really worry that much. What's pissing me off is the way it feels like someone's twisting my insides around all the time, and I can feel them shoogling around but they never quite get comfortable. It wears me out and it makes me not want to do anything. Eating toast and drinking Coke seemed to be the only thing that helped, and by Sunday night I was feeling well enough to invent words in Scrabble in an attempt to beat addedentry, and by Monday I was feeling well enough to go and clear out the shed (taking breaks to lie down on the lawn and try to straighten myself out again -- from there I could almost pretend I was having a holiday!). On Monday evening I managed to have a proper meal, so hurrah for being able to eat again. My mum told me that she'd had something similar when she was my age, and they said it was IBS and gave her some magic high-fibre medicine drink, which she said tasted so foul that it just made her sick. So she decided that if it was just high-fibre she could do that with Real Food instead of icky medicine, and she did, and she says it got a bit better, but she still gets stomach problems whenever she's ill with anything else. Since food doesn't seem to make very much difference on the whole I'm happy to try eating higher-fibre stuff for a while; it's not as if it'll do any harm. Her latest suggestion is that I might have a hiatus hernia, which sounded pretty nasty but actually doesn't seem to be that drastic. The funny thing is, I had a dreadful cough back in March and thought I'd pulled a muscle from coughing, and now I'm wondering if what I actually did was give myself a hernia.
The web's great for hypochondria, isn't it?
Anyway, the hernia is something they can test for, so I'll suggest it next time I go back to the doctor. In the meantime, if the pain/discomfort stays at the level it's got down to today, I'm happy to wait the 2 months or so for the ultrasound rather than making a fuss and jumping the queue / demanding to be referred to specialists / whatever. If it gets worse again, I'll probably go back to the doctor, and see what the options are.
FWIW, my mum also said she'd've been on the Pill at the time when she was having the stomach problems. Not that it's by any means clear that that's anything to do with it. Anyway, I get to find out soon, hopefully as I'm very nearly at the end of this pack, & I'm stopping after that. I'm fairly worried about the effects that stopping the Pill might have, but honestly, I'd rather know what I'm like without the fake hormones, and then I can decide if I'd be better going back on them again. I'm not all pseudo-mystical about reclaiming my natural rhythms blah blah blah or anything like that; I really just want to do a proper experiment.
Oh, but I'm so bored of the whole 'ill' thing, though. And so are you, no doubt, so I will shut up now.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-30 04:32 pm (UTC)With the Coke, I think the burping lots is what helps, in that it gets the wind out. Dunno, could be just a placebo effect because Coke is a comforting taste for me -- all I know is that it really does seem to help! Unfortunately, the downside of drinking all this Coke is that my teeth will soon be brown and rotting. :-/ Still, I can get false teeth, but I can't get a false digestive system (I wish I could -- something nice in clean white plastic with all the bits in the right places).
no subject
Date: 2005-08-30 06:13 pm (UTC)I find Coke helpful during a stomach upset, as well, so it's not just you :-) It's a shame that something like soda water isn't as fizzy...