The Druidery of Clomid

There was a time when I was an aspiring fiction writer. I had some very modest success (i.e. no one has never heard of me) but once the toddler was born, I didn't have time to write. Nor did I want to, I had my own personal happy ending to enjoy.

I hope to go back to it someday, but that is not the point of this post.

The point is, I like to write Fantasy. Some Sci Fi. Those are my genres.

One of my books has some Druids and I found out that there was a local Druid Council in my area.

So I went to see what they were about, to find out if there was anything I could glean from the Real Deal for my book.

This happened to coincide with the day I had a serious reaction to Clomid.

We had just started infertility treatments and the first line treatment was Clomid.

Clomid is usually well tolerated and leads to pregnancy all the time.

In my body?

I may as well have smoked some crack and done meth.

I took a cat nap before leaving and when I woke up, my vision was blurry. Really blurry. As in, all I could see were blobs of color. Also known as for-the-love-of-God-don't-drive blurry.

Blinking madly cured the worst of it, leaving me dizzy and really disoriented. I could see for the most part, but the world was still carnival mirror warped.

Unfortunately, I was so high, I didn't know I was high.

So, of course, off I drove to meet the Druids. Swerving all over the place to keep up with all the fast changing curves in the road.

Note: The curves were a hallucination/visual disturbance.

I made it there in one piece, but began to realize maybe something was a little off when I couldn't walk without lurching like a drunkard.

As weird as the Druids were, I was higher. I was SO dizzy.

I had no idea what to do. I didn't know these people. They were a little wary of me (and I them) and I wasn't sure how well an announcement of "Duuuuudes, I am SO high right now, but it's okay because it's prescription fertility drugs" would go over.

So I just faked it 'til I made it. Smiled, perhaps a little too widely. Drank from the communal cup. Chanted the chant. Drummed the drum. Then sat in my car for a looooong while after their meeting adjourned before timidly driving home once the road appeared to be mostly straight.

And that is the story of how I came to learn I could never take Clomid ever again.

It never made me ovulate, but it did make me weirder than a Druid.

(Actually, Druidism is kind of interesting as a religion. As far as paganism goes, it's very cerebral. I didn't get much out of my in-person research--too high--but I learned a lot from reading and they are an interesting group. If I wasn't a preacher's kid...I might've been a Druid.)

Exercise Can Trip You Up

I did a hard (for my current level of fitness which is somewhere below that of inanimate objects) squat workout the other night. It wasn't long, just intense.

And the next day the adrenals were all fired up, aching and burning. I got the message and sat on my a$$, resting as much as possible. Even going to bed early. In addition to the naps. No, not nap, napS plural.

This concerns me. If I am truly recovering and what not, I should not be having such issues with exercise. It should not deplete me so deeply.

I don't know. I'm willing to let it go for a bit longer and see what shakes out before I start duking it out with the endo on the matter of more cortisol testing. I don't know how they can say no given my am Cortisol level was 6 despite 10mg of prednisone in my blood stream, but they manage it somehow.

Must be a great hardship for them, I know.

On the topic of exercise, the toddler fell down the stairs again. I was expecting it and was there to catch her. It was after her first PT session in over a month and I figured her muscles would be fatigued so I carefully monitored her on the stairs. Which was wise, had I not been there, it would have been a serious fall, straight from the top.

It's frustrating and frightening and I don't know how to make it better.

It's Not that I'm Weird, I Just Know More Than You

HMO: We'd like to tell you about an exciting program that can help you manage your health.

ME: Is this the program where you have a nurse coach?

HMO: Yes it is.

ME: No offense or anything but I don't find that program helpful. I don't know if it's because I've taken the basic A&P classes or what, but I always seem to know more than the nurse*.

HMO: *silence, refers to script* Uh...what?

ME: I don't plan to participate. Thank you.

HMO: Okay. Thanks. *click*

They hung up before I could tell them what would really help me would be a good patient advocate. That would save us all money. But then the patient advocate would have to know something about adrenal glands and well...that's not gonna happen.

*It's not that nurses don't know anything, it's that I don't think they are allowed to deviate from their very narrow program scope. I did this type of program before and it is total fluff. Like kindergarten. "Asthma is a lung disease. You need to take your medication every day."

Really?

No sh*t. I thought it was the enlarged big toe of my unborn twin growing out of my rectum. (If that doesn't make sense to you, it's a sign that you need to watch more medical weirdness documentaries on TLC and Discovery Health).

Thank you HMO for using my premium dollars for this bullsh*t.

Living While I Can

My temporary crown fell off. That is the worst thing that has happened around here of late.

I'll take it!

My gut says I'm on the cusp of another 'good' period where I'm not hampered so much by the adrenals. I hope to coast the wave and liquidate some of this excess fat that has stubbornly refused to go to toward the light.

I have been exercising almost daily. It tends to suck the life out of me, which is the only sign I have that maybe things might not go as well as my gut thinks. But I can pretty much show up every day and crank out some kind of work out which is saying something. I'm not brave enough to do Zumba yet, at least not until I can walk 2 miles without needing a nap.

One of the really horrible nasty things that has been riding me since before Christmas may unexpectedly resolve in a really bizarrely positive way. Once it's a done deal, I will explain things more fully, but I can't talk about it until then. Please cross your fingers and do some voodoo with dead chickens for me. I can use all the good mojo I can get.

Thrice Charmed…Or Not

Guess how many times we've been to the dentist this week?

Three times!

THREE!

Granted only 2 of the appointments were for me (Tip: Save yourself a fortune and don't ever try to eat a caramel if you have a crown. Crown = lifetime caramel ban.). The third was the toddler's first dentist visit ever.

I did not know this, but she should have gone at 6 months.

Huh. Does anyone actually take their baby in? Anyone?

I didn't go until 5. The toddler is 3, I figure we're ahead so far compared to my parents.

(I am winning!)

Also? NO cavities or tartar. Perfect teeth like her father. FINALLY something health related that does not take after me!

Since she'd been with me earlier for the initial 'oops I broke my crown' assessment, she knew exactly what to do. She vaulted into the chair and cranked open her mouth as if someone had promised to pour a fountain of chocolate down her throat. The dentist was tres amused.

I take it most kids aren't quite so...excited.

Then they gave the toddler her very own dental floss and her head exploded with sheer joy. There's nothing she covets more than strings of dental floss. She filches it quite often from the bathroom and then I can never find it when I need it. All my future cavities are her fault.

She continues to be sick. Alternately slumping in my lap, a puddle of alarming lethargy followed by a spastic nap-resistant unpleasantness that would rival the most anti anti-Mubarak protester (FYI, I’m Mubarak in our house, sucks to be mommy).

On the plus side, her breathing is good. It seems to just be a persistent head cold, which I hope and pray does not come to visit me. My asthma has subsided with copious doses of Mucinex, but I still have enough residual gunk that I don’t need any other bugs joining the party thankyouverymuch.

Quality in Medicine, the Lack Thereof

What strikes me as I continue to navigate the mess we call medical care is how poor performance festers unchecked. If I screwed up as often as medicine does and in the passive-aggressive manner it specializes in, I would have been fired from my last job.

Yet the doctors I've seen continue on their merry way.

Where is the quality control? Where is the accountability?

For instance, let's look at my diagnosis of Hashimoto's.

The first endo gave me the diagnosis simply based on palpating my thyroid and in light of family history.

The second supported the diagnosis before the blood work came back, but at least they ordered blood work. They never called me to follow up on the results or anything, which makes the blood work sort of useless, but okay. (What is the point of ordering blood work if you're not going to interpret it and DO something with it? The doctor is just wasting the patient's money.)

The third endo questioned the diagnosis and ran more blood work for even more antibodies because they weren't impressed with the previous bloodwork and said I don't have Hashimoto's.

Here's a revolutionary idea, why not run all the blood work upfront? I mean ALL of it and then decide if it's Hashimoto's or not. Take the cost of the doctor visits vs. the blood work and factor in the opportunity cost of one patient using resources across three physicians and tell me what is more efficient, accurate and economically feasible?

Hashimoto's is relatively simple stuff medically. It's common. There's a diagnostic test. So why does it take three endos to sort it out?*

It's half-a$$ed. If I had handled my job in the same manner, first, I would've blown something up with my incompetence, second, I would've been fired as well as faced civil charges and fines from the government.

Further, I was living with the supposition that I had Hashimoto's and avoiding quite a few vegetables as a result. Imagine if it hadn't been Hashimoto's but something that required more drastic lifestyle changes? All based on a bad diagnosis.

Why is this acceptable? Why is there no feedback mechanism in place to take situations like this and use them to improve the practice of medicine?

*I guess this explains why getting decent care for adrenal stuff is so difficult. If they can't handle a simple thyroid...

Nobel Prize Winner Believes in Homeopathy (Edited)

As much as homeopathic medicine is derided and debunked, it has always been a big question mark for me. Why? Because the homeopathic flu medicines use the exact same virus strains found in flu vaccinations.

Vaccinations in general, the golden child of Western medicine, can be characterized as 'like cures like' the principle upon which the entire practice of homeopathic medicine is built.

So I have never been one to dismiss homeopathy and have actually done quite a bit of reading on the topic. Although I can't say I've ever seen marked results from it so the jury is still kind of out on a personal level.

However, today, the Huffington Post reports that Nobel Laureate Dr. Luc Montagnier not only believes in homeopathy, but his research is centering on how tiny amounts of a substance alter the structure of water with their electromagnetic waves.

Montagnier says, "I can't say that homeopathy is right in everything. What I can say now is that the high dilutions (used in homeopathy) are right. High dilutions of something are not nothing. They are water structures which mimic the original molecules."

The article goes on to list the clinical evidence for homeopathy, which is interesting.

"Most clinical research conducted on homeopathic medicines that has been published in peer-review journals have shown positive clinical results,(3, 4) especially in the treatment of respiratory allergies (5, 6), influenza, (7) fibromyalgia, (8, 9) rheumatoid arthritis, (10) childhood diarrhea, (11) post-surgical abdominal surgery recovery, (12) attention deficit disorder, (13) and reduction in the side effects of conventional cancer treatments. (14) In addition to clinical trials, several hundred basic science studies have confirmed the biological activity of homeopathic medicines. One type of basic science trials, called in vitro studies, found 67 experiments (1/3 of them replications) and nearly 3/4 of all replications were positive. (15, 16)

In addition to the wide variety of basic science evidence and clinical research, further evidence for homeopathy resides in the fact that they gained widespread popularity in the U.S. and Europe during the 19th century due to the impressive results people experienced in the treatment of epidemics that raged during that time, including cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, scarlet fever, and influenza. "

The article is well worth a read. Very startling and shedding light on a completely new (to most of us) direction of science.

EDIT: I took some time to go through the article's bibliography and the homeopathic claims may be specious if not a bit shady. Some study results appear to have been willfully spun to a positive bias so take some of the homeopathic information with a grain of salt. Further the author is a major proponent of homeopathy. I'm a little surprised the piece passed editor scrutiny at The Huffington Post. I assumed it was a mainstream media source with high editorial standards, I was wrong.

Dr. Luc Montagnier's work still stands and is still applicable to homeopathy in regards to viruses.