Anybody here with a chronic medical condition?

I have a disease called Myasthenia Gravis. It causes a weakening of muscles after a period of use. The bitch is when it flares and I can't swallow. I wind up in the hospital and they do a procedure called plasmapheresis. Over a period of ten days they hook me up to a machine that removes my blood plasma and replaces it with artificial plasma. When it affects my breathing muscles I wind up on a ventilator until they can get the disease under control. I was diagnosed in 2000 became disabled in 2003.
 
I started typing my list and my fingers cramped. :eek: I received a reminder from cardiologist that I was due for my semi-annual check-up and he wanted a complete list of all the drugs I take including the dosage. Dang! I'm on 7 prescription medicines plus aspirin, fish oil, a multi-vitamin and saw palmetto. When I finish taking all the pills, I rattle.

Why am I still alive? :confused:
 
Just completed the Sleep Apnea clinic and found I have it to some degree. I got on a "wind box"...cute little huffer that forces my airway open to breath better at night. I had no idea how much my health has improved and how much better I feel during the day. You'd be surprised what just a small amount of sleep apnea can cause you. No more getting up to whiz a couple times at night is one of them! I started to drop some weight I've noticed too since you've got more energy during the day and my blood pressure came down.
In all seriousness, if you're a snorer or are a restless sleeper...go take the sleep lab test and find out if you're a candidate to get on a sleep machine...best thing I ever did and...while I'm at the soapbox.....

PLEASE.....if you're at that age of 50......go get a colonoscopy.....it's a 95% cureable cancer if found early and most importantly, colon cancer doesn't have any symptoms!!!
 
Asthma. It used to cause me severe problems when I was a child, but mostly now it's only a problem if I get a cold or the flu, or if I exercise.

Running is completely out of the question. Sometimes I can't even lift weights. It's very frustrating.

I have some albuterol inhalers, but I rather dislike the newer CFC-free ones. They don't seem to do much, and sometimes make things a little worse. Most of the time, I just skip using them and fight through it as best I can. Singulair helped some, but it caused some rather frightening emotional problems.

When I was much younger, I also had a subarachnoid cyst, which ruptured and caused some hydrocephalus. There may also have been an aneurysm. There was also a shunt installed. I was young enough so that I'm not exactly sure what happened. I don't know how it has affected me.
 
I have Crohns, which forced me to take early retirement after a serious life threatening infection left me with a permanent colostomy and my small bowel and colon shortened from resections.

Since my body does not have the ability to absorb nutrients like it used to I have developed arthritis throughout my body but particularly bad in my spine.

This condition leaves me tired nearly all the time, poor sleep with the need to constantly empty the bag and the feeling of cramps and pressure in the gut. It's like aging in fast forward.
 
I've had asthma since I was about six or seven, so it's been about 18 years total I've had it. Used to run on three different inhalers, but once I started to work out some, the symptoms weren't as bad, and I was able to go with just albuterol. It's no fun.
 
Might try having a doctor give you a couple samples of Advair. It works very well for me, and I'm pretty much screwed without it. It's very expensive, but there's lots of samples out there (or so it seems) thankfully.
A few years ago I started having problems breathing. I was given Albuterol and had to use it multiple times a day. Then a doctor gave me some Advire to try and I've needed the Albuterol very, very rarely since. However, if I run out of the Advair, in about 3 days, I'll start weezing. Then comes the coughinig, followed by the lack of usable breath shortly after.
I'm able to cut down on the Advair to half the recommended dosage, without problems, in order to stretch it out longer. I highly recommend trying it.
 
Baatfam said:
Last June I devolved a DVT, (blood clot), in my right leg and spent four days in the hospital...

After I got out the doctors discovered I had APS...AntiPhospholipidAnitbodySydrome....an auto-immune disorder that causes your antibodies to attack your phospholipids and cause blood clots and other issues...

So now, at the young age of 53...I'm on warfarin, (blood thinners), for the rest of my life...I go for blood draws every month at the hospital to maintain my warfarin levels...
Click to expand...
Wow, I'm dealing with DVTs now. I've never had one before, but about a month ago I was diagnosed with one behind my left knee. Did the Lovenox injections at home twice a day, and talk about expensive! Do they make that stuff from gold? My warafin dosage is 5mg four days a week, 7.5 mg three days a week now. I still can't maintain a constant level though. Oh yeah, did I mention that while they were busy treating the left leg, my right leg also had an undiagnosed clot that was found this week? The right leg one is virtually painless with some swelling, but the left one runs the gamut on sensations from burning, pins and needles, numbness, coldness to sharp stabbing pains. I'm down to walking about a block before the whole leg feels like a massive, numb cramp and I can't move it. And actually, that's an improvement as before I could get half a block before that happened. We still can't figure out how they happened. I eat better and exercise more now then I probably ever have in my life, and have none of the risk factors involved with DVTs. And as a weird twist of fate, just how conducive to health is it to be someone who likes playing with sharp pointy things and being on blood thinners at the same time?:eek:

I also have a triple spinal fusion that was done on crushed L4-S1 vertebrae. That was done about five years, and it was a total success. Relatively pain free from that (I don't even take aspirin), but I won't win any awards doing yoga now!;)

Never, ever assume you will go through life without any medical problems either through trauma or disease, chronic or not. It is part of the burden that we have in being human. I don't care if you run five miles a day, a vegan and never touched anything considered harmful as chances are one day you will have medical problems. No one gets out of this life alive. When I was 20 I would NEVER have believed that I would be in the medical situation I'm in at 44. Being young is no immunity from getting older!:D
 
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