Ah, the joy of handing over yet another $20 co-pay to the doctor’s office.
In case you’re wondering, I’ve been sick. Not just sick, but seriously “not well”. Test after test, and we’re finally starting to narrow down what’s wrong, but no final results yet.
It started a few weeks ago (well, longer than that, but it just started getting bad a few weeks ago)… pain in my joints. Hips, shoulders, elbow, knees, you name it. When it got to the point where I couldn’t walk without pain anymore, I figured it would be a good idea to make a doctor’s appointment. I went in on a Friday, and had a bunch of bloodwork done to see if we could figure it out.
Monday rolls around, I’m at work, and my vision starts to go all blurry. I mean really blurry. I manage to make out the phone numbers for my boss, and call her in so I can go to the doctor again. Brian comes to work to pick me up, and it’s back to the doctor’s office (by way of the store so Brian can buy me a donut). They check my blood sugar, and it’s normal, after two donuts. Apparently it should be higher than this right after eating all that sugar. So, they’re guessing hypoglycemia, and the vision blurring was just my blood sugar dropping down to nothing. I’m supposed to “Not let that happen again”. No worries, I’ll get right on that. 
Still in pain, the hypoglycemia is not related.
Off to see my primary care doctor that afternoon, and after checking some more blood test results, he determines that I’m hypothyroid as well. There’s a pill for that, but you have to take it forever. Yay. Still in pain, possibly related to the hypothyroid. On the plus side, being diagnosed with hypothyroid explains the following symptoms I’ve had for ages:
- Fatigue
- Sluggishness
- Increased sensitivity to cold
- Elevated blood cholesterol level
- Unexplained weight gain/difficulty losing weight
- Muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness
- Pain, stiffness or swelling in your joints
- Tendonitis
- Muscle weakness
- Brittle fingernails
- Coarse, dry hair
- Depression
- Memory loss
- Irritability
- Difficulty concentrating
- Infertility/miscarriage
Quite the list, eh? And I thought I was just getting old or something. Hopefully, this is what’s causing the pain, because that means we’re on the road to making it better.
Oh… my doctor put me on a six day course of prednisone to see if that helped the pain… had a bad reaction to that. That was lovely. Missed three days of work recovering from that one. I’ve also stepped down from my full time position at the bookstore, because I can’t stand up for that long anymore. The pain gets worse at the day progresses, and usually by about 3ish I’m in so much pain I just want to go home, take a vicodin, and go to bed.
I sure hope they figure this one out, because I’m really getting tired of it.
