Category Archives: Health/Endo

I’ve been toying with the idea of this for a few months now. I even told my mom about it and she went and tried it before me.

First of all, let me just say, I don’t do well with needles (shots, blood tests, allergy tests, etc.) I have kind of a weird post-traumatic thing with them, which is to say that I think I’m fine while the needles are being done, but later when I get home, I feel violated and just want to cry. Back in 2004 I was doing a series of allergy tests and I had to stop because I just found the whole thing to be too exhausting and traumatic. I know, weird.

So you know I’m desperate when I tell you that I scheduled an acupuncture appointment. I called this morning to schedule it and the doctor fit me in tonight. I was a bit taken aback by that, you know how I like my pre-worry time.

Despite all the swimming and exercise that I do, I’ve bloated back up to the point that my clothes don’t fit. I’ve read all about water retention being caused by the heat, and we all know that it’s been hot here, but that doesn’t make my pants fit any better. I guess you could call it Seasonal Bloat Disorder, but I don’t like the acronym for that, so we’ll just carry on. I have bloating, plus, factor in my back acne problem that’s not being helped by the prescription gel. Then there’s a myriad of other complaints that lead me to believe that my hormones (oh delightful friends) are the culprit.

So, after work tonight, I spent 20 minutes on the table with 18 needles (I counted them) poked in various parts of my body. She then put “ear seeds” on pressure points in my ears and gave me a 7 day kit for “Cleansing and Detoxifying” my system. Hopefully it doesn’t give me speedy poop, because I hate that kind of crap. I really kind of hoped that she’d poke me and like a balloon, all the bloat would just squeal out of me. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, I’ve never had acupuncture done to me before. A couple of the needle insertions hurt a bit more than others, particularly in the stomach area. Interestingly, though, the pressure she exerted on the ear seeds hurt more than the insertion of the needles. Her dialog throughout the process centered on “balancing the body” and my “Qi” needs to be balanced. Although she kind of annoyed me by pointing at the colorless moles on my face and saying they were acne. *grunt*

I cried a bit when I got home (my needle PTSD) and then took a warm bath. I have another appointment Monday night.

My ear seeds…

We work together, me and Maria. We’re kind of each others back-up person, so it’s really nice that we actually like each other. We even have a standing weekly lunch date where we discuss girly stuff and work things. I had told her about the acne problem I’ve been struggling with about a month ago. She said, “Oh, I had a really big under the skin zit that showed up in the same exact spot every month, so my gynecologist prescribed a gel to put on it. It never came back…”

Friday was our lunch date, we checked out from work, escaped walked out to the parking lot and got in her car. As she started her engine, I said, “Hey, you know that acne gel you recommended?”

“Yeah…”

“I finally got some from my doctor.”

“How do you like it?” She looked at me askance.

“I don’t know, I just got it last night.”

“Oh.” She backed out of the parking spot, “I need to get some more.”

“You do? You’ve only had it a couple months and, dude, that’s a big tube!”

“I know. But my fiance uses it. He puts it on his back, on his chest, on spots that may or may not be zits. He begs me to put it on spots that he can’t reach. I always tell him no!”

I start laughing and said, “He uses it like lotion?”

She nodded her head. We continued over the freeway to our lunch destination. All I could think was, “Cool, there really is someone weirder than me in this world…”

“Now, when did you say this happened?”

“Well, this one…” I held up my left ring finger, “… happened on June 12th in the swimming pool. I jammed it into the bottom of the pool in a turnabout.”

He nodded, “And the other one?”

“…happened on June 22nd, catching a football.”

His pen stopped writing notes and he looked at me over his spectacles, “June 12th and June 22nd?” I nodded. He continued, “I guess you’re not one to rush into anything, huh?”

It was Saturday, around 8:45 AM. I had been at my doctor’s office around 45 minutes at that point, waiting. Because they don’t take appointments for x-rays. That was the conversation my doctor and I had just prior to him taking x-rays of my ring fingers. Another half hour passed as I waited for the x-rays to develop. I heard shuffling feet and the doctor reappeared.

“Your left finger indicates a fracture occurred and has healed. What you’re noticing there is a bone callous, which is normal — but that’s why we normally prescribe a splint to be worn so that doesn’t happen. It may or may not dissolve, I just don’t know.”

“Your right finger also indicates a fracture occurred, but the fracture hasn’t healed and I’m not sure why that is.”

“It’s still fractured?” My voice trailed up at the end as I looked at the skinnier of my two ring fingers. “But it’s not swollen and it doesn’t really hurt.”

“Let me go check the x-rays, maybe I’m getting them mixed up.” Something told me he hadn’t, but nevertheless, he shuffled off to double-check. A couple minutes later, he shuffled back, “Yep, your right finger. It still shows a fracture.”

“Huh. But neither of them really hurt all that bad.” As if my failure to notice pain that was that bad would convince him that the x-rays were lying.

“That bad? Compared to what?” He asked.

“Compared to… oh.” Yeah, endometriosis? Or a kidney stone? Well, I don’t suppose there’s a whole lot that can be compared to that kind of pain. Perhaps I should lower my pain baseline a bit.

He sensed that I wasn’t going to finish my sentence and said, “I’m not sure why your bone isn’t fusing in your right finger. I’m not sure whether the bone callous will dissolve on your left finger. I’ll be writing up a referral to an orthopedic doctor who specializes in sports injuries. You should have that within the next week or so.”

An hour and a half later and that was that.

In other bone news, the results of my recent bone scan arrived a couple weeks ago:

My GYN said she wants to do another bone scan in two years, but for now… it looks like I’m good there. No osteopenia? Is that possible?