A couple months ago, I had a DO appointment, then a endocrinologist appointment. My regular doc has been trying to find something--anything--she can do to treat the chronic fatigue syndrome, or at least help me manage it.* And she ordered a CBC, a liver function test, and a test that shows RA that may be hiding from the more common test. And said I could just get them all done when the endo ordered another TSH blood workup.
Well, the endo appointment came. She did, indeed, send me down to the lab. And their computer system shat itself, and refused to pull up the print command for the labels for the vials. So, they wouldn't do the bloodwork ordered by my regular doc. And something went funky with the TSH, and it read really low--which means that the thyroid dose I'd been doing as well as I ever did was too high. Don't know if it was stress, or me managing meds and diet to wring every last bit of energy out of my meds for the last couple of months of teaching actually succeeding past where I should have, but still. She flipped out, and ordered another in two months (i.e., yesterday).
So, yesterday, I went to the lab at the DO's office. And asked for her bloodwork, and could they please do the rest, too.
They offered to go ahead with DO's, but not endo's, or let it ride until I went back to the lab in the endo's building, which should do all of it.
Yeah, not after last time. I asked that they went ahead with the draw for the DO.
Turns out it was a really good thing I did. They got plenty.
Odysseus helped me get all the way across town (about a twenty-minute drive) to the lab. They got me in, and the little phlebotomist tried her damnedest. Three times. She finally got just barely enough to run the TSH test that the endo ordered.
*Managing it is not overdoing it, sleeping a lot, eating a lot of beef, and drinking coffee. Pain management is a little more complicated, due to allergies, and involves a good bit more alcohol than I really want to be drinking on breakthrough pain nights.
33 minutes ago
I’m curious. Have you ever been tested for Epstein-Barr or Lyme’s Disease? Also, have you ever considered genetic testing? I ask because The Queen had both E-B and Lyme’s in conjunction with a genetic liver issue that caused the majority of her health issues a while back.
ReplyDeleteFirst things that were tested. It took about two years to get the cfs diagnosis because everything else had to be ruled out, first.
DeleteGlad you're getting down the path toward finding out what is really going on.
ReplyDeletePretty sure we know. At this point, it's figuring out how to skate the edge of doing what needs done without overdoing it and knocking down the house of cards that is my endurance and health. Basically, managing a chronic condition that's removed 60% or more of my capability to stay on my feet and working.
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