Posts Tagged ‘diagnosis’
Trepidation Visits
We don’t really know. Evidence is still rather vague about eliminating either of the two prevailing possibilities about what is ailing Dezirea. We’ve now had three vet visits in two days, and this morning it seems as though the only progress we are seeing is that she isn’t getting dramatically worse.
Is it colic, or anaplasmosis?
There is a second pile of manure this morning, which is generally a good thing, except it doesn’t look normal enough to inspire full optimism. She could still have some obstruction deep within the long tract of her digestive system.
Cyndie spent extended time with Dezi yesterday and came away with a sense that our senior mare is at peace. I’m afraid that has only contributed to our trepidation about where this could be headed.
Meanwhile, the other horses are growing frustrated with the forced separation and lack of access to the lush grass growing everywhere around their confines. It is hard to read their take on Dezirea’s predicament while they are simultaneously frustrated with their own situation.
We have spotted moments when they gather at the barrier fence to stand in close proximity, but not much more than that.
It is noteworthy how much the mental unease over the seriousness of Dezirea’s affliction looms over everything else for us. Finding a healthy and loving attitude and projecting that to our immediate world, and beyond, becomes increasingly difficult. Losing patience with otherwise trivial situations becomes easy.
Even though nature is forging ahead with explosive spring growth and our list of chores we would like to accomplish is longer than can be achieved, we find ourselves spinning in place this weekend.
Maybe our lesson has something to do with facing and dealing with trepidation. Once again, it seems prudent to be most fully focused on the present moment, despite the multitude of distractions lulling us away.
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Yes, Shingles
For all the personal detail I freely display in my posts on a regular basis, I found myself holding back recently from blathering on about the daily progress of my shingles outbreak. I think part of it was a hope of saving you from frequently repeated lamentations over the pain and suffering I was enduring, but another part of it was my plan to give this affliction as little attention as possible. My intent was to get over this quickly and with a minimum of symptoms.
It all started on the Monday after I had trimmed dead wood from our apple tree and a nearby maple tree, using a pruning saw on an extended pole. It seemed entirely logical that I would feel sore muscles in the area of my torso after the workout I had done the day before. Upon a feeling of even more stiffness the next day, I became more assured my discomfort was a function of delayed onset muscle soreness from the weekend’s exercise.
By Wednesday I was growing normalized to the soreness and stopped thinking about it. After my shower in the evening, I noticed a red spot on my abdomen, but it didn’t mean much to me at the time. However, it seemed odd when the redness was still there the next morning. Without previously having had the slightest inkling that I might be getting sick, when I saw the spot still present in the morning, I reacted by lifting my arm and turning in the mirror.
How did I suddenly know?
There were enough splotches in a line around to my back that I instantly thought, “Shingles.” When I got to work I did a little research and checked in with my clinic back in Wisconsin. They directed me to immediately visit an urgent care site near my workplace. The doctor there did little more than listen to my description and look at my torso before confirming my self-diagnosis.
She prescribed an anti-viral to be taken 3-times a day for a week, to minimize and hopefully shorten the duration of my symptoms. She asked what I knew about shingles and began to describe the varying levels of hell that can occur.
I interrupted her to say that I did read that some people may not have severe symptoms. When she nodded in acknowledgement, I proclaimed that I would be one of those people, so she didn’t need to bother describing the worst it could get.
For the most part, I would say I achieved my goal of not having the rash erupt in multiple waves of increasing severity. It got worse for about 3 days and then began to slowly recede. There is still some residual visual evidence left, but my skin is mostly healed. The deep (what felt like muscle) pain was a chronic annoyance for about 2-and-a-half weeks, but seems to be fading now.
I’m so close to being done with it that I want to claim victory. There is just one small problem. Even though I succeeded in willing myself to the easy end of the shingles spectrum, it appears that I am getting a good dose of a common complication: post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN).
The most common complication of shingles is a condition called post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN). People with PHN have severe pain in the areas where they had the shingles rash, even after the rash clears up.
The pain from PHN may be severe and debilitating, but it usually resolves in a few weeks or months in most patients. Some people can have pain from PHN for many years. ——–cdc.gov/shingles/about/complications
I wouldn’t exactly call what I am feeling as pain. It is more a hyper-sensitivity. At times, it feels like a sunburn on my skin. Other times it feels “crawly” like having a fever. I get frequent shivers, and the act of shivering is uncomfortable. I want to avoid it, but I can’t.
So it’s that kind of pain. Not so much a “hurt,” as a very uncomfortable nuisance.
Yes, that’s my version of shingles.
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Double Diagnosis
I was giving the hand specialist the full history of my thumb pain, and arrived at the part where I went to urgent care.
“The urgent care doctor told me the x-ray didn’t show any arthritis.”
“She was wrong,” he said.
“She said my whole hand falling asleep wasn’t what they see with carpal tunnel syndrome. It would be the thumb and first two fingers.”
“That isn’t right,” he said.
“She thought the joint looked odd, and that it might be a subluxation.”
“It’s not a subluxation.”
That was some visit to the urgent care clinic, wasn’t it? The specialist had full respect for the work the urgent care doctors do, and mentioned that they are a jack-of-all-trades, but master of none.
It seemed to me he already had a diagnosis, before he even listened to my whole story. I asked if he had reviewed my x-ray. He told me that he had, and saw my arthritis immediately. He did a few follow-up tests to confirm, and then told me that I also presented the symptoms of carpal tunnel.
He said that it is not uncommon to see the two afflictions together.
There are a few options available for managing my pain. Of course, there is no cure for arthritis. I am starting with the least invasive of choices: using braces.
It’s funny, just having a positive identification of the cause of the pain provides some relief. As long as I know what it is, and what I can do, or can’t do, my mind is more at ease, and the rest of me relaxes along with it.
Maybe by relaxing, Mozyr became inspired to get a little closer last night. For the first time since we brought him home, he hopped up on the couch by me and then laid down on my leg where I could reach out and scratch his head.
Either that, or he just feels sorry for me.
Relative Something 