MEDICAL MATTERS

[Tizer]

It just makes you even more special, Ian!

I agree about using paracetamol wherever possible rather than ibuprofen, it's relatively harmless as long as you keep within the maximum doses per day. I can't use any of the anti-inflammatory drugs - aspirin, steroids, NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-infammatory drugs such as ibuprofen, nurofen etc) due to my gut sensitivity. They block production of the prostaglandin hormones that protect my gut. The body produces many different prostaglandins and any one can have opposing effects in one part of the body compared with another part. The healthy state of the body depends not so much on whether you have this or that hormone in your blood but on the balance between all the components of a mixture. So it's a very complicated business!

[Stanley]

"So it's a very complicated business!" Dead right Tiz! What I discovered after many years of taking anti inflammatories as a prophylactic against back pain was that after taking them for so long, they were actually promoting niggling flash pains. That's when I had a dig into how they worked and decided to try ditching them. All the little niggling pains vanished. These days I manage pain in different ways and am pain free once I have got out of bed.
Maz, it isn't pain that stops me going in the shed, I am pain free during the day mostly, it's lack of energy caused by the hard work my body is doing to fight the live virus and that's straight from the horse's mouth, confirmed by the beautiful Helen my Macmillan nurse! Also I have talked to my doctor about it and he tells me that it's a good strategy if it works for me.
I get my 5th BCG irrigation this morning...... Wonderful care and attention and all free. Let's hear it for the NHS!

[Stanley]

Worth pointing out that whilst BCG treatment isn't as severe as full-blown chemotherapy it is still an aggressive treatment and I am told that some people have to stop the course because of the severity of the side effects. Helen told me it is so nice to have patients who can manage the symptoms and finish the course. I shall ask her this morning how many fall by the wayside. I consider myself very lucky! No wonder there is some reaction when you consider 50cc of live virus is being popped into you once a week!

[Marilyn]

Hubby didn't have it, because they said it wasn't needed. His bladder cancer returned, he had it removed again, but still said he didn't need it. Since then, he has been Cancer free. Only needs cystoscopy every 6 months now.

[Stanley]

"His bladder cancer returned," That's what we are trying to avoid Maz. I'm happy to take the insurance policy. The great advantage of course is that because of our terrible NHS, it's free....

[Marilyn]

We pay our health insurance regardless, every quarter.
Had he needed the treatment, it would have been covered. He was told about it, but the advice was he didn't need it. You can only go on the advice given. I think in your case, it was your choice to have it.
I'm thinking it could be an age thing???? Maybe they thought my hubby, being younger, had time yet to make a different choice if it became necessary? We knew from the beginning that his cancer was slow growing and non-invasive. To us, that reduces his bladder cancer to a simple nuisance level. It may come back...but it won't kill him.

[Cathy]

Your a veteran Stanley, your health care should be free, regardless. Just saying

[Stanley]

Cathy......
Maz, not age but the fact that it was originally classified as type 3 and invasive, later downgraded to type 2 which was an improvement but what if they were wrong? Hence the insurance policy. The surgeon couldn't be seen as influencing me but it was obvious he thought it was a good decision....

[Marilyn]

Hubby's cancer wasn't classified as a "type". His original cancer was biopsied on the first Cystoscopy. It came back as Low Grade/Non invasive. When the cancer returned, it was biopsied again ( a deep biopsy as you call it). Same result. So we aren't bothered about it coming back. It won't change into a worse cancer...it can't.

[Marilyn]

My blood sugars are completely normal now.
Fasting was 6.3 this morning
2 hours after dinner tonight was 6.4.
( still on Metformin twice a day, but I think the doc will give me a challenge off it soon.) I always said I didn't think I was diabetic and my raised levels were due to uncontrolled pain. We shall see what pans out...

[Tizer]

This is brilliant example of useful medical research and will save lots of lives and minimise distress...
`Sepsis: New rapid test 'could save thousands of lives'' LINK

[Tizer]

Something I forgot to mention when we were talking about painkillers. I'm relieved to know that doctors in the UK haven't followed down the path taken by US doctors who fell for the advertising by drug companies and prescribed powerful opioid drugs willy nilly. Now the US has a very serious problem with opioid addiction among ordinary folk to whom it was over-prescribed...

`During 2017, there were more than 72,000 overdose deaths in the United States, including 49,068 that involved an opioid, according to a provisional CDC count. More than 130 people died every day from opioid-related drug overdoses in 2016 and 2017, according to the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). The number of opioid prescriptions dispensed by doctors steadily increased from 112 million prescriptions in 1992 to a peak of 282 million in 2012, according to the market research firm IMS Health. The number of prescriptions dispensed has since declined, falling to 236 million in 2016. The number dropped 10.2% in 2017 from 2016, according to IQVIA (formerly IMS Health).' CNN

[Stanley]

Tiz, I saw that report as well and think it is brilliant news. I knew it was dangerous and even more so as ABs lose their effectiveness but I didn't realise that the numbers who die from it is so great, 52,000.
Yesterday went well but I am feeling the effects more and more. Glad next week is the last. I asked Helen why they wait 3 weeks before doing the examination afterwards and she said that the inside of my bladder is too raw and inflamed from the treatment to allow proper examination so they will wait until I heal up. Funny thing is that I have no pain from it..... Roll on March!

[Marilyn]

Hang in there, Stanley. You can do it!
And stay away from anyone coughing and sneezing. You don't need anything knocking you off your feet completely.

[Stanley]

Thanks Maz. No worries, I shall stay the course. I asked Helen yesterday about the success rate of the BCG treatment and she said it was excellent and if she was in my position she would do exactly the same thing. The cumulative effect is well understood and she encouraged me to stay with it. Only one more to go!

[Sue]

Are this answers my question put on the TODAY , not long then.

[Stanley]

[Marilyn]

I just learnt a valuable lesson. If you drop a painkiller and it rolls under a huge dining room table, don't go down on your knees looking for it with a torch if you have a bad back! ( well...not unless you are the only one home and one of your pets might eat it, or it is your last pill and you are desperate - neither of which applied to me)
It's just not worth the agony. Believe me!
( silly muppet I am)

[Stanley]

Commiserations Maz. We all have moments like that and I don't know about you but one unguarded move can start a spasm with me that can take half a day to calm down. I learned long ago that most of the pain associated with your back is nothing to do with the original injury but spasms in the muscles in your back trying to protect you. The defences eventually become automatic but it's a rough road getting there. Stick to it!

[Marilyn]

My problem is a bit different. Nothing to do with muscles...it is a spinal nerve that has herniated into the cord. That sends strange pain messages to the muscles, but there is nothing wrong with those muscles. I know...it is a real head trip...I keep telling my leg there is nothing wrong with it...it is a nerve sensation that is not real. ( I say it's not real, though the pain is, but of course it is originating from the level of the spinal cord injury)
You know what it is like if you wake up in the night with a calf cramp? You feel your calf and it is in a solid knot? Well...I get that pain but my calf is soft and normal - it's not real. But the pain is just as bad. It is the same with all my leg and bum.
Drives me insane. It ranges from cramp, to constriction, to burning, to freezing. And my brain knows it is not real.
Today it felt like all circulation had been cut off to my leg. I kept expecting my foot to turn blue...( it didn't)

[Sue]

My problem is a bit different. Nothing to do with muscles...it is a spinal nerve that has herniated into the cord. That sends strange pain messages to the muscles, but there is nothing wrong with those muscles. I know...it is a real head trip...I keep telling my leg there is nothing wrong with it...it is a nerve sensation that is not real. ( I say it's not real, though the pain is, but of course it is originating from the level of the spinal cord injury)
You know what it is like if you wake up in the night with a calf cramp? You feel your calf and it is in a solid knot? Well...I get that pain but my calf is soft and normal - it's not real. But the pain is just as bad. It is the same with all my leg and bum.
Drives me insane. It ranges from cramp, to constriction, to burning, to freezing. And my brain knows it is not real.
Today it felt like all circulation had been cut off to my leg. I kept expecting my foot to turn blue...( it didn't)

I was going to say that Maz. Bob gets back spasms which are muscular in origin, and so do I very occasionally, usually after heavy gardening, but that is nothing like the spasm created by a trapped nerve. The nerve itself is the source of the pain and not the muscles surrounding it. Also , as you say, the range of symptoms is huge. The strangest being the weird feeling in the leg. Not a pain as such, just very weird and the leg feels like lead and as if ot does not belong to the rest of the body

[Marilyn]

Thanks Sue ( gosh I could cry...you understand !)

[Stanley]

I understand that one as well Maz, when I got the sciatica pains I kept telling myself they were phantom and just the trapped nerve but as you say it made no difference..... In my case I could eventually get relief by gentle walking keeping erect and trying to bend my lordosis forward but everyone is different.

[Marilyn]

I keep moving. But my problem is Sacral. I can't say bending forward is any help.
I have very little actual back pain ( which is good). I get a low ache between my buttocks when the pain in my leg is bad but that is the closest I actually get to "back pain".
Everyone says "oh yes, I've had back pain". I have too...but I can't say my problem now is back pain.
This is very different.
I noticed today that my numb foot is not walking in my thong properly and part of the inside heel is hanging over the edge, connecting with the ground. ( I can't feel it of course). I switched to flat closed in shoes, hoping to straighten it up and avoid injury.
Hubby took me to buy some flat, slip on shoes yesterday. He is sick of having to lace up my trainers.

[Stanley]

Maz. I can't say bending forward is any help. Preserving your lordosis is not bending forward, it's trying to push the natural curve in the lower part of your back forwards and that's why trying to have an erect posture helps. (LINK)