Healthy Obsessions The Adventures of a Mild Obsessive Compulsive

Category Archives: Medical

How Long Should a Gluten Challenge Be?

celiac diseaseRecently, I talked to someone I’d gone to college with who was trying to figure out how to do a gluten challenge in order to test for celiac disease, after having been gluten free for several months (not that I’d know anything about that). Her doctor had told her to eat gluten for a few days, then tested her, and the tests – so surprisingly – came back as negative.

Then, a few days ago, I talked to my 92 year old grandmother, who was diagnosed with celiac disease 42 years ago, who had a doctor tell her pretty much the same thing. Two weeks of eating gluten, she was fine, no problems, he tested her, told her she didn’t have celiac disease, she’d outgrown it. But then…

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A Follow Up on the Nasal Turbinates

I had the turbinate reduction towards the end of October. We’re now about mid November, and it’s mostly healed. It’s kind of funny. You don’t think about the issue of scabs going into it. Or at least, I didn’t. I just thought about the inflammation being gone, and actually being able to breathe through my nose. And then I thought about needles being inserted into my nose. But I didn’t think about the scabs.

You do get them. And they’re kinda big, all things considered. The first couple weeks, your nose feels dry. The saline solution nasal spray is a must. I had one I kept at work and another I carried in my bag. Use them freely, should you ever be in this situation. Because if your nose gets too dry, it will hurt. And the injured area will ooze. And it will crust. And that will be unpleasant, too. Do, however, keep kleenex around. You’ll need it about two minutes after using the saline spray, because your nose just starts to drip.

I’ve stopped using the saline. Doesn’t seem necessary any longer. I’m back to using my antihistamine nose spray and my steroidal nose spray. And I don’t know yet how much of a difference the procedure will make. Because of those scabs.

(Do not read further if scabs gross you out, k?)

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A Quick Poll on Celiac Disease

Celiac Disease Doesn’t Go Away

There’s no outgrowing it. It’s not a childhood disease. It’s for life. If you have it now, you will have it tomorrow, and next week, and next year, and next century – should you be lucky enough to live so long.

I’ve had several people tell me, now, that they had celiac disease when they were kids, but they outgrew it. And it drives me bonkers. I try to tell them, no, you should get checked. But they don’t want to hear it.

They are absolutely confident, in a way only the blindly faithful can be, that they do not have celiac disease (and I have been guilty of this, too). And meanwhile they have any of a dozen different symptoms that can result from celiac. I feel like I’m watching someone drowning, and I’m reaching out to grab them and drag them back to shore, but they keep telling me, No, no, the water’s warm.

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Did you know AAA got prescription discounts?

Because I sure didn’t. That was a nifty discovery. Of course, you have to be a AAA member. I should tell my folks about this; they’ve been members for years, and not all of the meds my mom is on for her cancer treatments are covered by insurance.

There. Just texted my father. And made the interesting typo of Rxpensive in place of expensive. Fitting, don’t you think?

Here’s the link to search in your area for participating pharmacies.

 

(Man, does that entry sound like an ad. It isn’t. I get nothing from AAA for this.)

Explaining Celiac Across a Language Barrier

It’s after my Wednesday evening acupuncture session, and I’m trying to explain to my acupuncturist that, while I’d really like to take the herbs she’s giving me, I need to make sure there isn’t any gluten in the pills.

I kinda figured this would be problematic. Her English is good enough for most things, but there have been times when she’s had to call in the man working the front desk to translate (I’m assuming he’s an acupuncturist in training, because he seems to know his stuff pretty well). In this case, he was at a loss, too.

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Fitbit & Zeo Graphs

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, and, honestly, because I am feeling too tired to do much of a write up on anything today… The sleep graphs from last night, starting with the fitbit.

 

Fitbit Graph for 10-27-2010

And now the Zeo:

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The Day After Turbinate Reduction

 

Turbinate Reduction (snagged from Atlanta Snoring Institute)

 

It felt very weird. Not painful, but weird. The whole process took less than an hour.

Step 1

The doctor’s assistant numbed the inside of my nose using lidocaine on a q-tip.

Step 2

The doctor injected a local anesthetic twice on both sides. That’s when I started feeling light headed. It’s apparently very common for patients to faint at that point, since the injections are taking place in an area with a lot of nerves.

Dr. Robson Capasso (who introduces himself by his first name, which I like) tilted the chair back for me as soon as I said I was feeling light headed (which nicely prevented me from falling out of the chair, yay). He had a resident shadowing him, and so he was explaining as he did things (and you know how awesome I find that).

Step 3

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Turbinate Reduction, Because Breathing is Fun

Today at 3:00 I’ll be sitting in an exam room at the Stanford Sleep Clinic, essentially getting the inside of my nose cooked. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it?

It’s called radiofrequency turbinate reduction. My boyfriend got it done, also, as part of his general sleep apnea surgery four or five years ago (his surgery worked; sadly, I am not a candidate for that same surgery since I do not have the same structural cause).

But back to the procedure itself. To quote obstructednose.com:

All of these methods aim to shrink the underlying turbinate by applying heat to the surface lining of the turbinate and creating a lesion. A probe is inserted into the turbinate tissue between one and six times, while the needle is heated and the underlying tissue is shrunk.

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The Zeo Arrived

Zeo arrived today. I haven’t even opened it yet.