Thursday, December 3, 2009

Beginnings

Is it always this weird to post the first.post.ever? It's a blank slate, and while the possibilites are endless, the openess overwhelms me. But our adventure is beginning and I feel the need to write it out, to process it, to throw it out there.

I received my diagnosis a few months ago, after years of seemingly unrelated symptoms. That seems to be the trend I've found after scavaging the internets for others stories, many of us feel off, not right, but not debilitatingly sick. Not in a hospital searching for a cure, but often at our doctors office. As long as I can remember I've had horrible, terrible migraines. Not once or twice a year, but once or twice a week. Migraines and children are not a kind mix. I have three of them, children that is, all boys, and they are noisy. Firetruck noisy. I love them to death, but they do not help one iota when your head is pounding. Thanks to the migraines I've been on a variety of meds to try and fight them off before they start and fight them off after the first defense didn't work. I hate migraines.

In the past year I also was diagnosed with arthritis in my right hand. At 30. Weird. The overworked doctor I saw said it was definitely arthritis - who knows why - nothing they can do - and sent me on my way. I was so devastated. I knit, I spin wool, I change diapers. How could I do those things without my right hand throbbing?

I decided to see an acupuncturist about both of the above and while she was seeing progress, she wasn't seeing enough. Something else was off. So she recommended a naturopath she'd heard great things about, and after years of never feeling like the doctor was fully listening to what I had to say, I was in luck. She watched me closely as I described everything and I could see her brain spinning. She asked key questions, probed for more information and at the end of the two (!) hours she told me she strongly suspected gluten and sent me off for testing. I'll give you one guess as to how those results came back.

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