Luna Tail

Okay well I am feeling pretty okay now even though I really hate the dumb time change! I hate this one quite a bit. Losing and hour and having to get up earlier is just awful. I don’t like the mornings as it is dangit!

Anyway so my ear still feels a bit funky. And the doctor called today and said I have a staph infection in my nose, too. So I’m getting an antibiotic nasal rinse for that mailed to me. Maybe I need to find the cheapest car insurance so I can pay for the darn medical stuff. Bleh. I’m still going to the chiropractor too and at $35 for a copayment, it’s not cheap.

Well hopefully the nasal rinse stuff will help my nose clear up and help me breathe. I really would like to be able to breathe at night again, out of my nose, and not my mouth!

Well I went to the Ear Nose and Throat doctor today. I made the appointment about six weeks ago. As you probably know, it’s hard to get into see specialists right away when you are a new patient. Which is odd because sometimes we need to go in NOW and not wait six weeks.

So anyway she looked in my nose (isn’t THAT just a fun job?) and said she saw swelling and I could have a deviated septum. I don’t have any drainage or gunk up there, though. But she said I could probably have the surgery where they open up and straighten out my nose stuff in there and then I could breathe better. She didn’t think I had Sleep Apnea so that’s really good. I don’t snore. And she said that’s more in the throat than the nose anyway. She gave me a nasal spray and told me to do some of the irrigation stuff. I’ve already used the spray and it’s working pretty good! Yay. But I won’t mind surgery if it helps me to breathe!

Next thing was my ear. My ear wasn’t bothering me when I initially made the appointment. It started bothering me 3.5 weeks ago after I had that bad cold. It originally felt like it wouldn’t pop, or equalize. But then it felt like I couldn’t really hear out of it. The family doctor gave me some antibiotics as she thought I might have an ear infection. That seemed to help but… two days ago, Wednesday, I was out in the cold all day at an agility seminar and yesterday my ear went bad again. Bleh. I couldn’t really hear out of it much. Today I went and got ear plugs and I plugged just my right ear, my good ear, to equalize the sound. That made life much more pleasant!

She looked in my ear and said I could have fluid in there. She sent me to the sound room and I did the hearing test with the headphones. And they also put a thing in my ear to test the pressure. My pressure is fine, and I don’t have any liquid in my ears so that’s good. However she did say I could have a nerve problem in my left ear. Which isn’t so good. My hearing is diminished in my left ear. It’s worse than my right ear anyway, though they don’t have a baseline since I’ve never had my hearing tested there before.

They don’t know why this nerve thing happens. She didn’t put a name to it, I don’t know if it has a name. They don’t know how to fix it, either. Of course. She said that people with this nerve issue, 40% of them get better without any treatment. 60% get better with Prednisone. She gave me a script for Prednisone. Bleh. I’ve never had it before. It’s a steroid and I’m not crazy about steroids but I do want the hearing in my ear to come back and the icky feeling to go away.

She said if the Prednisone doesn’t help, they will do an MRI of my head to see if there are any growths in my hear. If so they are usually benign.. but still, that wouldn’t be good either. Then after that we’d see what other options there might be.

So I don’t know what’ll happen with my ear. Worst case scenario (which she didn’t even mention lol) is that all my friends and family will have to learn sign language (I’m joking about this really hehe). Best case is that it’ll be annoying for a while then come back and I’ll be fine.

So now I feel icky and want to go shopping and buy some urban clothing to make myself feel better. Don’t clothes always make a girl feel better? I dunno. I think I’m going to sit and relax tonight. I have agility all weekend, so I’ll be on my feet and busy and I’m not really feeling up to it. But I’ll give it a try and see how it goes.

So I went to the chiropractor last week because my neck hurt so bad that I could hardly be awake and function in any way. It was awful. I was taking 3 Ibuprofen every four hours… I even learned how to spell that darn word. :p

I’m amazed at how well chiropractics work. I went for x-rays too, since they wanted to see, and I guess I’m pretty crooked and messed up. But after only two adjustments I’m already much better, yay!

I also had a massage yesterday. It hurt a bit, but in ways that I wanted and needed it. My muscles are so tight and awful… I better not try any long distance moving because that would probably make me so much worse! So I think if I get occasional massages that will help loosen me up too and get me back in shape.

So far so good!

Saying my neck hurts is an understatement. Ugh. It’s been crackling and bothering me for probably a couple of years now.. and steadily getting worse. The MRI I had on it after my car accident in August of 08 didn’t show any damage at all. So I guess that’s good. But I don’t know what would be causing the pain. I crackle it too much during the day, I know that, but now it’s habit and I don’t know how to stop it.

So Yoga on Wednesday must have done something bad because since then it’s been hurting so bad it’s been affecting my mood and everything I’m doing. Yuck! I hate it. So today I am taking it very easy. Resting my neck on a heating pad all day to hope that it will feel better tomorrow.

Hopefully it won’t kill me so we won’t need any funeral planning… lol, but I don’t think it’s that serious. But I’m having a hard time concentrating on much of anything so I think maybe today I’ll knit and listen to my audio book.

So I’m trying out Yoga Classes…. I went last night. The first time after a couple-week break since I’ve been sick, and I didn’t want to go while I was sick. This was only my third time. I like it a lot. However, dangit, it’s a lot of work!

Last night was a Yoga’s Fundamentals Class. We worked on Plank, Lunge, and Warrior Two I think… it might have been Warrior One now I forgot. But man, my arms are really feeling it. So are my thighs. And last night I could not hold the postures for as long as anyone else in the class. So I had to drop down before anyone else did. Ugh! I’m kinda embarrassed, but with practice I hope I’ll get better.

Maybe I’ll buy one of their promotional bags, t-shirts or tank tops… I already bought a Yoga Mat. That the dogs thought was something fun to chew on. I hope my husband has saved it from them.

So I’m going to keep trying it and see if maybe I can build up some strength and find some peace!

Well, I don’t know if I can really consider my ear as hurting… but there’s a dullness to it that is almost like it’s not popping. I do think, however, that I really have a high tolerance for pain and discomfort. There should be a pain scale… I bet there is, but it’s hard to say “is it 1 or 10″ because everyone can interpret that scale differently.

I’m on the antibiotics still, Augmentin, just in case I do have an ear infection. Bleh. Those are some huge giant pills. Bigger than any weight loss diet pills I have seen.

So I still think I should rest and take it easy. I rested most of the weekend. And I think I can rest the next couple of weekends as well. Then I can, hopefully, heal up and get better!

Well, I’m getting better from my cold… I still don’t feel 100%. Not even close… but I do need to work tomorrow. Fortunately I get to work from home so that will be good. My head is still stuffed, my ears are clogged, my nose stuffy, and I feel drained. But I’m better than I was last week.

It really sucks that people get sick so fast, within a couple of days, and it takes such a long time to recover and feel good again. I think it’ll still be a week or so before I completely pull out of it.

Oh well… getting to bed now.

Yup… I’ve been sick lately. Bleh. Not fun… well, actually, it’s not so bad. I get to do some of my most favorite things and have no responsibilities… which I really love! Responsibilities cause me severe anxiety and so this is been a nice break. Though I’m starting to feel better now and so feeling guilty about not working with the dogs as much as I like. And I never work with them as much as they like!

What are some of my most favorite things? Sleeping all day.. watching TV and Movies, and having my husband take care of me. Sleeping is up there at the very top! LOL.

Though I’m tired of winter now. Looking at pond fountains to put in the yard is more fun than looking at mud and gunk in the back yard. Bleh! We don’t have snow. We just have dirt and mud and dead grass. I can’t believe our grass survives every year to come back. It’s so icky nasty out there. Mostly in the back yard, but the front isn’t all that great either.

Oh well, it’s a nice rainy day today, which I like. I just wish it didn’t have to be muddy, too.

Ugh… it does, my neck has been hurting for about five days now, worse than usual. And I have hardly even been crackling it. Okay I probably did at the agility trial I went to this past weekend… but for the last couple of days I’ve been mostly sitting and keeping it propped up against pillows. Bleh.

I’ve also been taking Advil which usually helps, but this time it’s not helping so much. Maybe I need some truck accessories, or van in my case, that will help to support my neck when I’m driving. I dunno. It just hurts and I want it to stop hurting. Maybe my advil has worn off and I need to go take some more.

I’ve tried the chiropractor and the physical therapy and neither have had any lasting results.

So I’ve been having a hard time for the last few months with how I feel. Both physically and mentally. Last PMS Cycle my husband finally asked me how I was and I told him that I felt just rotten. My PMS was horrible and I was angry and hateful again like I used to be before I started taking my sertraline.

Well so I started thinking about it and about 2 months ago my insurance mail order drug company started sending me a different type of sertraline. So I started to read up on it. I used to get sertraline manufactured by Teva Laboratories. But this latest bottle was from Cobolt Laboratories. And I know I know all generics are supposed to be the same right?

Well I did some research (which is the new cool phrase for spending lots of time on Google) to find out what other people thought about generic Sertraline.  Well it’s hard to search for anything related to Sertraline or Zoloft (Zoloft is the brand name as you probably already know) except for people trying to sell it to you. Bleh.  But I did find a couple of places where people were talking about it and it seems many people have a hard time with various generics.

So I decided that the Cobolt Labs Sertraline was just not working for me.  It was like getting all the bad side effects of Sertraline… muscle tension, foggy brain, without any of the anxiety reducing benefits (Oh BTW, I don’t suffer from depression. I do suffer from Anxiety).  So that just totally and completely sucked.

It was almost time for me to get a new prescription from my doctor anyway so I made an appointment and went in. Even though I hate going to the doctor, and yes I’m also ashamed of taking anti-anxiety meds but hey I do it anyway.  Despite the stigma attached.  I told him I really wanted Zoloft, the real thing, the brand name Zoloft, so I could try it out. It’s always the same. Manufactured by Pfizer, with their standard formula.  And guess what? It works so much better I’m amazed!

I gave it about five days before really forming an opinion.  And no I’m not making the results up (I always am afraid people will think I’m making things up).  But my side effects are fewer (I do still have a fairly foggy brain and I do have muscle tension and neck pain) but it’s taking a good chunk of the anxiety away. Whew! I hate anxiety!  I still have some at night, and I’m still terrified of failing at work (and I know I’m not doing very well.. that’s for another post),  But it’s helping a lot better than even the Teva Labs Sertraline.

So for me, generic anxiety medication is not all the same.  In fact, they are very, very different.  Maybe I am just sensitive. Heck, I know I am, because I have anxiety to begin with!  And from what I’ve read, different manufacturers put different inactive ingredients in their prescription meds.  And that can effect the amount that is absorbed into the bloodstream. Plus, I’ve heard rumor, but didn’t find any confirmation, that manufacturers only need to provide a dose within 10% of the FDA approved dosage amount into their generic medication.  And 10% of 100mg can be a huge difference!

So now I’m on Zoloft brand Sertraline.  I like it so far.  Of course it’s hugely expensive.  $90 a month as opposed to $10 a month for generics. And no we can’t really afford it now. But we will afford it, because I want to feel better. And that is more important than money.