Re: Topper's trip to the clinic for 'bleeding'

[Guest guest]

My post went through a few times.... I hope it's all fixed now...

The trip went great... I handled the fasting and skipping THREE doses just fine. It ended up my needle phobia was the worst of it... The lab tech was great... I explained my chicken ness and she did a great job of explaining what she was doing before she did it so that I could hide my eyes... and when it as all over she got me a kleenex for my leaky eyes....

I'd warned her that my eyes might leak.... so she checked when she was done and scurried for the kleenex.

Health Check is great... has been going for quite a while, this was my first trip.... I just handed them my paperwork and was taken to an exam room. She filled out labels and got every thing set up in just a couple of minutes. She washed her hands and forearms, that impressed me, and put on her gloves.... Did a thorough job of swabbing my arm, did it in one quick and very pain free stick... drew three vials.. and we were done.

She let me choose how to sit, which arm and even gave me a choice of two spots to take the draw.... that was pretty cool. I HIGHLY recommend that anyone going in for blood draw drink plenty of water before hand.. it makes it lots easier (learned that in my Mosquito Control days... me, the needle phobic, had a job that required me to get a blood draw once a month... loved the job.. hated the blood draws!!! But good hydration makes it MUCH easier to do it.)

I'll be getting my results in 48 to 72 hours.. so that will be Wednesday or Thursday... I'll be posting to the group.

GULP. This is my first thyroid lab since May of '97.. the last time I saw a doc. He and his clinic partner are the ones that ended me up on crutches. My dose (I didn't know at the time) was 30% less than what it should have been. I developed PF in my right foot that ended up affecting tendons up into my back and severe muscle strain to both legs, hips and back. The had me in special shoes and telling me that it was a lifelong injury cause by me being fat and out of shape....

.... well... can't argue the fat.. that was caused by being an underdosed hypo that had a crappy metabolic rate and chronic pain that prohibited every day activity, forget about exercise. But the PF was not a physical injury, as the doc had told me, it was a symptom of undertreated thyroid, but no one bothered to check my levels. Even though the two docs worked out of the same clinic in adjoining offices. Sorry... this just soooo pisses me off.

Anyway.. first labs since then... it will be the first test to see how well I've been doing while self treating. I started in July of '02... adjusting doses based on basals and self observation.

I'm a little nervous, now, about being so public about this, but it's the perfect opportunity to show what can be done with proper monitoring, the way they used to do it before the synthetics came into being and the manufacturers came up with TSH testing to go with it...

So, whether the numbers look good or bad. I'm posting them accurately for everyone to analyze.

My personal thoughts are that I'm still underdosed. But not by much. GULP *thinking about erasing this line* I suspect low iron/ferritin. I'm not sure if they'll test folic acid, if they do.. I'm gonna say I'm low...

That's the end of my 'gut feeling' about what things will look like.

I'll be washing my feet in the morning... so that if I have to stick a foot in my mouth it will at least be a clean foot.

Oh, wow, Gossimer, your tag line.. I faced one of my horrors yesterday... the needle... I'll always be afraid of it.. in fact that's what kept me from going into medicine. I wanted to be a vet. I was a junior in high school when I had to face the fact that you can't be a vet if you can't handle a needle.

Topper ()

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 13:49:44 -0800 (PST) Gossimerwingz writes:

Hi ,

I just wanted to let you know that your email did get through.

Yahoo lets me get onto the sight, however, when I try to get to the messages I get an error message along the lines of "The service is currently unavailable"

Take Care!

Gossimer

PS. I was wondering how your lab work went yesterday? I hope all things went well!

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do. --Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 - 1962)