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MRI
May 17, 2024
Hiii I'm back from my MRIs. As those of you who follow my posts regularly know, this appointment was rescheduled so it happened today instead of when it was supposed to.
Brain, neck, and lower spine. They stuck me with contrast. It's really cool how fast modern MRIs are, I remember my first brain MRI. It took hours. I was only in here for maybe an hour 30 tops, and they did four scans!
So that's pretty cool. Thank you, modern medicine.
So, um, other than that...
This morning wasn't good. I had an IBS attack shortly after waking up (I drank too many Cokes... oops), and when I went to the restroom to sort it out, I suddenly felt extremely, extremely faint. My hearing went and my ears rang. I decided, I need to lay down. I need to go to bed.
I stood up. Weakness. I stumble out the door, and suddenly I'm blind. By the time I reach my bedroom door on memory, I'm disoriented and my legs can't hold me anymore. I fell to the floor, luckily in a sitting position that didn't result in injury.
I didn't even make it to my bed.
A good thing to do when you're in a state like this is breathe deeply. I could feel my heart pounding, but I had to keep steady breath. Maybe it was better to go back to the bathroom.
So I tried. It happened again. I hit the floor in the bathroom with the same hearing loss and blindness and weakness, and pain harshly starting to tear at my back.
I sat and breathed with my head hung for a while, until I felt okay enough to stand back up. Shaky legs, but the fainting was gone.
I went back to bed to lay down and recover. Then the extreme pain that started this whole 3-week ordeal came back.
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It's a burning pain, like you're on fire beneath the skin. It's severe, running up the spine and into the shoulder muscles. But it was ripping at my whole back, and the burn spread to my upper legs and head. Suddenly, I was out for the count.
Luckily, my mom returned at a great time, and I had taken a hydrocodone while I was in the restroom as I had already felt the burning start to creep. She brought me ice packs for my back, which helped immensely. Cooling off the burn in my back slowly but surely reduced the burn in the other areas of my body, until the hydrocodone kicked in and I was a lot better. I even ate some!
So, it's been a bad day. I'm really weak, and with another attack of that severe burning I once again worry that I may have to ask my GP for hydrocodone. I only have a limited supply, but it's doing the heavy lifting of getting rid of the pain. But my painkillers just aren't cutting it... They only reduce the pain a little bit, even when I take all of them together like I am.
I'm gonna rest a while. I need sleep.
I've been sleeping so poorly lately... My body is definitely acting like it's sick.
Brain, neck, and lower spine. They stuck me with contrast. It's really cool how fast modern MRIs are, I remember my first brain MRI. It took hours. I was only in here for maybe an hour 30 tops, and they did four scans!
So that's pretty cool. Thank you, modern medicine.
So, um, other than that...
This morning wasn't good. I had an IBS attack shortly after waking up (I drank too many Cokes... oops), and when I went to the restroom to sort it out, I suddenly felt extremely, extremely faint. My hearing went and my ears rang. I decided, I need to lay down. I need to go to bed.I stood up. Weakness. I stumble out the door, and suddenly I'm blind. By the time I reach my bedroom door on memory, I'm disoriented and my legs can't hold me anymore. I fell to the floor, luckily in a sitting position that didn't result in injury.
I didn't even make it to my bed.
A good thing to do when you're in a state like this is breathe deeply. I could feel my heart pounding, but I had to keep steady breath. Maybe it was better to go back to the bathroom.
So I tried. It happened again. I hit the floor in the bathroom with the same hearing loss and blindness and weakness, and pain harshly starting to tear at my back.
I sat and breathed with my head hung for a while, until I felt okay enough to stand back up. Shaky legs, but the fainting was gone.
I went back to bed to lay down and recover. Then the extreme pain that started this whole 3-week ordeal came back.
It's a burning pain, like you're on fire beneath the skin. It's severe, running up the spine and into the shoulder muscles. But it was ripping at my whole back, and the burn spread to my upper legs and head. Suddenly, I was out for the count.
Luckily, my mom returned at a great time, and I had taken a hydrocodone while I was in the restroom as I had already felt the burning start to creep. She brought me ice packs for my back, which helped immensely. Cooling off the burn in my back slowly but surely reduced the burn in the other areas of my body, until the hydrocodone kicked in and I was a lot better. I even ate some!
So, it's been a bad day. I'm really weak, and with another attack of that severe burning I once again worry that I may have to ask my GP for hydrocodone. I only have a limited supply, but it's doing the heavy lifting of getting rid of the pain. But my painkillers just aren't cutting it... They only reduce the pain a little bit, even when I take all of them together like I am.
I'm gonna rest a while. I need sleep.I've been sleeping so poorly lately... My body is definitely acting like it's sick.
So, what's up?
I have 3 MRIs lined up for Monday. Brain and neck. If they show nothing, we move to spine.
Before I start, in late Feb I got COVID. That marks my second infection. I got concerned when I began experiencing brain fog and took a test. Positive. It started with three DAYS of severe, nonstop migraine.
I've had my fibromyalgia confirmed, and she's suspecting I may have early stage rheumatoid arthritis. My mom is also showing signs, and my abuela also had this (thank you for not telling me MOM), so it's looking likely.
We're back from Florida. My GP has suggested magnesium and potassium supplements to rule out an inbalance causing my leg issues. But my mom and I both caught a horrific cold on the 1st.
On the 23rd my legs locked up the worst they ever have. It was throbbing pain from the knees down and the muscles lock up making movement difficult and painful. I couldn't stand for more than 2 minutes without suffering about it. My feet were blue. I was miserable at 4 AM, when the pain was the worst, so much I was considering going to the ER.
Feelin' a ton better after purging a lot of backup. All the pain related to constipation is gone, but now I'm stuck with the sharp pain sites on my lower abdomen. My antibiotics are in- they're these HUGE pills, so we'll see if that clears any of it up. It's probably not an infection, knowing what I know now, 
but may as well be safe than sorry. I alllways show inflammatory markers, that's just undiagnosed immune disorder baby!!!
My veins are having a shitty time behaving with the phlebotomists though. Normally they're great, but since my second ER visit they've been difficult. They had to stab me lower down on the arm than normal, and it was one of the worst draws I've had yet, suuuper woozy. They broke a vessel too, I have a bruise.
After eating a little in the morning I immediately had the worst pain yet. I attempted to take a hydrocodone for it and immediately coughed it up. Trying again, I threw it up as well as a lot of the water I'd just drank. Begged my mom to take me back to the ER, but I had to wait till my abuela's appointment with the nurse was through- she ran an hour late. I curled up in my bed and suffered- lower back pain, dizziness, stomachache, with all the previous symptoms from before. I was miserable.
It's assumed it's just really bad constipation. Prescribed antibiotics and a strict regiment of powerful laxatives... They make the visocity of water horrible, but my mom and I figured mixing them into smoothies may take away the issue. We'll try tomorrow.
Got rushed to the ER on the 4th for severe abdominal pain. Probably something PCOS related but they found nothing. I was dehydrated even after they pumped an entire bag of saline into me and I've been dehydrated ever since. Nothing quenches it.
Blood tests, urinalysis, and a CT scan showed nothing. Everything looked fine, as always. Medical staff were stumped again. So after filling me with saline, zofran, morphine (which I don't respond to, turns out), and eventually hydrocodone-acetaminophen, I was sent home with a hydrocodone-acetaminophen prescription. But heyyy I still got good veins I guess, but it doesn't stop me from bleeding like a motherfucker every time they stab me to get in there.