I have a pinched nerve in my thumb. It doesn't hurt and it isn't really numb. It just feels kinda funny in a line along the side of my thumb, like I'm poking it through a layer of cotton wool. And if I massage the little bony bulge at the base of my thumb it goes all tingly and kinda sore. It started on Tuesday. Everything I could find about prolonged numbness in the fingers told me to consult a doctor immediately, especially since it could be a clot.
So I went to the doctor, something I usually avoid at any cost. And today's tale should illustrate why.
I sat in the waiting room of Wollongong Medical Centre with Psi until a scrawny Asian doctor with a huge head (I'm serious, huge. Like the guy who plays Superman in Smallville or the kid in So I Married an Axe-Murderer: 'It's the size of a planetoid and it has it's own weather system!') called my name. I go into one of those tiny rooms with the doctor and tell him I have two problems.
"First, my thumb is... well, it's not so much numb. It just feels funny. In a line along here." Here I indicated where. "And when I massage near my wrist, here, it goes pins-and-needly along that line. But I still have a pulse in my thumb."
He nodded and took my pulse and asked if I'd injured myself in anyway recently and when the problem started and made various generic doctor-esque comments about having a strong pulse (which I just fricking told him) but the digit in question was a little cold and so forth, then informed me that it was probably just a pinched nerve (which I had pretty much worked out for myself) and there wasn't anything he could really do, just massage the area (which I already knew) and it'd go away on its own.
"What do we do if it doesn't go away?"
"It'll go away on its own. But it'll take about three weeks."
"What should I do if it doesn't?"
"Well, then, come back if it's still the same at the end of the month."
Gritting my teeth and thinking, it's like pulling teeth, I told him that my tail-bone also hurt. He asked me (again) if I'd injured myself in anyway recently and prodded at my back and asked me where it hurt and so on.
"Do you get much exercise?" he says.
"I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Exercising is very difficult. I try and walk two or three times a week but I'm mostly too tired and sore to do anything more and just the walking leaves me exhausted and in a lot of pain."
He looked at me and said, "Well, I think you need to do some exercise. Specifically, contact sports. You need to do something that will hurt so that your pain threshold ends up higher. Then when your body hurts, you won't notice it. It's like, if someone hit a normal person like you and me, it would really hurt. But a kickboxer can take alot of pain before it bothers them. He feels the pain but it doesn't matter."
I just stared at him, trying to work out which of the many things running through my head to actually voice (ranging from pointing out that the body hurting is an indication that there is something wrong and ignoring pain can make things a lot worse, to slapping him over the ear and demanding to see someone competent). I ended up with a rather strangled, "Uhuh."
He prescribed me some pills for pain and inflammation. He gave me, in fact, twenty pills of Voltaren Rapid 50 (that's two a day for ten days), a drug which my mother's MIMS insists that one should never take for any longer than one week, that's seven days, no exceptions. Ever.
On the whole, the experience left me even more cynical about doctors. And it's led me to the following conclusion: all doctors should be told, convincingly, that they have an incurable disease before they are allowed anywhere near a patient. They should have to go through the rigmarole themselves, the pain and the depression, the disbelief. They should have symptoms of an illness like CFS induced. They should have to deal with doctors who don't believe they're ill or just want to get them in and out as quickly as possible, who don't want to feel useless so refuse to take them seriously or to treat them at all. They should be subjected to the whole fricking thing so that they have some consideration for others, some inclination of what it is like to be at the receiving end of their self-serving, money-grubbing and generally inconsiderate attitude. And would it hurt to ensure some form of common sense, or even basic intelligenced?
Did I mention that I fucking hate doctors?
So I went to the doctor, something I usually avoid at any cost. And today's tale should illustrate why.
I sat in the waiting room of Wollongong Medical Centre with Psi until a scrawny Asian doctor with a huge head (I'm serious, huge. Like the guy who plays Superman in Smallville or the kid in So I Married an Axe-Murderer: 'It's the size of a planetoid and it has it's own weather system!') called my name. I go into one of those tiny rooms with the doctor and tell him I have two problems.
"First, my thumb is... well, it's not so much numb. It just feels funny. In a line along here." Here I indicated where. "And when I massage near my wrist, here, it goes pins-and-needly along that line. But I still have a pulse in my thumb."
He nodded and took my pulse and asked if I'd injured myself in anyway recently and when the problem started and made various generic doctor-esque comments about having a strong pulse (which I just fricking told him) but the digit in question was a little cold and so forth, then informed me that it was probably just a pinched nerve (which I had pretty much worked out for myself) and there wasn't anything he could really do, just massage the area (which I already knew) and it'd go away on its own.
"What do we do if it doesn't go away?"
"It'll go away on its own. But it'll take about three weeks."
"What should I do if it doesn't?"
"Well, then, come back if it's still the same at the end of the month."
Gritting my teeth and thinking, it's like pulling teeth, I told him that my tail-bone also hurt. He asked me (again) if I'd injured myself in anyway recently and prodded at my back and asked me where it hurt and so on.
"Do you get much exercise?" he says.
"I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Exercising is very difficult. I try and walk two or three times a week but I'm mostly too tired and sore to do anything more and just the walking leaves me exhausted and in a lot of pain."
He looked at me and said, "Well, I think you need to do some exercise. Specifically, contact sports. You need to do something that will hurt so that your pain threshold ends up higher. Then when your body hurts, you won't notice it. It's like, if someone hit a normal person like you and me, it would really hurt. But a kickboxer can take alot of pain before it bothers them. He feels the pain but it doesn't matter."
I just stared at him, trying to work out which of the many things running through my head to actually voice (ranging from pointing out that the body hurting is an indication that there is something wrong and ignoring pain can make things a lot worse, to slapping him over the ear and demanding to see someone competent). I ended up with a rather strangled, "Uhuh."
He prescribed me some pills for pain and inflammation. He gave me, in fact, twenty pills of Voltaren Rapid 50 (that's two a day for ten days), a drug which my mother's MIMS insists that one should never take for any longer than one week, that's seven days, no exceptions. Ever.
On the whole, the experience left me even more cynical about doctors. And it's led me to the following conclusion: all doctors should be told, convincingly, that they have an incurable disease before they are allowed anywhere near a patient. They should have to go through the rigmarole themselves, the pain and the depression, the disbelief. They should have symptoms of an illness like CFS induced. They should have to deal with doctors who don't believe they're ill or just want to get them in and out as quickly as possible, who don't want to feel useless so refuse to take them seriously or to treat them at all. They should be subjected to the whole fricking thing so that they have some consideration for others, some inclination of what it is like to be at the receiving end of their self-serving, money-grubbing and generally inconsiderate attitude. And would it hurt to ensure some form of common sense, or even basic intelligenced?
Did I mention that I fucking hate doctors?
5 comments:
He should read this:-
"Exercise lowers pain threshold in chronic fatigue syndrome."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15157711&dopt=Abstract
some of these might help:-
http://www.investinme.org/Mediatelevision2.htm
http://fm-cfs.ca/me_overview.pdf
http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/arts_life/story.html?id=e2525e18-216a-4a88-9781-15fea1eeb576
http://www.ahmf.org/05currentper.htm
http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/topstories/display.var.745845.0.have_they_found_the_cure_for_me.php
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=386443&in_page_id=1774&in_a_source=
http://www.meresearch.org.uk
*blinks* Thank you, anonymous stranger. That was shiny!
No worries. BTW I see you like Wonderfalls, I've never seen it myself (I did see Buffy/Angel/Firefly), but they sometimes discuss Wonderfalls at www.whedonesque.com
The canada.com link is talking about the RNase-L test, that is mentioned in the next link, the ahmf.org link.
The www.investinme.org website has a lot of other links here http://www.investinme.org/InfoCentre%20links.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2006/05/15/hme15.xml&sSheet=/health/2006/05/15/ixhmain.html
http://listserv.nodak.edu/archives/co-cure.html
hope this helps. www.investinme.org is a British site, they seem to update it fairly regularly, and they have some good links to other sites.
K
it depends. medicine is a practice. and after my cyst experience, if it's the same place i'm thinking of, the doctor you get is a bit of a crapshoot. the first one i got was good but NO bedside manner whatsoever. tis why everyone always says to get a second opinion.
yoga might be a good option though. after the nerve thing. it's relaxing and not too difficult depending on the position or maybe tai chi. low impact but still a form of exercise.
I've actually been considering yoga. The main problem is that the muscle pain can actually prevent me from doing even something that's more stretchy than aerobic. But I've been thinking about trying it.
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