Health Problems

Razzes

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Still haven't tried the Abilify, maybe I won't.

Got a script for Cymbalta for pain and tried one of those. Jury is out but it definitely had a pronounced effect on me the day I took it, felt relaxed as fuck and in less pain.

Any experience with Cymbalta here?
I know that antidepressant is very effective for neuropathic pain, the kind you see in diabetic or post covid. Dunno what you have exactly.
 

Rod-138

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sorry kind of unnecessarily long.
Since my terrible sleep night a week ago or so I’ve been sleeping like a baby.

I think it’s become clear that work/life stress are the big offenders and I have to keep working at being grateful/enjoying life vs trying to get everything right.

I’ll have waves of successes and gain more and more confidence, then I crash and feel like I’ve failed. If I can just chill the fuck out and accept outcomes, then I think the answer to sleep and probably lots of other health ailments is somehow training myself to let my f ups go - at least let them go without destroying myself mentally for a few days.

Knowing and walking the path are different, but I’m practicing steps to try and de escalate my crazy brain once it tries to go negative - I actually got inspired from watching Big with Tom Hanks. Remembering that I’m just a big kid and to stop trying to be this responsible adult - it’s hurting more than helping, and I’m naturally responsible, so stop worrying so much.
 
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Synj

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I've started sleeping with earplugs in and my sleep quality went WAY up. I thought it would give me trouble hearing my alarm in the morning, but actually I'm sleeping soundly enough that I consistently wake up feeling good 5 minutes before the alarm.
I’ve been using a sleep mask and it definitely improved my ability to stay asleep.
 
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ToeMissile

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Also nasal strips might help. They have helped me quiet a bit.
The thing that kinda started my down my current path of working on general health improvement was James Nestor on JRE. After listening to the episode I started his book the next day. Kinda blew my mind.


 
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Koushirou

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Fucking 35 and I just got my first blood clot in my leg. Had just done a drive down to TN for the first damn vacation I’ve had in over 4 years, and I guess I didn’t take enough breaks on the 8 hour drive down. Leg was feeling fucky by the end of the day and was fucked the couple of days we were down there (though all the walking actually felt better). Was going to wait until Friday to see if it got better, but decided to just have it checked today. Guess I made a good call. First one in my fucking family too, fuck.

Jesus Christ, I’m literally the too much sitting meme. Fuck.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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Fucking 35 and I just got my first blood clot in my leg. Had just done a drive down to TN for the first damn vacation I’ve had in over 4 years, and I guess I didn’t take enough breaks on the 8 hour drive down. Leg was feeling fucky by the end of the day and was fucked the couple of days we were down there (though all the walking actually felt better). Was going to wait until Friday to see if it got better, but decided to just have it checked today. Guess I made a good call. First one in my fucking family too, fuck.

Jesus Christ, I’m literally the too much sitting meme. Fuck.
Just curious, are you a pure blood or did you take the stab?
 

Koushirou

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Just curious, are you a pure blood or did you take the stab?

The irony is I’m pure blood. Here I’ve been worried the whole time about this happening to my husband who did get the initial shots. But yeah, I have a bunch of other risk factors I.e. fat, I’m sitting constantly for work at home and don’t get out much plus birth control.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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The irony is I’m pure blood. Here I’ve been worried the whole time about this happening to my husband who did get the initial shots. But yeah, I have a bunch of other risk factors I.e. fat, I’m sitting constantly for work at home and don’t get out much plus birth control.
Maybe you are proof that the vax can be transmitted via bodily fluid transfer ;)
 

Izo

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Fucking 35 and I just got my first blood clot in my leg. Had just done a drive down to TN for the first damn vacation I’ve had in over 4 years, and I guess I didn’t take enough breaks on the 8 hour drive down. Leg was feeling fucky by the end of the day and was fucked the couple of days we were down there (though all the walking actually felt better). Was going to wait until Friday to see if it got better, but decided to just have it checked today. Guess I made a good call. First one in my fucking family too, fuck.

Jesus Christ, I’m literally the too much sitting meme. Fuck.
Cracking Up Reaction GIF
The Office Lol GIF

Thank god you're not an athlete too the board woud go crazy.
 
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Erronius

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I had a lot of unexpected joint stuff come up this year. I recently went in to see Ortho for both a knee and a shoulder.

I had an ACL reconstruction 30 years ago. I've had to baby it along the entire time. But this summer, for some reason, it felt like it was 'catching'. Very painful. Kind of like sticking a screwdriver into a door hinge, and then trying to close it and it won't close. Plus it felt like I had a 'rope' on the side of my knee 'catching' whenever I tried to squat down and bend it. This isn't what its done for the last 30yrs. The 3rd party pre-screen company approved an MRI for this (but not the shoulder). The Dr. basically said 'this is what I would expect a knee 30yrs after an ACL reconstruction to look like'. Said it's been bone on bone for a while now, most likely. He was saying that 30yrs ago, with the kind of surgery I had, removing a lot of soft tissue was normal (?). Said there's a good deal of arthritis but that's normal. He never did explain why my knee would start catching and binding (other than arthritis, LOL). He warned me away from getting injections (cortisone maybe?) because he said that's only a short term solution with multiple injections spread out over time, and that it will dissolve what little soft tissue is left. Also, I told him that 99% of the time I don't get pain in my knee. He said that I would need a knee replacement *at some point*, but since 99% of the time it's not very painful his opinion was to wait until it did get painful and I was willing to 'throw in the towel'. So still no idea why it started catching and binding. It's not really binding internally now, and the pain lasted a couple of weeks, but I still feel the 'rope' catching on the side of the knee. So I'm kind of just going to give up on that for now, and if something happens in the future I'll just go right back.

The shoulder flared up right after the knee pain went away. No fucking clue what happened. Everyone kept asking "Well, what did you do to it?" and I have no fucking idea. And every Dr (and physical therapist) seems to think that's weird (because if you hurt your shoulder, you should remember what you did to hurt it, right?). But whatever happened, it was an intense 3 weeks of constant pain and very little sleep. It was just impossible to get comfortable in bed and it took forever to try to find a position where I could sleep for an hour or two before the pain would wake me back up. I made an appt to see my GP, and then one day...the pain just stopped. So by the time I got to see the GP, I couldn't really tell him much and then I was off to see Ortho.

Oddly enough, the company that does the pre-approval for my insurance carrier denied an MRI for the shoulder and had me go to do some PT.

The Dr at Ortho had said he thought it was likely a rotator cuff injury. The physical therapist looked at it, and his opinion is that it was probably a Labrum tear and/or something with the tendon at the top of the biceps. But he thinks that the pain itself was most likely due to inflammation and not a tear or injury inside of my shoulder itself because I guess there's not a lot of pain receptors in the internal gubbins of your joints (I heard this about the knee as well). But a tear or injury could have then caused the inflammation...and once the inflammation went away...so did the pain.

It was also weird how weak I was in a lot of movements in different directions. I'm not a small person. I'm 6'5" in the morning and 6'4" at night, LOL. I don't work out so I don't think I'm strong in an athletic way, but I've done a lifetime of blue-collar work so I also didn't think I was weak. I regularly lift stuff at work off pallets and put it on my workbench, and vice cersa, and that stuff usually weight 100-200lbs, and occasional 250+. But doing the PT, I kept thinking "this fucking rubber band is kicking my ass". Like, the exercises made me legit feel like I was an 80yo man struggling to get off the fucking couch, LOL.

So I can def see what the therapist was saying, in regards to my 'stabilization' strength being bad. And knowing my work, I could easily have torn something lifting something that was too heavy instead of taking the time to sling-hoist it off my bench, and then I spent weeks with the shoulder feeling all 'floppy' and excruciatingly painful.
 

Sanrith Descartes

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I had a lot of unexpected joint stuff come up this year. I recently went in to see Ortho for both a knee and a shoulder.

I had an ACL reconstruction 30 years ago. I've had to baby it along the entire time. But this summer, for some reason, it felt like it was 'catching'. Very painful. Kind of like sticking a screwdriver into a door hinge, and then trying to close it and it won't close. Plus it felt like I had a 'rope' on the side of my knee 'catching' whenever I tried to squat down and bend it. This isn't what its done for the last 30yrs. The 3rd party pre-screen company approved an MRI for this (but not the shoulder). The Dr. basically said 'this is what I would expect a knee 30yrs after an ACL reconstruction to look like'. Said it's been bone on bone for a while now, most likely. He was saying that 30yrs ago, with the kind of surgery I had, removing a lot of soft tissue was normal (?). Said there's a good deal of arthritis but that's normal. He never did explain why my knee would start catching and binding (other than arthritis, LOL). He warned me away from getting injections (cortisone maybe?) because he said that's only a short term solution with multiple injections spread out over time, and that it will dissolve what little soft tissue is left. Also, I told him that 99% of the time I don't get pain in my knee. He said that I would need a knee replacement *at some point*, but since 99% of the time it's not very painful his opinion was to wait until it did get painful and I was willing to 'throw in the towel'. So still no idea why it started catching and binding. It's not really binding internally now, and the pain lasted a couple of weeks, but I still feel the 'rope' catching on the side of the knee. So I'm kind of just going to give up on that for now, and if something happens in the future I'll just go right back.

The shoulder flared up right after the knee pain went away. No fucking clue what happened. Everyone kept asking "Well, what did you do to it?" and I have no fucking idea. And every Dr (and physical therapist) seems to think that's weird (because if you hurt your shoulder, you should remember what you did to hurt it, right?). But whatever happened, it was an intense 3 weeks of constant pain and very little sleep. It was just impossible to get comfortable in bed and it took forever to try to find a position where I could sleep for an hour or two before the pain would wake me back up. I made an appt to see my GP, and then one day...the pain just stopped. So by the time I got to see the GP, I couldn't really tell him much and then I was off to see Ortho.

Oddly enough, the company that does the pre-approval for my insurance carrier denied an MRI for the shoulder and had me go to do some PT.

The Dr at Ortho had said he thought it was likely a rotator cuff injury. The physical therapist looked at it, and his opinion is that it was probably a Labrum tear and/or something with the tendon at the top of the biceps. But he thinks that the pain itself was most likely due to inflammation and not a tear or injury inside of my shoulder itself because I guess there's not a lot of pain receptors in the internal gubbins of your joints (I heard this about the knee as well). But a tear or injury could have then caused the inflammation...and once the inflammation went away...so did the pain.

It was also weird how weak I was in a lot of movements in different directions. I'm not a small person. I'm 6'5" in the morning and 6'4" at night, LOL. I don't work out so I don't think I'm strong in an athletic way, but I've done a lifetime of blue-collar work so I also didn't think I was weak. I regularly lift stuff at work off pallets and put it on my workbench, and vice cersa, and that stuff usually weight 100-200lbs, and occasional 250+. But doing the PT, I kept thinking "this fucking rubber band is kicking my ass". Like, the exercises made me legit feel like I was an 80yo man struggling to get off the fucking couch, LOL.

So I can def see what the therapist was saying, in regards to my 'stabilization' strength being bad. And knowing my work, I could easily have torn something lifting something that was too heavy instead of taking the time to sling-hoist it off my bench, and then I spent weeks with the shoulder feeling all 'floppy' and excruciatingly painful.
What you describe on the shoulder does not sound like a labrum tear. I tore mine about 15 years and had it rebuilt. It was zero pain unless I tried moving the shoulder in the direction that the labrum is supposed to control and then it was a sharp spike of pain. Example, using my hands to push my body up while sitting down (like adjusting yourself in a car seat by pushing up with your hands on each side of your ass). as long as I wasnt doing those specific things the shoulder didnt hurt. It was fine sitting idle or sleeping.

Being in the leg infantry and also being a runner when young fucked up my knees pretty badly. Moving to a house with a steep narrow staircase when I came to NY 6 years ago did me no additional favors. My right knee is now painful coming up the stairs on the regular. im putting that shit off as long as I can stand it.
 
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Goatface

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I He never did explain why my knee would start catching and binding (other than arthritis, LOL).

Oddly enough, the company that does the pre-approval for my insurance carrier denied an MRI for the shoulder and had me go to do some PT.
my understanding the locking can be tears in the menisci or just wear, that cause them to flip over. it is called bucket handle something another. about 25 years ago, broke the knee part of my femur into 9 pieces, they put 7 of them back together. 2 years later had the "lifetime" metal plate removed, doctor said my knee looked good for someone in their 50's when i wasn't even 30. also said my cartilage looked like shag carpet and removed 40% of it. maybe 10 years later, it started locking up and popping. had doctors look at it, they are pretty much like yeah, your knee sucks, but not enough for replacement yet. it does it often now, but i normally prepare for it.

i have had 3 rotator cuff injuries 2 right and 1 left. doctor told me insurance/hospital won't approve surgery unless you can not raise your arm. don't know if this was age related or not, i was 40+. therapy worked great on 2 of them, but the 2nd on the right took forever to heal.
 
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sleevedraw

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i have had 3 rotator cuff injuries 2 right and 1 left. doctor told me insurance/hospital won't approve surgery unless you can not raise your arm. don't know if this was age related or not, i was 40+. therapy worked great on 2 of them, but the 2nd on the right took forever to heal.

Depends on your insurance and the specific guideline that the insurance company uses to conduct utilization review on the case. Private insurance and Medicare Advantage typically use MCG, Interqual, or their own in-house guideline. CMS and the MACs do not have any national or local coverage determinations for shoulder procedures, so docs can basically get away with doing whatever they please unless it’s outright fraud if someone has Original Medicare (many do have LCDs for hips and knees, so those tend to be a higher bar to clear.)

With all 3 companies that I’ve done UR for, we’d still approve cuff repair for someone with a mild grade partial tear (and typically you’d still be able to raise your arm with a partial tear), but you’d need about 6-8 weeks of NSAIDs and physical therapy first. Sometimes low-grade tears can fix themselves with rest and some PT. Other times, especially if there is re-injury over a longer period of time, they just get worse.

With a full-thickness tear, it would be unlikely that you’d be able to do anything overhead, and in those cases, yes, a repair would be approved without a conservative treatment trial first.

If someone is very old (70ish+) and has glenohumeral arthritis (arthritis in the shoulder joint), typically they would do a reverse total shoulder arthroplasty instead.
 
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Captain Suave

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I had an ACL reconstruction 30 years ago.... But this summer, for some reason, it felt like it was 'catching'. Very painful. Kind of like sticking a screwdriver into a door hinge, and then trying to close it and it won't close. Plus it felt like I had a 'rope' on the side of my knee 'catching' whenever I tried to squat down and bend it... So still no idea why it started catching and binding. It's not really binding internally now, and the pain lasted a couple of weeks, but I still feel the 'rope' catching on the side of the knee.

my understanding the locking can be tears in the menisci or just wear, that cause them to flip over. it is called bucket handle something another.

Yeah, 99% this is some kind of mechanical failure of the meniscus, probably combined with bone spurs. I've had six knee surgeries across both knees for sports-induced traumatic meniscus damage and this is exactly what it feels like. My right knee currently has an open 1cm tear in the cartilage that's held together by surgical anchors after a failed repair attempt. I can't run, jump, or ride a bike, but living with it this way is ok day to day and will hopefully keep me from needing a knee replacement before 50.

30 years ago, orthopedists were goddamn barbarians and just removed big chunks of the meniscus because they thought it wasn't important. Clearly they'd never consulted any kind of mechanical engineer about the importance of lubricating and padding mobile load bearing surfaces.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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Yeah, 99% this is some kind of mechanical failure of the meniscus, probably combined with bone spurs. I've had six knee surgeries across both knees for sports-induced traumatic meniscus damage and this is exactly what it feels like. My right knee currently has an open 1cm tear in the cartilage that's held together by surgical anchors after a failed repair attempt. I can't run, jump, or ride a bike, but living with it this way is ok day to day and will hopefully keep me from needing a knee replacement before 50.

30 years ago, orthopedists were goddamn barbarians and just removed big chunks of the meniscus because they thought it wasn't important. Clearly they'd never consulted any kind of mechanical engineer about the importance of lubricating and padding mobile load bearing surfaces.
1669927975175.png
 
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