Health Problems

sleevedraw

sleevedraw

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Aaron said:
So about a month ago my elderly Mother managed to get herself a compressed vertebrae fracture in her lumbar region. She ended up in hospital, but is back home now but has a walker. However, she still is in great pain and needs help with almost everything. She's been told that a whole range of things, from she'll be up and about in about 6 weeks from the event, to she'll be in pain and have difficulties for the rest of her life. Honestly, I have no idea what to make of it. Does anyone here have any experience with this among themselves or family? Any tips or advice?
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Unfortunately, VCFs have a very wide range of prognoses much like slipped discs and other forms of back pain, so it really could run the gamut from full recovery to chronic pain as your providers have informed you.

Do they know how she acquired the fracture (i.e. did she fall or does she have osteoporosis/it occurred spontaneously?) Have they tried a kyphoplasty or has it been 100% noninvasive conservative treatment thus far?

First-line conservative therapies are generally PT, bracing, NSAIDs (although these need to be used with caution in the elderly due to GI bleed risk). Calcitonin nasal spray has shown promise in people with osteoporosis as well. General consensus is that you want people to push through the pain and continue activities, although you do want to avoid high impact activities that could make the fracture worse. If she smokes, she should stop, because smoking fucks with bone stock.
 
Srathor

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So much of health and injury recovery is variable. We are all ticking time bombs. Hope you Mom gets better or at least stronger.
 
Sludig

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sleevedraw said:
Unfortunately, VCFs have a very wide range of prognoses much like slipped discs and other forms of back pain, so it really could run the gamut from full recovery to chronic pain as your providers have informed you.

Do they know how she acquired the fracture (i.e. did she fall or does she have osteoporosis/it occurred spontaneously?) Have they tried a kyphoplasty or has it been 100% noninvasive conservative treatment thus far?

First-line conservative therapies are generally PT, bracing, NSAIDs (although these need to be used with caution in the elderly due to GI bleed risk). Calcitonin nasal spray has shown promise in people with osteoporosis as well. General consensus is that you want people to push through the pain and continue activities, although you do want to avoid high impact activities that could make the fracture worse. If she smokes, she should stop, because smoking fucks with bone stock.
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Called Dr Monday hoping for some pills as my back got worse for a week or so. All they sent me without a call back was Methylprednisolone. Almost dont want to bother driving 40 min round trip to try it. Don't think for my issue a antiinflamatory going to help much.
 
Izo

Izo

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Sludig said:
Called Dr Monday hoping for some pills as my back got worse for a week or so. All they sent me without a call back was Methylprednisolone. Almost dont want to bother driving 40 min round trip to try it. Don't think for my issue a antiinflamatory going to help much.
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Try'em out. You're better off for doing it if you want to argue for a different pain killer approach later on. Gogo, drive.
 
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moonarchia

moonarchia

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Izo said:
Try'em out. You're better off for doing it if you want to argue for a different pain killer approach later on. Gogo, drive.
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Sludig Sludig This is the way. You will need to try the non-addictive shit first to get to the harder shit that works better. Insurance companies and best practices require it. After the opioid overprescription epidemic that was kind of forced on everyone.
 
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pharmakos

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Sludig said:
Called Dr Monday hoping for some pills as my back got worse for a week or so. All they sent me without a call back was Methylprednisolone. Almost dont want to bother driving 40 min round trip to try it. Don't think for my issue a antiinflamatory going to help much.
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It's also a steroid, might help your body heal up whatever is causing the pain.
 
Sludig

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pharmakos said:
It's also a steroid, might help your body heal up whatever is causing the pain.
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Must not have been in the thread consistantly, I've got a herniated disc pending a total disc replacement that's been in limbo because insurance doesn't want to approve or deny it.
 
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Kajiimagi

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Sludig said:
Called Dr Monday hoping for some pills as my back got worse for a week or so. All they sent me without a call back was Methylprednisolone. Almost dont want to bother driving 40 min round trip to try it. Don't think for my issue a antiinflamatory going to help much.
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That looks like a steroid type medication that the doc had me try. They help some and as others say, will help eliminate them if you need something stronger.
 
pharmakos

pharmakos

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Sludig said:
Must not have been in the thread consistantly, I've got a herniated disc pending a total disc replacement that's been in limbo because insurance doesn't want to approve or deny it.
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Ah damn, sorry bruv. Still may help in the meantime, especially if you have a physical therapy regimen along with it, but yeah, life's gonna suck til you get that surgery. Sorry my friend.

At one point during my cancer, it metastasized to my T8 vertebrae. Spine pain is something else, that period was definitely the worst pain I've had in my life. I'd rather have kidney stones. Hang in there.
 
Goatface

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so been feeling ok, upper back been hurting off and on. trigger fingers pain as subsided while tennis elbow still hurts, but not as bad. tomorrow is my 6 week ortho follow up, been looking forward to that. this morning get up urine is pretty dark. around lunch it was little dark. just now about 50% blood.
called urology talked to a nurse, said it could be another stone, could go to er to get check. she brought up my kidney cyst and they still want to run the camera up my dick to look for cancer.
 
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Srathor

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That can be some scary shit. (The prednisone at least) It didn't do much for pain, but I was so damn pumped up that pain didn't affect gods. You will also gain weight if you are on any kind of dose for long and shit is basically like supercharging your innards, it can burn you out.
 
Kajiimagi

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Neurologist put me on Keppra after the tumor episode in June. Been on them ever since.

I had a neurologist appointment in January 2024 to follow up on the EEG and other tests they did on me (Post tumor removal). Since I'm done with radiation 100% and on a chemo break I tried starting Monday to move the appointment up. I get a call Tuesday from an unhelpful cunt that said they are booked 100% and cannot move my appointment, at all. Me & the wife start calling to see if we can do at least a virtual visit as I would like to stop taking seizure meds if I don't need to be on them. I explained this to the PA's helper and they called this morning and told me they could see me at 3:45PM today. Same place, same people, and they claim complete ignorance of whomever told me they were booked solid.


Anyhow good news, starting tomorrow I am weaning off of steroids and seizure meds! steroids are 100% gone in 2 weeks (unless I start having problems) and seizure meds in 5 weeks.
 
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Denamian

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Kajiimagi said:
Neurologist put me on Keppra after the tumor episode in June. Been on them ever since.

I had a neurologist appointment in January 2024 to follow up on the EEG and other tests they did on me (Post tumor removal). Since I'm done with radiation 100% and on a chemo break I tried starting Monday to move the appointment up. I get a call Tuesday from an unhelpful cunt that said they are booked 100% and cannot move my appointment, at all. Me & the wife start calling to see if we can do at least a virtual visit as I would like to stop taking seizure meds if I don't need to be on them. I explained this to the PA's helper and they called this morning and told me they could see me at 3:45PM today. Same place, same people, and they claim complete ignorance of whomever told me they were booked solid.


Anyhow good news, starting tomorrow I am weaning off of steroids and seizure meds! steroids are 100% gone in 2 weeks (unless I start having problems) and seizure meds in 5 weeks.
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The person you spoke to initially could have been entirely correct. Most of the time, scheduling is done by plugging in the info for the appointment into the EMR system and it spits out the available dates and times. The scheduler you talked to probably didn't have the ability to do anything beyond that. Once you move up the ladder to people who work directly with a provider, they can often do things like double booking or open blocked off parts of the provider's schedule.

Either that or they simply got a cancellation that they were able to slot you into.
 
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K

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Denamian said:
The person you spoke to initially could have been entirely correct. Most of the time, scheduling is done by plugging in the info for the appointment into the EMR system and it spits out the available dates and times. The scheduler you talked to probably didn't have the ability to do anything beyond that. Once you move up the ladder to people who work directly with a provider, they can often do things like double booking or open blocked off parts of the provider's schedule.

Either that or they simply got a cancellation that they were able to slot you into.
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While your response makes sense I still hate front office folks in medical offices. Cunts in Front is what I call them. Some are definitely just doing their job but there is a disproportional amount that clearly get off being the gate keepers.

PA's can go pound sand too. I could write volumes of the number of times my wife and I had to talk to the PA and them saying they'd check with the doctor, we'd hear back some non helpful bullshit and then when we actually would meet with the doctor it would come to light that things my wife or I said never even made it to the doctor and the treatment plan would totally change based off of it.

Honestly I have a loathing for the whole setup I don't know if I'll ever shake off.
 
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Denamian

Denamian

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KDow said:
While your response makes sense I still hate front office folks in medical offices. Cunts in Front is what I call them. Some are definitely just doing their job but there is a disproportional amount that clearly get off being the gate keepers.

PA's can go pound sand too. I could write volumes of the number of times my wife and I had to talk to the PA and them saying they'd check with the doctor, we'd hear back some non helpful bullshit and then when we actually would meet with the doctor it would come to light that things my wife or I said never even made it to the doctor and the treatment plan would totally change based off of it.

Honestly I have a loathing for the whole setup I don't know if I'll ever shake off.
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Your experience with PAs is pretty much exactly the opposite of my own. I'd rather deal with PAs and NPs than MDs most of the time as they're the workhorses that are more directly involved in patient care most of the time. I do avoid large practices whenever I can though, as lots of shit falls through the cracks even when they're well run. Smaller offices with fewer patients per provider and more personalized care FTW.
 
Kajiimagi

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Denamian said:
Your experience with PAs is pretty much exactly the opposite of my own. I'd rather deal with PAs and NPs than MDs most of the time as they're the workhorses that are more directly involved in patient care most of the time. I do avoid large practices whenever I can though, as lots of shit falls through the cracks even when they're well run. Smaller offices with fewer patients per provider and more personalized care FTW.
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I prefer PA's as well. At this Neurology place I have not actually met the Doctor that 'sees' me, it has always been the PA. My 'family doctor' is a PA as well that we've followed from another practice as she seems to care. I'm just tired of being a medical experiment and want to get my head out of this fog.
 
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Kithani

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Kajiimagi said:
I prefer PA's as well. At this Neurology place I have not actually met the Doctor that 'sees' me, it has always been the PA. My 'family doctor' is a PA as well that we've followed from another practice as she seems to care. I'm just tired of being a medical experiment and want to get my head out of this fog.
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Ironically by letting PAs and NPs be your “physicians” you are literally becoming a uniquely US medical experiment trying to save money (and by save I mean redistribute it to a massively bloated group of “administrators”) by using undertrained healthcare personnel.
 
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Kajiimagi

Kajiimagi

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Kithani said:
Ironically by letting PAs and NPs be your “physicians” you are literally becoming a uniquely US medical experiment trying to save money (and by save I mean redistribute it to a massively bloated group of “administrators”) by using undertrained healthcare personnel.
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it's more bottom of the barrel healthcare options here. If I want to drive an hour to Vegas , I have a lot of options. Here , not so much. I've lived in this town 8 years and 'lose' a doc at least once a year. This time we went to the new place or I would have lost this one as well.
 
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sleevedraw

sleevedraw

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Kithani said:
Ironically by letting PAs and NPs be your “physicians” you are literally becoming a uniquely US medical experiment trying to save money (and by save I mean redistribute it to a massively bloated group of “administrators”) by using undertrained healthcare personnel.
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Docs better (a) take back control of the AMA, (b) unionize, and/or (c) be willing to work for lower pay in care gap locations, then. Say what you will about the ANA or RWJF, but they know how to lobby.
 
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