Health Problems

Kajiimagi · May 7, 2025

Denamian said:
Some practices use a 3rd party to manage their records requests. While you may have been on hold with the medical records department at the office, the caller may have been from another company that got your online request.

Nope, she said she saw me on the line. Sorry try again.

meStevo · May 7, 2025

meStevo said:
Had a non-contrast brain MRI last night. Since I have access to the imagery I used ChatGPT to potentially identify a vestibular neuroma. Wild. Will find out if it's accurate a week from Wednesday, sooner if SDMI uploads their report to my account prior.

arnold schwarzenegger its not a tumor GIF

SDMI findings:

1. Single punctate right frontal deep white matter hyperintense FLAIR signal focus, nonspecific. May be associated with migraines. No acute intracranial process.

2. Empty sella.

Izo · May 7, 2025

meStevo said:
SDMI findings:

1. Single punctate right frontal deep white matter hyperintense FLAIR signal focus, nonspecific. May be associated with migraines. No acute intracranial process.

2. Empty sella.

You have no pituitary ?

Gavinmad · May 7, 2025

or at least a hawk ptuahtary?

Sludig · May 14, 2025

2nd time now where I've gotten I assume submandibular lymph nodes that are swelling. Both times I think it was right side of my neck. A sudden onset kinda discomfort, not quite pinchy itchy pain. And suddenly it's kinda hard to swallow and painful as I do it, takes effort. I can feel an actual lump and if I press in on it hurts a bit. First time I want to say it kinda subsided fairly quick. I can't remember if I was rocking one of my normal migraines or not like I am tonight.

Maybe ten minutes or so and it's mostly passed, can't feel it and can swallow again.

I thought I was a little crazy but wife said she could feel a bit of bulge/lump compared to my other side.

Kajiimagi · May 22, 2025

My dermatologist found a a Malignant melanoma on the back of my left ear. I was as concerned as I get about it because it killed all my Dad's siblings (3 brothers & 2 sisters) and my dad had to have his ear cut and lymph nodes removed in 96-97 or so but survived it (mostly by doing what you are supposed to). I had it removed earlier in the month. Anyhow today I got the all clear. They had to cut enough of my ear off that they did a skin graph but they got it all and it was shallow enough, not sure of the correct terminology but basically the melanoma didn't go deep enough in the body that it would infect the lymph system.
I just have to go for check ups at the dermatologist every 3 months for a few years instead of annually like I was doing.

YAY!!!!!!!

TheNozz · May 22, 2025

TheNozz said:
Update:

mother fucker, the AFIB started again at about 1:25 am this morning

Again, the only time it’s been triggered is while I was laying down.

I had to take a metoprolol to get it under control

I still don’t understand how a condition where your heart has an internal electrical issue can apparently “cycle off” for nearly a full week

I see the cardiologist on Wednesday hopefully he has answers and also doesn’t simply gloss over the fact my issues have only occurred while laying down or at least a reasonable explanation of why it wouldn’t matter: as long as I don’t wake up with it, walking, lifting, sitting and other various other activities don’t set off an AFIB episode

edit: walked up a flight of stairs just now and According to my smartwatch, my HR peaked at about 100, but started to drop once I stopped and started taking an ECG reading

ECG came back as normal rhythm

Update:

Finally saw Cardiologist May 7
50/50 news is he isn't ready to diagnose me with permanent AFIB but he can’t rule it out.
Good news is he said there's nothing physically wrong with my heart, I'm at very low risk for stroke and I can go back to exercise again.

They strapped a heart monitor to me that that finally got taken off yesterday and mailed in for results.

Observations I made while the monitor was on:

1) Exercise does not trigger any episodes.
2) Caffeine does not trigger any episodes (it really doesn't affect my heart rate much at all) When I do have caffeine, its a small cup of coffee in the morning, and that will be the only caffeine source that day.
3) Metoprolol does not prevent AFIB episodes, it simply prevents my heart rate from going too high when it does happen.
4) in the 14 days I had the monitor on, I only had 4 episodes of AFIB. Every single one of them was at night while trying to sleep.

Theory moving forward: I'm still pretty sure this is related to some kind of inflammation issue.
Possible evidence includes:
1) Incidents have only ever occurred when lying down.
2) There were two times I had an incident at night, where I went back to sleep and it was still present upon waking; AFIB went away almost immediately upon getting out of bed and sitting upright in a chair. The last time this occurred May 20, I exercised within 30 minutes of it stopping and it wasn't retriggered, also coffee didn't retrigger it either.
3a) When the problem first started around April 16, it would occur nearly every other day. After being prescribed regular strength aspirin once a day by the ER doctor, incidents occurred less frequently, with the longest reprieve being seven days.
3b) Cardiologist told me to switch from regular strength aspirin to baby aspirin(I hadn't taken the full strength aspirin that day yet). That night I had an incident (there were no incidents two nights in a row prior). After switching to baby aspirin, the longest reprieve I had was 4 days without incident. But still nowhere as often when I wasn't taking anything.
4) I've experienced temporary heart palpitations if I lean forward for a length of time, sometimes in seconds, others in minutes.
5) Heartbeat became more pronounced several days before AFIB started on April 16. It still feels randomly more pronounced since taking aspirin of any type, just not as consistently.
6) The best I've felt, since this whole thing started, was the two days prior to visiting the Cardiologist, where I was taking a full strength aspirin once a day, as well as eating raw garlic, a natural anti-inflammatory.

The cardiologist is leaning towards sleep apnea as causing this. However, I don't snore, or so I've been told. And, other than an AFIB episode waking me up, I typically sleep pretty soundly: if I had sleep apnea so bad it cranks my heart rate out of control, I'd assume my sleep would be god awful. Also, my Apple Watch isn't detecting any breathing disturbances when I sleep.

I'm extremely tempted to try using full strength aspirin again, as directed on the bottle(not just one a day), and seeing what happens. My hypothesis is that there shouldn't be any incidents for the full recommended course (10 days) and that AFIB will resume within a couple days of discontinuing full strength and returning to baby aspirin once a day.

I'm waiting til the morning after my next episode to test this theory, so I have a point of reference.

Haus · May 23, 2025

Had a second CT scan follow up on my kidney situation...

They discovered another mass, on the OTHER kidney, which the first CT scan didn't catch. So now I have a 25mm+ sized mass on both kidneys, both soaking up enough contrast to make both strong candidates for malignancy. Wondering how this will affect plans, but apparently my urologist isn't too concerned, or just too busy to see/talk to me about it before middle of next week. (They took a sweet 2 weeks to get the report from the radiologist, and it only happened then due to me blowing up over it, see "what's rustling your jimmies" thread for details on that party. heh)

Bottom line, I'm looking at 80-90% chance of dealing with Renal Carcinoma.

Fogel · May 23, 2025

TheNozz said:
Update:

Finally saw Cardiologist May 7
50/50 news is he isn't ready to diagnose me with permanent AFIB but he can’t rule it out.
Good news is he said there's nothing physically wrong with my heart, I'm at very low risk for stroke and I can go back to exercise again.

They strapped a heart monitor to me that that finally got taken off yesterday and mailed in for results.

Observations I made while the monitor was on:

1) Exercise does not trigger any episodes.
2) Caffeine does not trigger any episodes (it really doesn't affect my heart rate much at all) When I do have caffeine, its a small cup of coffee in the morning, and that will be the only caffeine source that day.
3) Metoprolol does not prevent AFIB episodes, it simply prevents my heart rate from going too high when it does happen.
4) in the 14 days I had the monitor on, I only had 4 episodes of AFIB. Every single one of them was at night while trying to sleep.

Theory moving forward: I'm still pretty sure this is related to some kind of inflammation issue.
Possible evidence includes:
1) Incidents have only ever occurred when lying down.
2) There were two times I had an incident at night, where I went back to sleep and it was still present upon waking; AFIB went away almost immediately upon getting out of bed and sitting upright in a chair. The last time this occurred May 20, I exercised within 30 minutes of it stopping and it wasn't retriggered, also coffee didn't retrigger it either.
3a) When the problem first started around April 16, it would occur nearly every other day. After being prescribed regular strength aspirin once a day by the ER doctor, incidents occurred less frequently, with the longest reprieve being seven days.
3b) Cardiologist told me to switch from regular strength aspirin to baby aspirin(I hadn't taken the full strength aspirin that day yet). That night I had an incident (there were no incidents two nights in a row prior). After switching to baby aspirin, the longest reprieve I had was 4 days without incident. But still nowhere as often when I wasn't taking anything.
4) I've experienced temporary heart palpitations if I lean forward for a length of time, sometimes in seconds, others in minutes.
5) Heartbeat became more pronounced several days before AFIB started on April 16. It still feels randomly more pronounced since taking aspirin of any type, just not as consistently.
6) The best I've felt, since this whole thing started, was the two days prior to visiting the Cardiologist, where I was taking a full strength aspirin once a day, as well as eating raw garlic, a natural anti-inflammatory.

The cardiologist is leaning towards sleep apnea as causing this. However, I don't snore, or so I've been told. And, other than an AFIB episode waking me up, I typically sleep pretty soundly: if I had sleep apnea so bad it cranks my heart rate out of control, I'd assume my sleep would be god awful. Also, my Apple Watch isn't detecting any breathing disturbances when I sleep.

I'm extremely tempted to try using full strength aspirin again, as directed on the bottle(not just one a day), and seeing what happens. My hypothesis is that there shouldn't be any incidents for the full recommended course (10 days) and that AFIB will resume within a couple days of discontinuing full strength and returning to baby aspirin once a day.

I'm waiting til the morning after my next episode to test this theory, so I have a point of reference.

Bro when you have a heart monitor on you're supposed to slam 3 monsters back to back and act like you didn't when the doctors ask you about the fucked up part on the chart.

Gurgeh · May 23, 2025

TheNozz said:
Update:

Finally saw Cardiologist May 7
50/50 news is he isn't ready to diagnose me with permanent AFIB but he can’t rule it out.
Good news is he said there's nothing physically wrong with my heart, I'm at very low risk for stroke and I can go back to exercise again.

They strapped a heart monitor to me that that finally got taken off yesterday and mailed in for results.

Observations I made while the monitor was on:

1) Exercise does not trigger any episodes.
2) Caffeine does not trigger any episodes (it really doesn't affect my heart rate much at all) When I do have caffeine, its a small cup of coffee in the morning, and that will be the only caffeine source that day.
3) Metoprolol does not prevent AFIB episodes, it simply prevents my heart rate from going too high when it does happen.
4) in the 14 days I had the monitor on, I only had 4 episodes of AFIB. Every single one of them was at night while trying to sleep.

Theory moving forward: I'm still pretty sure this is related to some kind of inflammation issue.
Possible evidence includes:
1) Incidents have only ever occurred when lying down.
2) There were two times I had an incident at night, where I went back to sleep and it was still present upon waking; AFIB went away almost immediately upon getting out of bed and sitting upright in a chair. The last time this occurred May 20, I exercised within 30 minutes of it stopping and it wasn't retriggered, also coffee didn't retrigger it either.
3a) When the problem first started around April 16, it would occur nearly every other day. After being prescribed regular strength aspirin once a day by the ER doctor, incidents occurred less frequently, with the longest reprieve being seven days.
3b) Cardiologist told me to switch from regular strength aspirin to baby aspirin(I hadn't taken the full strength aspirin that day yet). That night I had an incident (there were no incidents two nights in a row prior). After switching to baby aspirin, the longest reprieve I had was 4 days without incident. But still nowhere as often when I wasn't taking anything.
4) I've experienced temporary heart palpitations if I lean forward for a length of time, sometimes in seconds, others in minutes.
5) Heartbeat became more pronounced several days before AFIB started on April 16. It still feels randomly more pronounced since taking aspirin of any type, just not as consistently.
6) The best I've felt, since this whole thing started, was the two days prior to visiting the Cardiologist, where I was taking a full strength aspirin once a day, as well as eating raw garlic, a natural anti-inflammatory.

The cardiologist is leaning towards sleep apnea as causing this. However, I don't snore, or so I've been told. And, other than an AFIB episode waking me up, I typically sleep pretty soundly: if I had sleep apnea so bad it cranks my heart rate out of control, I'd assume my sleep would be god awful. Also, my Apple Watch isn't detecting any breathing disturbances when I sleep.

I'm extremely tempted to try using full strength aspirin again, as directed on the bottle(not just one a day), and seeing what happens. My hypothesis is that there shouldn't be any incidents for the full recommended course (10 days) and that AFIB will resume within a couple days of discontinuing full strength and returning to baby aspirin once a day.

I'm waiting til the morning after my next episode to test this theory, so I have a point of reference.

When he mentions sleep apnea, is it related to obesity ? That could explain a lot, and mean there's an easy fix.

TheNozz · May 23, 2025

Gurgeh said:
When he mentions sleep apnea, is it related to obesity ? That could explain a lot, and mean there's an easy fix.

He didn’t mention obesity as an issue

I admit I’m heavier than I should be but I’ve been at this weight for awhile and I exercise (cycle 45 mins) six days a week

for comparison, my dad is older, shorter and heavier than me. Smokes weed and drinks everyday and it doesn’t bother him much

edit: to clarify I’m 6’2” and weigh around 236 and am very physically active. My resting heart rate before this shit started was high 40s to low 50s bpm

I used to weigh as much as 260 and was a couch potato until my early 20s.

my weight fluctuates but I’ve always been physically active since I started taking this seriously about two decades ago

Gurgeh · May 23, 2025

TheNozz said:
He didn’t mention obesity as an issue

I admit I’m heavier than I should be but I’ve been at this weight for awhile and I exercise (cycle 45 mins) six days a week

for comparison, my dad is older, shorter and heavier than me. Smokes weed and drinks everyday and it doesn’t bother him much

edit: to clarify I’m 6’2” and weigh around 236 and am very physically active. My resting heart rate before this shit started was high 40s to low 50s bpm

I used to weigh as much as 260 and was a couch potato until my early 20s.

my weight fluctuates but I’ve always been physically active since I started taking this seriously about two decades ago

As we get older, our body can tolerate less... You're slightly obese, but still obese, meaning you probably have constantly fairly high blood sugar, which causes inflamation, and all sort of problems. Diabetes is a major risk increase for Afib, so it is possibly an issue. You probably don't have diabetes, but with your weight, your age, you're on the path to it, and you don't even need to have been diagnosed as diabetic to feel the harm from the sugar and the increasing metabolic disfunction.

Losing weight can reverse atrial fibrillation in obese patients - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Losing 10% of the weight reduce risk of having afib again by fucking 85%...

Don't lie to yourself, obesity isn't great, even if you're active, especialy when getting in your 40's 50's...

It's a serious warning shot. But you most certainly can reverse that shit, I'm no fan of Ozempic, but in a case of reversing afib, the risk/benefit is quite obvious, if you think you can't do it.

TheNozz · May 25, 2025

Gurgeh said:
Losing 10% of the weight reduce risk of having afib again by fucking 85%...

Don't lie to yourself, obesity isn't great, even if you're active, especialy when getting in your 40's 50's...

It's a serious warning shot. But you most certainly can reverse that shit, I'm no fan of Ozempic, but in a case of reversing afib, the risk/benefit is quite obvious, if you think you can't do it.

Ironically enough, I was on my way to getting more serious about my weight loss goals just several weeks before this started. Started eating less and stopped consuming calories in drinks.

My weight did go up during this whole issue because
A) ER and other doctors recommended halting exercise until I saw the cardiologist (2 weeks)
B) I'm not an alcoholic, a smoker or a hard drug user(thank Christ), but I admit food can be my crutch when dealing with depression or anxiety(oddly last year i went through an anxiety phase where I hardly ate anything for a month and got down to 220s)

However, the turn around is, since my cardiologist said I can go back to regular exercise, my weight has dropped down to 234, which is the lowest it's been this year, lower than when I first realized I needed to drop some pounds

The primary goal is 210 or under, but the ideal goal is under 200, something I haven't seen since 2006

moonarchia · May 26, 2025

TheNozz said:
Ironically enough, I was on my way to getting more serious about my weight loss goals just several weeks before this started. Started eating less and stopped consuming calories in drinks.

My weight did go up during this whole issue because
A) ER and other doctors recommended halting exercise until I saw the cardiologist (2 weeks)
B) I'm not an alcoholic, a smoker or a hard drug user(thank Christ), but I admit food can be my crutch when dealing with depression or anxiety(oddly last year i went through an anxiety phase where I hardly ate anything for a month and got down to 220s)

However, the turn around is, since my cardiologist said I can go back to regular exercise, my weight has dropped down to 234, which is the lowest it's been this year, lower than when I first realized I needed to drop some pounds

The primary goal is 210 or under, but the ideal goal is under 200, something I haven't seen since 2006

You can do it! Remember, losing weight is never about exercise, it is 100% calorie control. Eat for the weight you want to be at. It will still be fat instead of muscle if you don't exercise, but you *will* get to the weight you want to be at.

A regular exercise regimen is absolutely a good thing, and something you should try to incorporate, but just crunch the numbers and track your calories. Eat at a deficit for a few weeks and you will see yourself losing weight.

Good luck! Stay alive! Stay healthy!

Haus · May 26, 2025

moonarchia said:
You can do it! Remember, losing weight is never about exercise, it is 100% calorie control. Eat for the weight you want to be at. It will still be fat instead of muscle if you don't exercise, but you *will* get to the weight you want to be at.

A regular exercise regimen is absolutely a good thing, and something you should try to incorporate, but just crunch the numbers and track your calories. Eat at a deficit for a few weeks and you will see yourself losing weight.

Good luck! Stay alive! Stay healthy!

The most successful weight loss run I've done in my lifetime was done when I just made a spreadsheet in google sheets and tracked everything I ate with a mind that if I could be at ~1900 calories per day I was at maintenance, and every 500 calories a day under that would result in about 1lb a week of weight loss. At that point it was just a problem of math and willpower.

I was intermittently doing exercise during this, but not consistently. That was mostly done because I wanted to improve my cardiovascular health, so I was doing HIIT workouts to build up my heart.

Captain Suave · May 26, 2025

Haus said:
The most successful weight loss run I've done in my lifetime was done when I just made a spreadsheet in google sheets and tracked everything I ate with a mind that if I could be at ~1900 calories per day I was at maintenance, and every 500 calories a day under that would result in about 1lb a week of weight loss. At that point it was just a problem of math and willpower.

I was intermittently doing exercise during this, but not consistently. That was mostly done because I wanted to improve my cardiovascular health, so I was doing HIIT workouts to build up my heart.

Second this. Counting calories is a huge pain in the ass but works like clockwork if you're honest. Track for a few weeks, and if your metabolism is such that the weight isn't coming off at the expected rate adjust your calories until it is. Don't forget to adjust downward for your mass change as you progress, ~ 10 calories per day per pound lost.

Haus · May 26, 2025

Captain Suave said:
Second this. Counting calories is a huge pain in the ass but works like clockwork if you're honest. Track for a few weeks, and if your metabolism is such that the weight isn't coming off at the expected rate adjust your calories until it is. Don't forget to adjust downward for your mass change as you progress, ~ 10 calories per day per pound lost.

Also, if you have certain modern fancy bits... Like in my case a Samsung Galaxy Watch 3... It will help you if you give it your height and weight, then it will use sensors to also measure body fat percentage. From that it can get a pretty accurate take on "This many calories are what you burn every day just keeping yourself alive", it's called your basal metabolic rate. That's the baseline I worked off of.

Captain Suave · May 26, 2025

Haus said:
Also, if you have certain modern fancy bits... Like in my case a Samsung Galaxy Watch 3... It will help you if you give it your height and weight, then it will use sensors to also measure body fat percentage. From that it can get a pretty accurate take on "This many calories are what you burn every day just keeping yourself alive", it's called your basal metabolic rate. That's the baseline I worked off of.

Yeah, my FitBit does a pretty good job, including adjusting for my exercise.

Haus · May 27, 2025

So today I have the follow up with my urologist over the recent CT scan involving my lovely mass on my left kidney, and going over how they now discovered a mass on my right kidney as well....

And I can add a new one to "things you don't want to hear your Dr say" list....

"I need to refer you to another Dr here in the practice, he handles all the most complicated situations."

Give her credit for knowing where she is on the surgical stack ranking I suppose. But don't feel great that my situation is now complicated enough to have her need to call in backup.

Captain Suave · May 27, 2025

Haus said:
And I can add a new one to "things you don't want to hear your Dr say" list....

"I need to refer you to another Dr here in the practice, he handles all the most complicated situations."

Up there with, "Wow, I've never seen that before!". Fortunately for me it was just my knee, not a critical organ.

Health Problems

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.

Tranny Chaser

Mr. Poopybutthole

Potato del Grande

Bronze Baron of the Realm

I am Big Balls!

Mr. Poopybutthole

Golden Baronet of the Realm

Bronze Baron of the Realm

Golden Baronet of the Realm

Bronze Baron of the Realm

The Scientific Shitlord

I am Big Balls!

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.

I am Big Balls!

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.

I am Big Balls!

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.