Health Problems

Haus

Haus

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Borzak said:
Now at 3600mg a day on gabapentin and it really slows down your brain. It really helps with the pain but it feels like you are a rock or mud moving in a mud slide. I had to start wearing a watch to keep up with the time. I guess all medication has an upside and down side. I feel like I'm an hour or more behind what is going on right in front of me. But hey it really helps with the pain.
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My wife has some nerve impingement around her lower back and hip that she is prescribed Gabapentin for, and she only takes it when things "get bad" because of those exact side effects. She can't take feeling mentally flooby.

Nirgon said:
I find myself needing the snooze button 3+ times after decades of big dawging. I was never a morning person but holy fuck. Anyone else?
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I've evolved in the opposite direction. At first I always needed an alarm, then I usually needed an alarm, now in my 50's I just pop awake around 7 every morning and it's on. Then again I also used melatonin for a while to nail my circadian rhythm into an absolute lock step.
 
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Kithani

Kithani

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Nowadays if I’m not up by 7 my bladder alarm will do the damn trick.

Jimmies rustled for sure on that one
 
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Borzak

Borzak

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Haus said:
My wife has some nerve impingement around her lower back and hip that she is prescribed Gabapentin for, and she only takes it when things "get bad" because of those exact side effects. She can't take feeling mentally flooby.


I've evolved in the opposite direction. At first I always needed an alarm, then I usually needed an alarm, now in my 50's I just pop awake around 7 every morning and it's on. Then again I also used melatonin for a while to nail my circadian rhythm into an absolute lock step.
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It's not just mental. But my hands feel like blocks, you can feel them but nothing like you do when you don't take it. Kinda numb.

I know when I first was prescribed it I looked it up and you could spend days reading all the side effects people menton.

When I first started I had major problems with my diabetes. I have always known what my blood sugar was at all time, pretty close to around 5-10. If I was sleeping and my blood sugar dropped to 70 or so I just woke up and get something to eat or drink. With gabapentin that went away. Some serious bad things and numerous visits from EMS before I figured out what it was. I then got a continous blood sugar alarm that goes off and every time now I wake up. But it definetly slows down your mental process.

Speakig of alarms. I've never used one. Not while in school or college, not working on site regular hours. I don't know why. I often swap my days and nights and had never had a problem waking up at the right time. Of all things to be good at. On a goose hunt once laying out in a frozen field someone asked who had a watch to know when legal shooting started. I said the exact time to a minute and hadn't looked at a clock/watch in days.
 
Goatface

Goatface

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just had 18ish month followup with my endocrinologist for my parathyroid. everything going ok. vit d little low, i was taking 5000ui when it got into the 60's, but she wanted it more around 50 and reduced it to 4000ui and now it is a little low. retest in 3 months at 5000ui again. October will have bone density test. the t-score for osteopenia is -1.0 to -2.5, and mine was like -1.3, so guess there is good chance that has stop or in recovery now.
really thought this was going to be last visit with the endocrinologist but appears need to go next year again.
 
Pogi.G

Pogi.G

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I'll share. Hopefully, someone has dealt with similar and can give some advice. Coming up on three years ago, I had a SL ligament reconstruction on my right wrist. 18 months later, I started having pain again, and went to go check it out. At that point, the graft had partially failed, and the doc said that another repair wouldn't be possible and would have to do a proximal row carpectomy (PRC-removing the three carpal row bones).

He recommended because of my age to try and manage pain with steroid injections for as long as possible because a PRC would only last about 10 - 20 years, and it would require a 3rd wrist surgery which would be a complete wrist fusion.

Unfortunately, I have had 15 other surgeries and not counting my wrist, I am having 2 more this year already and with my luck will probably need a 3rd for a rotator cuff tear.

In a few weeks, I'm having a cubital tunnel syndrome transposition, and after that heals, I'm having a C6-C7 disc replacement for a large central herniation.

To make a long story short, I fell on the ice during that big ice storm in Texas a few months ago, and of course, I fell to my right side and tried to catch myself on my wrist. Almost certain that fall turned a partial reconstruction tear into a full tear, as the pain since has been awful.

I'm tired of having surgery, and because of that, I am honestly considering skipping the PRC surgery and just going to the full wrist fusion to avoid a future surgery. Anyone have experience with a PRC or full wrist fusion? Curious of how difficult it was to transition to zero wrist mobility? Can you still use a keyboard and mouse? I assume a trackball would be a must have? Any general advice or thoughts of just going straight to the fusion?

Thanks for listening!
 
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Scoresby

Scoresby

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Pogi.G said:
I'll share. Hopefully, someone has dealt with similar and can give some advice. Coming up on three years ago, I had a SL ligament reconstruction on my right wrist. 18 months later, I started having pain again, and went to go check it out. At that point, the graft had partially failed, and the doc said that another repair wouldn't be possible and would have to do a proximal row carpectomy (PRC-removing the three carpal row bones).

He recommended because of my age to try and manage pain with steroid injections for as long as possible because a PRC would only last about 10 - 20 years, and it would require a 3rd wrist surgery which would be a complete wrist fusion.

Unfortunately, I have had 15 other surgeries and not counting my wrist, I am having 2 more this year already and with my luck will probably need a 3rd for a rotator cuff tear.

In a few weeks, I'm having a cubital tunnel syndrome transposition, and after that heals, I'm having a C6-C7 disc replacement for a large central herniation.

To make a long story short, I fell on the ice during that big ice storm in Texas a few months ago, and of course, I fell to my right side and tried to catch myself on my wrist. Almost certain that fall turned a partial reconstruction tear into a full tear, as the pain since has been awful.

I'm tired of having surgery, and because of that, I am honestly considering skipping the PRC surgery and just going to the full wrist fusion to avoid a future surgery. Anyone have experience with a PRC or full wrist fusion? Curious of how difficult it was to transition to zero wrist mobility? Can you still use a keyboard and mouse? I assume a trackball would be a must have? Any general advice or thoughts of just going straight to the fusion?

Thanks for listening!
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Sounds like you are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. I would particularly be concerned with issues at the rotator cuff and elbow becoming worse by wrist fusion. Mechanically these work together to solve certain kinematic problems and when there is dysfunction the requirements will be dumped onto other tissues; oftentimes ill-equipped to manage it. This is why shoulder or wrist issues often lead to elbow problems for example. I'd recommend finding a solid PT and discussing your current situation as well as what type of movements you desire to do and see if there is a path to reach a happy medium. That likely will come with some restrictions as your kinetic chain has multiple weak points but you might be able to improve function where you need it. Fusion may even make sense for your needs but would be limiting in ways that you could cascade into future problems.

I'm also not sure about the use of corticosteroids in your specific case. I've been working through some tendon inflammation and from what I understand that generally is a no-no as it inhibits your body's repair signaling. Maybe if the tissue is already compromised beyond repair then the pain reduction makes it worth it. I would just want to understand more if I were in your shoes.

This came across my feed today by chance. It isn't specific to your condition but I do find this guy does a fairly good job explaining different rehab protocols and it is at least adjacent to your issue so maybe you could get some relief.

 
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