Tag Archives: doctor

Even though I have multiple ongoing health issues, seeing my doctors on a pretty regular basis wasn’t a part of my life until earlier this year. Most of my health issues are things that only require one or two doctor appointments a year. But earlier this year I started seeing my dermatologist regularly for a few different issues I was trying to get under control.

The main thing I’ve been working on with my doctor is my autoimmune condition. I go back and forth with calling it autoimmune or inflammatory, because it can be classified either way. But no matter what it is, it’s annoying and can be very painful. And this year, I’ve been trying new ways to try to get it under control and possibly in remission.

I have tried a few different medications this year, but there’s one that I’ve been on for most of the year. But you can’t be on it forever, so at my last appointment, I had to stop the medication and just try one other one I’ve been on. So when I went in for another follow-up appointment last week, it was to see how I’m doing and continue working on a plan for helping me.

Unfortunately, my condition has flared up significantly since my last appointment. It’s not as bad as it was before I started working with my doctor, but it was worse than last time. I told my doctor that if before starting medications I was at a 10 and at my last appointment I was at a 1, I was probably at a 4 or 5 right now. And I also am dealing with a bit of stress right now, and stress can make everything worse. I’m still doing better than I was from the start, but it’s frustrating to have such a setback.

But I was reminded that my body is also getting used to coming off a medication I was taking for about 10 months, and there can be a bit of a reaction to that. So that did make me feel better.

And my doctor and I did discuss next steps. There are a few treatments that were discussed before that he doesn’t think would be a smart choice for me anymore (including one that would put me in an immunocompromised state). We discussed one medication I was on before and I didn’t like the side effects, and he understood why I wouldn’t want to try it again. And then he discussed surgery with me.

Surgery doesn’t necessarily make my condition go away, but it would treat the parts of my body that are affected by it and it can be a permanent fix. Because the places on my body where I have flares would essentially be turned into scar tissue, I wouldn’t have the ability to have the same issues. But this is not an easy surgery. There would be weeks of recovery and allowing my body to heal very large wounds. I know this could have the best results for me, but I’m hesitant to do it since it wouldn’t stop everything. It would just make the spots that are the worst on my body no longer be like that.

But there is no need for me to rush to decide anything about surgery. I will have another follow-up appointment in about a month and a half to see how I’m doing. And maybe there will be other treatment options we discuss then or maybe my doctor will recommend I at least have an initial appointment with the surgeon who could operate on me. I’m not sure what the next steps will be, but just like I’ve been doing this year, I’m just going to continue to try to work on this and get my body and my autoimmune condition in a better place.

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I think most people know that when they schedule a doctor’s appointment that there is a good chance it will run late. I do try to book the first appointment of the day or the first appointment after lunch since that is usually the best chance for things to be on time. But with my work schedule now, I can’t really do that as much. So I have been booking them toward the end of the day to limit how much work I have to miss.

This time, it was for another follow-up with my dermatologist. I have had these on a pretty frequent basis this year, and it’s mainly to monitor progress with a few different issues. I have something on my foot that my doctor tried to freeze off and we are seeing how to get my autoimmune condition to be in remission or to just be less severe. For my foot, it’s a simple check-up with seeing if I need another treatment. With my autoimmune condition, it’s a bit more complicated. I’ve tried a few different medications this year, and the first choice one is something you can’t take forever. So I knew going into this appointment that I was going to have to stop that medication. And because I was doing follow-ups on two things and was going to discuss a medication plan going forward, I assumed this would be a longer appointment.

But I was so wrong. I arrived 15 minutes before my appointment to check in, and I was taken back within minutes of arriving! And I didn’t even have much of a chance to put things down before the doctor came in! Normally, I have to change into a gown, but this time I didn’t which was fine since there would have been no time to do that anyway.

And even though we were doing two different follow-ups, it was actually very simple. For my foot, it was an easy decision to do another treatment. And that only takes about a minute or two. And for my autoimmune condition, since I already knew that we were ending one medication it was just a reminder that I should stop taking it now and only continue the other medication I’ve been taking for it. He did check my skin and agreed that things were looking better, so there was no need to discuss much more than that. Over the past few appointments, we have discussed surgical options (which is still something I am considering) and what medications or other methods to try to get me into remission. But this time, the plan is simple. I’m going to stay on the one medication I’m taking for my autoimmune condition and we are going to see how it goes.

And because I have to be back for another follow-up in 6 weeks for my foot, we can reevaluate things then and if I seem to be getting worse I can figure out a new plan with my doctor. I am hopeful that I won’t get worse because the medication I’m on now was only something I started at my last appointment and I’ve had significant improvement since starting it. So I think it’s from this medication and not the one I’ve been taking for a while.

Even without having much of a game plan going forward or any changes right now, I’m happy with these next steps because I want to see what happens. I don’t love being on a ton of medications and removing one from my day is a good thing. And maybe I won’t need to add something else back in.

This was a pretty easy follow-up with minimal stuff needed. The longest part was the treatment on my foot, but fortunately, I’m used to them so I can tolerate the pain and not need breaks. And before I knew it, I was ready to leave my appointment and by some miracle, I made it home in time to work a little extra time so I didn’t miss out on any pay that day! I think that makes this appointment a total win for me!

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Like so many people last year, I didn’t make it to a lot of regular medical appointments for most of 2020 because of the pandemic. I obviously did what I had to do when things weren’t great and I started regularly going to the dentist again after having some issues, but a lot of my routine appointments were put off and I figured I would do them when things were safer. And even though I have been vaccinated for about 6 months now, I didn’t get a chance to start planning routine appointments again until recently.

I might have forgotten to schedule them for longe but I did get an email alert from my insurance about some routine tests being due. They aren’t things I do every year, but it made sense I might be due for tests since I knew I skipped last year. So I tried to work on scheduling appointments around my work time (which isn’t easy now since I’m full-time and have to take time off to go). And I got a couple of things set up that started this week.

I had my regular well-woman checkup this week, which was one of the alerts I had gotten from my insurance. I found out when I got to the appointment, I wasn’t actually due for another year, but I figured I might as well do it all since I was already there. And while it’s not a fun appointment, it’s necessary to make sure I’m staying healthy and I don’t discover another random thing that is wrong with me. I’ve been feeling pretty ok lately, outside of some mental stress due to the pandemic, so I think everything is ok with me. But it will be good to know for sure.

I’ve got a few medical tests that I should have done last year but it was ok to push them off another year, so when I was at my appointment my doctor was able to start the process for me to schedule them. For example, my last liver MRI was supposed to be last year, but I was told to wait on it due to the pandemic. So hopefully when I do it this year, this will be the last one I need. But because it’s been almost 2 years since my last one, I needed a new order to get scheduled for the MRI. Normally, I call my liver surgeon so he can order it, but my doctor was able to put in the order for me so I could save that time. I still need to schedule it, but I’ll probably have it in the next month or two. It just depends on the time options. I also got an order for my next mammogram, which was something else I skipped last year. I don’t have to do regular ones just yet, but it’s good for me to do them.

Also, since my last regular appointment, I had my appointment with the geneticist so I could get breast MRIs covered by my insurance as a cancer screening. The geneticist said that I didn’t need to start doing those MRIs just yet, but I wanted to confirm that with my doctor. And she agrees, so I have a few more years before those MRIs are regular screenings for me.

And the last thing I set up were some regular blood tests that I haven’t done in a few years. This wasn’t just skipped because of the pandemic, but because I don’t always do them regularly. But they are all just boring things like blood sugar, liver enzymes (which I know were really off before, but it was because of my tumor), cholesterol, and things like that. I probably should be better about checking these things regularly and I need to see how often I really should do them.

Considering that I missed last year’s annual appointment and a few other doctor appointments that I usually would have, I think this appointment went really smoothly. Obviously, I don’t have test results from any tests I did yet, but there’s nothing I’m worried about and nothing my doctor was worried about. Honestly, the most worrisome thing during my appointment was the burst blood vessel in my eye. I know it still looks pretty bad, but as soon as my doctor walked into the room I reassured her that I was safe at home and nothing bad had happened to me. And she’s known me for years, so she knew I was ok and didn’t have to question me too much about it. And I think we both had a good laugh over the fact that I have had a few different suspicious-looking injuries that could look bad but they are actually from something innocent.

Hopefully, I can get the rest of my regular appointments in soon. I have almost all of them scheduled, but if things get really bad again with the pandemic I might have to put them off. But I’m hoping this appointment this week was me kicking off getting back on track with staying on top of my health.

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I’ve been working with my dermatologist on my autoimmune condition since the beginning of this year. It’s not the first time I’ve worked on it, but it’s the first time I’ve had a doctor who understands the condition and is really working on a plan with me. And while I’m so grateful to have someone working with me on it, it’s frustrating when it’s not a simple solution. You don’t just take one medication to make it get better. It’s not even one type of medication. It’s testing out a lot of different options that can improve things, but not necessarily cure them. And I know it can be a long process, but I still wish it wasn’t like this.

So far, I have tried one medication I’ve been on a lot that is usually used as an antibiotic and I actually took after getting cellulitis. Then at my last appointment, another medication was added that can help make things better and is usually prescribed for blood pressure issues. The antibiotic one does bother my stomach, but it’s not that bad and I have figured out ways to make it more tolerable. So I was fine with that one. But the new one that was added last time was a bit of a wild card. I naturally have low blood pressure, so taking something that could lower it more had the potential to cause some side effects.

And it did do just that. I stuck it out for the past 2 months, but I’ve been dealing with having lightheadedness and some dizziness. And I would usually feel it more when I was working out. There are other things that I thought could be side effects, but I wasn’t too bothered by them. But I really wanted to try this new medication out the entire time to see if it got better.

So when I had my follow-up with my dermatologist this week, I told him what I was experiencing and he wanted me to stop taking it. He actually said I probably should have emailed in and he would have told me to stop sooner, but I really wanted to give it a chance. But I’m also glad to be no longer taking it since it was annoying to have side effects that felt so similar to the vertigo that I had a few months ago.

Since the new medication didn’t work, I’m now trying another one. This one is usually given to regulate blood sugar (something I don’t need to worry about) but it has shown to also help the condition I have. Just like any other medication, it does have side effects, but most of them seem to be things I already deal with such as nausea. I just have to be careful with timing when I take the medication so that I’m taking it with food. Not too hard of a thing to do and I’m already decent at doing that with the other medication I take.

But then, I got some news I wasn’t expecting at my appointment. The antibiotic that I’ve been on (that I do see helping now) can’t be taken for a long time. I’m already close to the limit of taking it and when I go for my next follow-up, I will need to stop. While I knew the medication wasn’t a permanent fix, I guess I didn’t think about when I would have to stop taking it. And there is a chance that this new medication will work (and it can be something I take for a long time) so it won’t matter. Or maybe I’ll hit a level of remission and I’ll be fine in a few months. You never know.

Before I left my appointment, my dermatologist went over a few of the other issues we discussed last time (everything is fine and I’m looking like I’m having progress). And we discussed a bit about the surgery I can get for my autoimmune condition. Right now, I don’t want to do surgery. There are still other medications I can try and surgery would have a long recovery time. It is the only permanent solution, but if I can be in remission that works for me too. I just have to see if that’s possible. So I have to continue testing out medications until I’m out of options, then I’ll think more about surgery.

I guess I’ll see in about 3 months what the new plan is. The only thing I know for sure is that the plan I’m doing now will be changing then since it has to. But as long as I’m working on it and have a doctor who is willing to do that too, then I’m finding ways to be ok with this frustration in not having answers just yet.

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3 months ago, I saw my dermatologist to discuss a really bad flare-up with my autoimmune condition. Of course, at the time I finally got to my appointment, my flare-up wasn’t as bad as it had been. But even when it’s not bad, it’s still seen on my skin. So even though I had been previously diagnosed and done some one-off treatments in the past, the appointment earlier this year was the first time my current dermatologist had confirmed the diagnosis and started to help create a plan to see what will work for me.

There are a lot of options to try to treat this condition, but none of them are guaranteed to work. Some people react well to one medication or another. Some people need surgery. Sometimes one medication will work well for a while and then it won’t work anymore. And some of these medications can make you immunocompromised. That’s something to worry about in normal times, but now it’s even scarier. Even with me being fully vaccinated, I don’t want to be on anything that would make me at a higher risk for being a breakthrough case.

So at my last appointment, I was put on 2 different medications. One was a broad-spectrum antibiotic that I’ve been put on before. When I went to urgent care about a year ago for a bad flare, that’s what they put me on to make things better. But I usually have only been on that antibiotic for maybe a week or two. And this time, I was going to take a higher dose and take it twice a day. The other medication I was put on was to help with some side effects that the antibiotic can cause, so even though it wasn’t something that would necessarily help my autoimmune condition, it was something new to add to my medication routine.

And I’ve been following my dermatologist’s instructions to the letter these past 3 months. I wanted to give this the best chance I could because it would be the easiest solution for me. And it would be amazing if it ended up being the first thing we tried that got me into remission or as close to remission.

Over the past 3 months, I’ve stayed hopeful but I really didn’t think things were getting better. It’s not easy to tell, but I didn’t notice a huge difference in the flares I was getting. And the pain caused by the flares seem to stay at the same level no matter how bad things are, so I can’t really judge by the pain.

So when I went into my follow-up last week, I told my dermatologist that I didn’t think things were that much better for me. He asked me to guess how much better, and I said I thought it was maybe 5% better. But he took a look at the area that has the worst flare-ups and he said that it looked significantly better than that. He said he would guess maybe 25-30% improvement! The worst area isn’t the easiest for me to look at (it’s on my upper thighs) and I didn’t think of taking photos to see progress so I really had no clue it was improving that much! But because of how this antibiotic works, a lot of the improvement would have been right away so if that was all I needed to take I should have seen much better results.

But since this medication is helping, my dermatologist wanted me to stay on it (plus the medication I take for the side effects). And he said he wanted to add another medication to the plan. The new medication is usually used for very different issues like high blood pressure (I actually have very low blood pressure) or kidney issues. But it can also affect some hormones in your body that can make the flares not as bad (different hormones than regular female hormones that fluctuate every month). Just like any medication, there are side effects, but from what I have been able to look up they aren’t too bad. The biggest one is that you can get dehydrated easier than normal because it can pull water from your body. I used to overhydrate myself, so I think this might not be too much of an issue for me.

The only downside to this new medication is that it will take a while to know if it helps me. It usually will take 3-6 months before you know if it’s working. That’s a long time, but at least I’m already able to manage the flares a bit with the antibiotic that I’m on. So I’m not as desperate to see results. So the plan is for me to come back in another 3 months for another follow-up to see if there are any results and to make sure that any side effects I’m having aren’t causing me too many issues.

While I would have loved a better result, I think this is still a pretty good step in the right direction. And hopefully, it’s just a matter of time before things get even better. There is still a surgery that my dermatologist feels is a very good option for me, but if I can get things under control a bit more I might have a better result. And I’m not in any rush to get surgery. The only reason I would want to do it soon would be if I was told that was the only thing that would help me. But for now, I’m just continuing to take the medications I was prescribed and hope that my next follow-up will have even better results.

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