More Blood Tests for Osteoporosis Today

I got around to the blood tests for Vitamin D and parathyroid and a urine test called TNx.  All which can indicate a cause of Osteoporosis developing.  I had to fast from food from midnight but I was allowed to drink water.  I'll make an appointment with my GP sometime to discuss the results and the report Dr. Herd sends her if she will let me see it.  I am not going to be happy if certain things are said but I want to know.  I am not sure when she is likely to get a report that lengthy but it mostly seemed to by typed up before I even got to my last appointment with Herd.  He could be adding to it after these tests or simply expect the GP to deal with it.

I got to the lab at about 7.30am and I came straight home again because I was still half asleep.  It has been a very sleepy day for me.  I think I am suffering from post exertional malaise but although today is a bit of a right-off, I think it may have done me good to spend the rest of the day at home sleeping on and off because my glands are really sore again and the mucous that keeps coming from my post-nasal drip, keeps coming in floods.  Perhaps that is why my appetite has not been that great.  I would expect to be losing weight but there is no indication that any such thing is taking place.  It never does any more.  All that said, I am not feeling deathly like I do when my insides seem to vibrate and my heart-rate speeds up so I still think I am going to be OK.

Day After the Second Earthquake in 6 months for Christchurch

Yesterday I was getting my hair cut (and she botched it) while the first I knew of yesterdays Earthquake in Christchurch came on TV. Lucy, the hairdresser had climbed to the top of church spire at the Cathedral who's spire caved in. For tourist purposes the Cathedral tour guides gave anyone who climbed to the top of the tower a certificate to keep. Anyway, it was quite an active day for me personally so I was ready to come home and catch up on the TV: Christchurch's Littleton and Canterbury. I was trying to do my usual blend of research/learning, medical record keeping and social networking at the same time but once an hour or so, my computer would shut down and power up again but the safety switch was not being tripped so I assumed it was the cords or one of my peripherals which I was gradually unplugging and checking in between reboots. The last time it happened I was watching the speaker light come on and off as the power seemed to try and then fail several times and unlike the last two times, every circuit in the house was affected. But no trip switches went off. I turned off and on the main and each circuit in between and wondered weather there was something burning out in the switch box like last time but I could not smell anything and this is a completely new one since then. I did not even think of the main meter box for both these units because it is on Flora's side. With her help because I now had no phone access, I called Maintenence who had to send someone up from Brisbane. I could see I was not going to get power back in time for any more news on the quake and I missed Neighbours too.

He fixed the problem at the meter box and temporarily put me on to another line because the line I was on had no power so someone would have to come back and switch it back to my usual line. About 20 mins after he left he was back in the drive and I had just powered up the computer and boiled the kettle thank goodness. The pumping station next door had someone in attendance there to and it was then we found out why. Energex was working in the are and was about to switch off the whole street but they were also fixing up the power to the sewerage pumping station and it turns out that is the line I am on. The only person in the street. So I had to be switched back to my line again right then and be plunged into darkness once more. He warned that in half an hour the whole street would be blacked out by the workers and then my power would come back on after the sewerage pumping station line was fixed. Flora and Brian got forewarning because I told them but the council certainly hadn't bothered to tell us. Eventually their power went off and mine came back on again but it was 8 or 9 o'clock by then and there were no more Quake coverages until 10pm so I stayed up and the rest of the street probably went to bed early although their power was only going to be off for not much more than an hour.

I think there was a problem with my power individually and that this other problem on top of it was coincidental. Glad I didn't have to pay for it, since the AH electrician had to drive up from Brisbane so I guess he missed the news too.

I have been having good days followed by recovery days but except for the first backward slide that made me feel all fluey again, these have been not like that. I am taking the Planquenil now if that has made any difference. It is used as a preventative against relapses in Lupus.

I would have probably stayed in all day today had S not rung wanting his University books that had arrived. I ended up meeting him at Stockland and took him home again. He has no money and is in the poo financially because his car is still not going and back in the workshop with another problem. Maybe he cannot afford to get it out because today was pay day and all he could do is pay for a bus fare to Stockland which seems a bit silly in hindsight since I could have driven the books up to his house seeing I had to drive him home anyway. I thought he was also coming down to deal with his car but as it turned out - no.

But with all the rigmorol with no power and trying to remain in touch with S, I realised I do have a mobile phone problem - my optus one stopped working - gets hot and screen goes blank before I can do anything and the Telstra one that fell in the sea because the tide came all the way up on the grass while I was swimming locally, seems to work to talk but will not let me push any buttons so all I can do is speak to someone else's call but I cannot ring anything because it all results in switching back to the main screen. It meant when S's message arrived I could not even get to it to read it. It is funny how when my health starts to improve I end up with problems I have to deal with which can put an end to any of the ideas I've had for just having a bit of quiet fun and relaxation. I'll report on the Plaquenil some other time since it takes up to 3 months to work. But I have been feeling mostly OK. Yesterday was high emotion, high action day with the quake and the power problems so I am quite happy that I can probably get away with feeling dopey and slow for a couple of days instead of outright sick.

What about M.E. Trailer

If you look very carfeully for half a split second you will see yours truly.


"

Expensive Probiotic Therapy

In a previous blog, I spoke about faecal transplants and I have now found that these can be performed at the Centre for Digestive Diseases in Sydney.  Perhaps when I get my Superannuation at 60, I may still be interested in trying it out and it seems that a family donor is an option provided that they pass the screening.  I would guess that this very expensive procedure would be cheaper using a donor.  For now, I just want to record the web site for future reference http://probiotictherapy.com.au/ and note that this procedure is also called Human Probiotic Infusion (HPI).

I am actually leading up to a course of Inner Health Plus and probably IBS Support by Ethical Nutrients again because I have been really 'out-of-sorts' in that department since the Doxycylcine, Lyrica and Prednisolone.  Except for during the recent bowel attack, I have been constipated for longer than I ever remember and I was so bloated and tight that I found it difficult to bend over.  I have also been taking liquid nilstat for oral thrush recently and at the moment because of the bloating and thrush in other areas as well I have to suspect a candida overgrowth so I have put myself on a course of Nilstat capsules to kill it off.  That means that I need to repopulate the gut flora when I finish it and that is my plan.  The excessive bloating has already gone thanks to the Nilstat (which is an anti-fungal).

I have been reading an M.E. patient's story about her treatment by a well-known ME/CFS doctor in the U.S.A at http://forums.aboutmecfs.org/content.php?357-The-Corinne-Dr.-Peterson-Chronicles-Followup-CFS-treatment-ME-CFS-antiviral-procrit and her (Corinne) prescribed treatment names a specific type of potent pro-biotic which she takes every day.  Again, it is very expensive at $120 for 30 sachets but because it was named in her story (VSL #3) I have been able to track it down in Australia to at least this site http://www.epharmacy.com.au/product.asp?id=49735&pname=VSL+%233+The+Living+Shield+Sachets+30 It is also used as a treatment for Crohn's.

He'll Be Back
He was here today after I picked him up at the Industrial Estate where he took his car back because he was not happy with the job they did on the new water pump.

He seemed scattered and I could not get much out of him about his new share house except that there is a 21 year old girl called Chantelle there (with a boyfriend elsewhere)  and some blokes who do drugs.  He is straight so he is not going to fit in there and while he was here the estate agent phoned him saying that there was a complaint against him which was obviously fabricated because he (S suspects who) has been accused with drug dealing.  It seems someone wants him out of the place.  I told him that he had better leave (and come back here if necessary) rather than end up in trouble.  It never ends.

He went back home to talk about it. 

Interstitial lung diseases

Interstitial lung diseases are a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by alveolar septal thickening, fibroblast proliferation, collagen deposition, and, if the process remains unchecked, pulmonary fibrosis. Interstitial lung diseases can be classified using various criteria (eg, acute vs chronic, granulomatous vs nongranulomatous, known cause vs unknown cause, primary lung disease vs secondary to systemic disease).

Among the numerous possible causes are most connective tissue disorders and occupational lung exposures and many drugs (see Environmental Pulmonary Diseases; Table 1: Interstitial Lung Diseases: Causes of Interstitial Lung Disease). A number of interstitial diseases of unknown etiology have characteristic histology, clinical features, or presentation and thus are considered unique diseases, including eosinophilic pulmonary diseases, pulmonary Langerhans cell histiocytosis, lymphangioleiomyomatosis, pulmonary alveolar proteinosis, and sarcoidosis. In up to 30% of patients who have interstitial diseases with no clear cause, the processes are distinguished primarily by characteristic histopathologic features; these processes are termed the idiopathic interstitial pneumonias. 

Pulmonary Langerhams Cell  Histiocytosis

Pulmonary Langerhans' cell histiocytosis is proliferation of monoclonal Langerhans' cells in lung interstitium and airspaces. Etiology is unknown, but cigarette smoking plays a primary role. Symptoms are dyspnea, cough, fatigue, and pleuritic chest pain. Diagnosis is based on history and imaging tests and sometimes on bronchoalveolar lavage and biopsy findings. Treatment is smoking cessation. Corticosteroids are given in many cases, but efficacy is unknown. Lung transplantation is curative when combined with smoking cessation. Five-year survival is about 74%. Patients are at increased risk of cancer.

 

Pulmonary Langerhans' cell histiocytosis (PLCH) is a disease in which monoclonal CD1a-positive Langerhans cells (a type of histiocyte) infiltrate the bronchioles and alveolar interstitium, accompanied by lymphocytes, plasma cells, neutrophils, and eosinophils. PLCH is one manifestation of Langerhans' cell histiocytosis (see Histiocytic Syndromes: Langerhans' Cell Histiocytosis), which can affect organs in isolation (most notably the lungs, skin, bones, pituitary, and lymph nodes) or simultaneously. PLCH occurs in isolation ≥ 85% of the time.

The etiology of PLCH is unknown, but the disease occurs almost exclusively in whites 20 to 40 yr of age who smoke. Men and women are affected equally. Women develop disease later, but any differences in disease presentation by sex may represent differences in smoking behavior. Pathophysiology may involve recruitment and proliferation of Langerhans cells in response to cytokines and growth factors secreted by alveolar macrophages in response to cigarette smoke.

Symptoms and Signs

Typical symptoms and signs of PLCH are dyspnea, nonproductive cough, fatigue, fever, weight loss, and pleuritic chest pain, and 10 to 25% of patients have sudden, spontaneous pneumothorax. About 15% of patients are asymptomatic, with disease noted incidentally on a chest x-ray taken for another reason. Bone pain from bone cysts (18%), rash (13%), and polyuria from diabetes insipidus (5%) are the most common manifestations of extrapulmonary involvement and occur in up to 15% of patients, rarely being the presenting symptoms of PLCH. There are few signs of PLCH; the physical examination results are usually normal.

Diagnosis

• High-resolution CT (HRCT)
• Pulmonary function tests
• Sometimes bronchoscopy and biopsy

PLCH is suspected based on history and chest x-ray and is confirmed by HRCT and bronchoscopy with biopsy and bronchoalveolar lavage.

Read More

Happy Birthday Zena

I just finished talking to you on the phone for your birthday and to tell you the news about S not getting paid on moving day (today) and getting his car out of the workshop day (supposed to be today) and to tip you off about your present that is not a present so you know all the news anyway.  The best part is he has to walk all the way to town and back now with his ear plugs in and phone playing, so it will do him good and for me it means peace in the house except for his load of washing which is making the washing machine beep in error (it is the worst washing machine I have ever had for keeping it balanced).

I have just got to get the mattresses sorted before he leaves - he moved everything back the other day and said I could not lie on my new one for 7 days so that what I had spent my energy on moving was negated because he undid it all.  He is a very good un-doer.  I wash and put away a jar I like with a future purpose in mind and he throws it in the bin and then I pull it out and wash it again and so on.  When I am too crook to notice these things, he wins yet he will expect me to produce a jar when he needs it or a quilt for Connor or him and he will not believe me when I say "You took it with you when you moved" - even the ones he has thrown out - the leaking ones I shove into a doona cover because that is all that was left, which were not good enough for him to use even after washing - he wants them again when it suits him - but I am not sure there are any left now.  I see the doona cover in the wash (my single one for camping) so where the rest of it is I have no idea.  I paid him to stack the garage so I could get my car in before cyclone Yasi (you will be happy to know) but whenever I ask where anything has got to now - he has no idea and I have even less of an idea because I was still sick when he did the job.

I can't believe how much he has lost or wrecked since he moved out on the 2nd Dec and the stuff he breaks here (dishes).  He took my iron and it never came back, you know about the bed and the woolen overlay, and my K-Mart voucher for the blender, my umbrella which he borrowed and is looking for today expecting me to produce it when he did not ever return it and would you believe the very day after I told him I was going to plant this sprouting choko (see, look) he cut out the mold and the stem and shoots and left a shriveled lifeless choko in the fruit bowl - it was his way of cleaning up.  Water bottles go missing so much so that I have not got enough for camping any more and I think every single sleeping bag has gone - even the feather doona I gave him which he denies I ever gave him.  The wall-clock I gave him for his last birthday was left in the car for it's backing to peel and I can't be bothered trying to think of any more.  Just having a vent.

Family Stuff

B had a lung scan last week and Stacey just told me "It says on his xray results scattered nodules and well defined cysts throughout both lung fields." and the doctor suspects "pulmonary langerhans cell histiocytosis" and he is also getting checked for Ross River Fever because "he has he has been unwell for 2 weeks first it started with him aching all over real bad headaches and then he couldn't move his eyes properly cause they hurt

and he was sweating like crazy".  Quotes taken from a Facebook chat with Stac.  She says he is better but was still getting headaches when Roger said he had to come back to work and he has not stopped working since Thursday last week - which I guess means he has not been living at S's but at Roger's.

Sc has been living here for over 2 weeks and driving me nuts (he has broken and thrown out stuff I wanted including that upside down Sorbelene Bottle that I wanted refilled for the shower that you gave me - so I need another one).  He has not paid his way except for a bit of food he had so I have been supporting him mostly because he is broke and had to lend him all my money for a new place that he is moving into tomorrow - rent in advance.  His bond loan is being approved.  Yesterday his car broke down and I had to drive him around and back to his car and buy fuel  in a can because he thought it was out of petrol.  Luckily he joined RACQ recently so the tow truck that took his car to the radiator shop was free but how he is going to last a fortnight paying for that water pump replacement and paying me back some (so I can make it through next week) I don't know.  But hopefully it will work out because this time he has a 6 month lease through a real estate agent in another share house.

I feel heaps better in that I feel like I am on top of the virus and chest thing now.  Still have sore throat and glands but I cannot tell what throat is thrush still.  How do you know?  I am taking nilstat capsules now to kill off candida in the gut because I have been so bloated and then I will have to get into the inner health plus again.  

My mattress arrived yesterday and it was a good heart-rate day so I was fairly active with sorting out beds.  I could not believe it was a mattress when it was delivered in a roll vacuum-compressed and then it had to be cut out of it's retraints and boing!  A full-sized mattress which has to settle for 7 days.

Cervical Foraminal Stenosis and Bone Spurs

Dr Clinton Herd said my neck was OK for a 55 year old neck but if you read my neck x-ray report there seems to be enough in that to explain my neck pain and the dizziness too maybe. It says I have mild cervical spondylosis and mild to moderate narrowing of a few of the foramen on both sides caused mainly by osteophytes (bone spurs). There are other osteophytes around other places too. Neck arthritis is usually age-related but this narrowing causes compression of the nerve roots and can cause many of the things I already have:

* Neck pain
* Shoulder pain
* Arm or hand pain
* Weakness in the arms or legs
* Lack of coordination and “clumsiness”,
* Imbalance when walking
* Bowel or bladder incontinence


I think I have this option but it looks a bit scary.



http://www.precisionneurosurgery.com.au/html/conditions_cervicalstenosis.htm

My Gallstones

Gallstones

I had my starving ultrasound today and the radiologist saw many small gall stones.  Did not say anything about an enlarged liver though.  I go to the doctor for the official report and the results of the lymphocyte or whatever it was blood test on Thursday.

Mum told me Grandma (as in Elsie Bray) had gallstones.


I am still on prednisolone this week as a trial for inflammation so I have had the usual cortisone high for a couple of days - the euphoria was very enjoyable while it lasted but I could not sleep much on those days either.  I got 3 hours the first night and now I want to sleep to catch up but I agreed to let Marina come and visit me today and probably go out for lunch.  But I do feel more functional on the prednisolone but it has not really changed anything like my glands and I think I have another thing freshening up this lung thing that S brought back into the house.  He has been here since Friday after most of the week sleeping in the car.  I have been making noises about him moving on since yesterday because he wakes me up with his banging around and early morning hours and tells me I eat too many mentos etc.  or whatever else I don't do right.  But as far as his life goes, he thinks things are looking up - the payless job, the new business card etc.

Now he is hussling on the phone trying to convince the lessor that he will have plenty of money soon - yes, he is trying to get a place.

Back to Gallstones

REMOVING GALLSTONES NATURALLY by Dr Lai Chiu-Nan

It has worked for many. If it works for you please pass on the good news. Chiu Nan is not charging for it, so we should make it free for everyone. Your reward is when someone, through your word of mouth, benefits from the regime. Gallstones may not be everyone's concern. But they should be because we all have them.

Moreover, gallstones may lead to cancer. "Cancer is never the first illness," Chiu Nan points out. "Usually, there are a lot of other problems leading to cancer.
In my research in China , I came across some materials which say that people with cancer usually have stones. We all have gallstones. It's a matter of big or small, many or few.

One of the symptoms of gallstones is a feeling of bloatedness after a heavy meal. You feel like you can't digest the food. If it gets more serious, you feel pain in the liver area." So if you think you have gallstones, Chiu Nan offers the following method to remove them naturally.


The treatment is also good for those with a weak liver, because the liver and gallbladder are closely linked.

Regimen:
1. For the first five days, take four glasses of apple juice every day. Or eat four or five apples, whichever you prefer. Apple juice softens the gallstones. During the five days, eat normally.
2. On the sixth day, take no dinner.
3. At 6 PM, take a teaspoon of Epsom salt (magnesium sulphate) with a glass of warm water.
4. At 8 PM, repeat the same. Magnesium sulphate opens the gallbladder ducts.
5. At 10 PM, take half cup olive oil (or sesame oil) with half cup fresh lemon juice. Mix it well and drink it. The oil lubricates the stones to ease their passage.
PS. 1cup=250ml, ½ cup lemon juice=3 lemons (aprox.)
The next morning, you will find green stones in your stools. "Usually they float," Chiu Nan notes. "You might want to count them. I have had people who passes 40, 50 or up to 100 stones. Very many."
"Even if you don't have any symptoms of gallstones, you still might have some. It's always good to give your gall bladder a clean-up now and then.
PASS THIS ON AND YOU MAY HELP OTHERS!
One person's result: Click Here