Today was the first day of trying a new medication. Typically I would have made a little post on facebook, asked for prayer, etc. But other than mentioning it in my last blog I kind of kept it hush hush. I had a feeling it'll be ok and I didn't want to do anything that showed God I doubted that.
This medication is supposed to help with the pooling of blood in legs/circulation and increase my blood pressure (both POTS problems). The hope is that in doing so my heart rate will stabilize not having to work so hard or whatnot.
I took a tiny dosage, as always, because of my extreme medication sensitivity (another POTS thing). It apparently stays in your system about 4 hours which is right about now so yay to making it through! Though it feels and appears as if its still in my system. It did seem to increase my blood pressure though its hard to gauge since its been all over the place lately. The highest reading today was 144/90...slightly scary because that is super duper high for me. (The other day I was 70something over 50... lowest top number I've ever been and also pretty scary!) I did get some side effects but I expected to after talking with other patients taking this. The worst was that it seemed like my breathing got worse- that part was not expected. If you've ever had a CT with contrast you probably know the feeling of the heat rush through your body and for me I get like a tightness type of feeling in my chest and throat during it, goes away right after the heat rush stops. I had that feeling with this, weird. I think that's what was making my breathing feel worse. Then this is kind of minor I guess but like a constricting/tight feeling in my head which other patients reported, and then every time I stand or walk I can like feel the blood vessels or whatever it is tightening in my legs its an odd sensation. And then just now I got this like tightening feeling/pain in my upper back/shoulders... I have no idea if its related or not. But overall, 144/90 is probably just as bad as my average/normal of like 90/60 if not worse, so I'm going to be talking to my doctor about this and see what he wants me to do.
I was going to give more of an update about aqautic therapy and such but in the middle of writing this I had an unexpected huge stressor that now has me not thinking straight. I've said it before and I'll say it again and again and again. My advice is never ever ever go to [name removed as it is FINALLY resolved] Hospital. The stress they have caused me in addition to the complication of the pulmonary embolism that could have killed me is beyond insane. They are now trying to charge me thousands of dollars for something I do not owe per their contract with my insurance! My insurance has spoken with them multiple times and tells them I have a zero balance yet then they send me a bill and have no record of this zero balance. This is INSANE. If I didn't care about my credit report or credit agencies or them coming after me for everything I've got, I'd let it go, but I do care. So please if you will, now I have a prayer request, that this billing garbage gets resolved immediately. 4 months of this I can't take it anymore! Please God make these fraud charges go away!!! Zero balance out my account and send a statement reflecting that and never ever ever let me have to hear from them or deal with them ever again! Amen to that!
Ok now that I got that frustration out, little update what I was originally going to do. I have my aquatic therapy eval last Friday but it was land not water for the eval. Over the weekend I was in a lot of pain as my back flaired up from the exercises, along with weakness. I can't take the flaxseed I used to because of the blood thinners so I just used some ice a little and dealt with it. The pain is better but still there. I'm hoping getting in the water this week will help me out a bit. The PT seemed really willing to work with me and she has had POTS patients before so that's a good thing. We just need to take it really slow... even just walking in the water is exercise for me especially because of the resistance from the water... so maybe we can start with that. My dr said my goal is to learn to swim. I doggy paddle haha.
Alright now I need to take a breather and hope to God this billing problem gets resolved so I can move on with my life and away from that hospital!
Thanks for reading, sorry this was a mish mosh mess.
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