Vent about your health

[Mermaid Lorelei]

I was just approached by my manager today. She says her boss (the director) has been asking pointed questions about why I'm always sick. Great. Like I need the stress of possibly losing my job. That's great. Chronic illness isn't enough, apparently.

[Mermaid Jaffa]

Just came back from the cardiologist...

I'm a normal healthy human fishy!!! And yes, I do have an athlete's heart rate.
Hahaha!

[MermaidBrandie]

I'm on biweekly allergy shots (was every other day, then weekly, now biweekly) and have just started physical therapy for my shoulder i dislocated 4 years ago.

After a year on shots and a septoplasty surgery I'm FINALLY able to breathe through my nose. I was having to hold my breath to chew food. -.-

My shoulder and finally starting to get to where I can sleep on it, and use it more. Apparently when my shoulder got dislocated and didn't get fixed, my muscles compensated. Or tried to. My right pec muscle pulls my shoulder forward and is always tight, making the muscles around my shoulder blade be stretched all the time, and making the muscle on the side of my neck bunch up and pull my shoulder up towards my ear. Its crazy and awful and totally affects my lower back too I'm sure, which doesn't help anything since I already have lower back aches from my genetic sway back. But its getting fixed so that's nice.

I'm going to the doc on Monday for my overactive bladder. Finally.

And ...AND I think I've finally got all of my dental problems fixed so I can eat stuff without my mouth aching!!

I'm super broken lol

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[mermaid_selene]

Would this be an ok place to talk about your mental health?


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[MermaidBrandie]

Would this be an ok place to talk about your mental health?


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I would think so. its health related.

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[mermaid_selene]

Ever since I was a little girl I've had bipolar disorder on my journey to get better I had to go to an elementary school that specialized in behavior and they tested a number of drugs on me. At this time child hood bipolar was not very common and only now is it starting to get awareness. I remember one time I got so angry I ripped a small coat closet to wood chips. I had no friends because before my medication I tried to hurt them. And it really sucked. After my medication I was put on risperidone and in third grade I weighed 125 pounds. I am still overweight and it frustrates me that I don't fit into clothes and was called an earthquake in school. Now my parents have lowered the risperidone and I'm doing great. They think that me talking about mermaids more often is my bipolar acting out and they are saying they are gonna raise my medication up and now I'm gonna gain back the weight I lost and it's honestly so frustrating. What they don't understand is I'm trying not to hide who I am anymore and I'm just letting my magical sparkly self spill out. And next week they are gonna talk to my psychiatrist without me having any say in what's going on. I'm also on lamictal which if not taken consistently can end up killing me so I can't just not take my meds. And also when I do get sad for some reason they say hey maybe we should bump up your medication. MY MEDICATION WONT STOP ME FROM GETTING DEPRESSED OR SAD. It's my body not yours my illness is not who I am and it does not define what I like.


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[MermaidBrandie]

How old are you now?

Can you request to talk to your psychiatrist alone as well to address your worries?

Can you swing the mermaid thing to be about fitness and staying in shape, perhaps?

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[mermaid_selene]

How old are you now?

Can you request to talk to your psychiatrist alone as well to address your worries?

Can you swing the mermaid thing to be about fitness and staying in shape, perhaps?

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I am allowed to talk to her alone but my mom has all the say in what happens to me. I'm 17 and the thing about my parents is that they have been begging me to do a sport for a long time they asked me to start the swim team again and do track but I'm not competitive whatsoever. And I hate running. I told them it would be great exercise but they were like no pick something normal. I also have a learning disability that messes with my tracking skills so it's very hard to play sports with balls. I have a nonverbal learning disability.

[MermaidBrandie]

I'm sorry.

My best advice would be to try and convince the doctor and get the doctor on your side so that he/she can help persuade your parents.

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[New York Mermaid]

I swear Im the clumsiest mermaid on human legs ever. I went to the chiropractor because I was having hip pain, turned out I had misaligned hips which that man fixed and omg No More Pain... 5 minutes later I leave and call my dad, just as he says something to me, I misstep on the sidewalk and I went one way, my leg turn inward *Snap and Pop* from my ankle, and I was rushed to the emergency room..

SPRAINED ANKLE!

I have a really really important party in two weeks, doc said it takes alot of time to heal (6-8 weeks) I spoke to the mom (who's a great friend of mine) because of the birthday im suppose to do on the 30th,. she and I figured I could just be in a clamshell, instead of the water but not swimming. just a poolside story time, kids games and photo ops.

Also this is the debut of the new tail.. yea... how awesome I get to put the tail on just not swim in it. thanks life you're so awesome sometimes.

[Chelle]

So I've had a laundry list of problems throughout the years, most of which are co-morbid issues with autism. The most pressing issues I'm currently dealing with are due to that, and a gain in weight that I've been unable to offset despite my best efforts.

Has anyone else been soaking in a cold pool to help offset joint pain?

[MerMaiden Lissa]

I need heat for my rheumatoid arthritis pain. Colder water just makes me hurt more.

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[Chelle]

I use both heat and cold. I'm not sure what exactly is causing all the joint pain, but it may be RA. Or I might just be fat.

[Amphitrite]

Ok. Just got formally diagnosed with hypothyroidism and so am taking... synthroid, I think it's called? And am also taking Ambien to help me sleep since I suck at that and am alway exhausted. The first few days, when I woke up I felt AMAZING. Like sleeping actually had an impact. I didn't know what to do with myself. But I spent the majority of today sleeping. I missed church. I must have slept at least five hours or more of my day away. I also deal with depression buuuut, yeah. Totally confused. Anyone have any input?

[Takahao]

Six months later, my knee is still giving me trouble. I'm almost back to perfect functionality, but every once in a while the pain will kick in and remind me of how stupid I can be sometimes, and I'm limping like Doctor House until it stops.

That's the video of me injuring it. I tried to walk it off and fell over, and I had to be carried to the nurse's office by two of my friends. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt that bad. Just like I pulled a muscle, though I couldn't move it at all for a month and a half.

[Amphitrite]

Takahao, have you gotten physical therapy for your knee?

[Sepharina]

Ohh the lovely side affects of anxeity. Dehydration..lack of appetite . Near hospitalization , oh you know. Normal day for me. 😭😭
I can't enjoy banana pudding right now and I'm pretty mad about that too because my body won't let me eat it. ^^Grrrrr.

[deepblue]

TL;DR: MTHFR is a gene variant that is responsible for a lot of misery- migraines, miscarriages, inflammation, depression- many doctors don't know about it yet or are dismissive of it, but some get it, and if you have the variant, knowing could help you change your health life around. DNA based medicine clinics and 'integrative medicine' doctors seem to be the only practices currently investigating it and treating patients correctly.


Hi all- I want to share something that has affected my migraines big time, in case it can help anyone else. I've had chronic migraines for almost 30 years. A few years ago, I also developed an allergy to cyanocobalamin, the most common form of manmade B12, as well as to a host of other manmade B vitamins, including folic acid. This all created a lot of health problems and a mystery that was finally solved recently. Doctors thought it was candida, one thought it was neurological, one thought it might be lupus... it was not any of those things for me. A friend of mine who's an acupuncturist told me about a gene variant called MTHFR, which yes looks like a swear word, ha. I had a lab online test me for it via LabCorps where I had blood drawn, and yes I have the variant. It makes the body unable to properly convert folic acid into folate, as well as making it difficult to process other B vitamins into useable forms. All because of a process that takes places in the body called methylation, which in most people, converts manmade B vitamins into usable forms. But with this variant, the unusable vitamins build up in the system, and as the body suffers from an often undetectable deficiency at the same time, all sorts of health mysteries form. Most people, if they have MTHFR variants can simply switch to methylated versions of folate and B12 and find their levels rise and health improve. Unfortunately for me, I'm still allergic to all the manmade B vitamins, but that is because my body is insane. But my daughter, who also tested for the MTHFR, is taking methylated versions and doing great, she is not allergic to them.


Some of what it turns out that MTHFR has caused for me:

- miscarriages. It's why I have had three miscarriages and one abnormal pregnancy, and no doctor ever had any idea. This DNA informed medicine is new and a lot of doctors are catching up. I had been told for many years I was 'probably infertile' but they could not tell without an expensive battery of tests that I couldn't afford, and so when my daughter was born... well she feels even more miraculous to me now. But if I'd known? I could have done something and I would probably not have miscarried before or since her.

- migraines like crazy. Now that I have removed man-made Bs from my diet, within a few months of getting it all totally out of my system, I've seen a major drop in migraines. I still get them, mostly around hormonal times. But the intensity has declined, and their duration. I'd call it about an 90% decline in migraines, not kidding. I was at the point that I had maybe 5 good days a month, the rest were best by migraines and it was ruining my life. And online I've met a dozen other women who dropped folic acid and cyanocobalamin and they also saw a decline in migraines. Everyone of them had doctors who told them they simply needed more B12, because they did not understand what the MTHFR variant meant.

-worsening anxiety and depression. I've had both since I was a child, and I also found I have the genes associated with wonky seratonin, adrenaline, norephinephrine, and dopamine. But the affects from the MTHFR made it far worse... so bad.

Now that I know, it's more important than ever that I avoid foods made with enriched flour, which is everywhere. Luckily, I eat very well most of the time and am not lacking in vitamins. B12 is the only one I cannot get easily, and had to radically change my diet for because I can't eat dairy or enough eggs to even begin. Since I cannot take supplements, even the methylated ones, I'm out of luck there.

There are a lot of sites about MTHFR out there, and a lot of them seem to only benefit the person who created the site. So reading about it, one has to use your best judgement and weed through some nonsense. This page has a really good basic set of info regarding MTHFR, but I don't necessarily agree with the rest of the site, since their 'bad foods' list is full of things not problematic for me. And I think *most* people do better with simply removing unmethylated man-made Bs from their diet and eating well all around, but everyone is different.

The gene variants express differently in different people, and in my case did not seem to get going until I was pregnant, which is not uncommon... anyone who's been pregnant knows how the body can switch gears on you. I have two copies of the variant, some people have one, some lucky people have zero. Mine is also in combination with a couple others that affect B12, so I'm in quite a fix, but that's just me, and I'm just happy I know, now.

If any of this sounds like you want to look into it, please Google MTHFR Variants and 'methylation process and B vitamins' to understand more. Talk to your doctor, and if they haven't heard of it or dismiss you, please get another doctor to listen, if you can. Also, there are DNA-based medicine clinics popping up in major cities now, although they're a lot more expensive. Learning I have this variant has changed my life for the better, and made it possible for me to get my daughter (who also has two copies of the gene) on the right track. She was starting to get migraines at age 7! Her doctor is a good doctor, but on this, she was baffled. I took the unmethylated Bs out of her diet, and she hasn't had a headache since, and she doesn't get tummy aches like she was. It's really worth looking into.

[Sunset Nereid]

My depression is kicking me in the stomach right now. I'm sitting here in tears and the only thing that helped me through the hard times was mermaiding. I'm saying was because, unfortunately, I can't find a spotter - I'm worried that if I swim alone, I am more likely to have issues in the water.

You'd think that living on the Gulf Coast people would know how to swim - it's not the case at all. I'm to the point of crying because I am constantly missing a good swim. I hate this feeling of lost loneliness. I'll get through it, I always do, but it's never easy. I'm just unsure what to do with myself.

[Misty Lau]

I'm suffering from my depression too... not that badly, but it's a sort of mild round of it that's lasting a while. Is there anything else that you like to do, Nereid?