Mestinon

A hard week health-wise

/ RachelMorrisMcGeethemyastheniakid / Leave a comment

The last week has been really hard health wise. I haven’t been the sickest I have ever been but I have certainly been sicker than I have for a while. There is no “reason” that I can identify for this other than perhaps the decline in my health that I have been waiting for since we lost Mollie and Frankie. Stress, emotional upset and change can all upset my chronic health conditions and it seems everything wanted to bubble to the surface last week. I did just power on through which now I am wondering if that was the right thing because I am having more and more MG like symptoms this week – shortness of breath, limb weakness etc sorry I should have said my idiopathic hemifacial spasm the latest bullshit diagnosis for my Ptosis, totally ignoring all the other issues.

If I am honest there is only one symptom that has me terrified and that is when I will suddenly and for no reason lose the ability to take a deep breath. No matter how hard I try to suck the air in my chest fails to move. I end up taking a series of short breaths to minimise the panic that rises in me. I have an elephant sat on my chest who is refusing to budge and I know that if I went to hospital my breathing would be ignored and I would be labelled with a mental health condition rather than the fact that there is something going on at the neuromuscular junction which has been proved time and time again with the ice-pack test. Apparently for the latest neurologist I have seen for these symptoms back in 2017 I believe, it is just a placebo effect. Words fail me.

Sunday freaked me out a bit as well. I wasn’t feeling great when I got up and knew there were a couple of jobs that I had to do, then I could sit around and rest for the remainder of the day. Once those jobs were completed I noticed my legs had become exceptionally heavy, like there were lead weights attached. I could walk but it was very slow and shuffling because lifting my feet was taking a supreme effort. I attempted to climb the stairs but that was impossible. I may as well have been sat at base camp for Mount Everest without oxygen, as those stairs were impossible. After attempting three I came back down on my bum and then wondered how the hell I was going to stand up again. Thank god for Mr Myasthenia Kid being home and with it happening on a Sunday. He could help me to my feet and get me to the sofa, plus organise my medication. 

You see I get to take Mestinon / Pyridostigmine Bromide for my PoTs symptoms. I usually dose as follows 7am 60mg, 11am 30mg, 3pm 30mg or 60mg depending on how I am feeling and then 30mg at 7pm. I have to be careful with Mestinon by body is extremely sensitive to it. Too much and I can be twitching all over but mainly my face and it can trigger terrible stomach cramps. It takes a lot for me to take another 60mg during the day but at both 11am and 3pm I ended up taking the full dose because without it my legs wouldn’t work. My legs not working is not a PoTs symptom, it isn’t an EDS symptom either. There is no medical explanation for this symptom, other than the fact the medical profession believe its all in my head. Which is why when my breathing gets difficult I panic. This medical condition that appears so much like MG / Neuromuscular junction disease will be ignored and it could end up killing me. I am lucky, my symptoms are mild but I have bouts like this especially when the weather gets warmer where my body fails to cope. I worry one day I will be so ill that the doctors refusal to think outside the box will mean that I will be killed by medical negligence and that is a fucking scary thought.

I mean if there is nothing wrong with my breathing……why have I had home oxygen since 2009? In the current economic climate of ongoing austerity since 2010 why if I don’t need support for breathing on occasion why has this precious money wasting resource not been taken from me? Home Oxygen can’t be cheap,  I have an oxygen concentrator a machine that pulls oxygen from the air and then feeds it down a nasal cannula at a purer form. In case of power cuts I also have to have a huge oxygen canister in the house, I have to notify the local fire-brigade and I am classed as a vulnerable service user by the people who maintain the power grid. The canister also impacts my home insurance cost. If I didn’t need it I would get rid of it, not only are the canister and oxygen concentrator ugly they are taking up valuable space in my small home. So in an age of cuts to all services who is covering their arse by allowing me to keep my home oxygen? 

Home Oxygen won’t save me if I end up in a full blown Myasthenic crisis. This is where the muscles around the lungs and the diaphragm become paralysed and can’t move so you can’t get the air in as when you attempt to breath nothing happens. In this situation you need to be in hospital on C-pap or Bi-pap or in the worst case scenario put into an induced coma whilst they ventilate you – sticking a tube down your throat and breathing for you ( intubation ).  Today as I am writing this the elephant has returned, breathing is hard. I took my mestinon at 7.30am already my right eye is starting to droop, its seems I may have to take my next dose earlier.

The Myasthenic like symptoms are the worst thing I currently deal with and I am lucky they are mild the rest of the time. Last week was like a smorgasbord of every medical condition I have. My PoTs symptoms were crazy – heat induced despite me upping the salt tablets ( to 8 a day ) there  were multiple episodes of pre sycope ( near fainting). I had vertigo luckily I caught that attack very early so I only had to endure the room spinning for an hour but it leaves me tired and feeling out of sorts. I had a migraine on Friday one of the worst I have had in months. It was actually the first migraine I have had since January 14th ( my last one was the Monday after Dembe came home with us). My Tinnitus has been so loud it has been difficult to hear the TV and radio. I have felt constantly exhausted .

Then there was the joint pain and my right shoulder continually fighting to escape it’s socket. To be honest I have only scratched the surface of what I have dealt with over the last 7 days. I really don’t like to say much most of the time because I don’t want to be accused of moaning but if I stay silent about it people think that you aren’t as sick as you claim you are. You just can’t win, you’re an attention seeker if you say something and a liar when you don’t. It drives me nuts. I stay silent because to be honest it is easier that way. I don’t want Jay aka Mr Myasthenia Kid worrying about me when he is at work, I don’t want lots of platitudes on social media. It isn’t because I think they are false it makes me feel like I am drawing attention to myself and trying to play the sympathy card and that’s just not me. 

It’s been really hard this week being a puppy mum, I love Dembe dearly, I wouldn’t be without him but it is hard work trying to keep him occupied whilst using as little energy as possible. On the whole he is brilliantly behaved but like it is with kids there are days when he can be a little bugger and whilst amusing, it can be frustrating, especially when you aren’t feeling well. He is just a puppy though at a little over 6 months old and over time he will calm down. I guess I was so used to Mollie, Frankie and Willow being older and more sedate this has come as a real shock. Jay does loads, he gets up and does his breakfast, he does all the walking and he comes home everyday for lunch to give me a little break and check I am ok. I take my hat off to those of you who are chronically sick and have children, I don’t know how you do it.

It has been a hard week health-wise, I just hope things start to settled down very soon.

Medical arse covering

/ RachelMorrisMcGeethemyastheniakid / Leave a comment

I know that this blog is called the Myasthenia Kid and yet of late I barely mention any Myasthenia like symptoms. Let me assure you I suffer almost every day with MG like symptoms. I think after my treatment at the hands of Doctors in 2009 and 2010, I just shut down. Those doctors who were the supposed experts did such psychological damage to me that I struggle even now ten years later to vocalise when the MG symptoms strike.

Currently the ptosis I suffer with ( daily to varying degrees) has been diagnosed as idiopathic hemifacial spasms ( and they ignore the fact that mestinon cures these “spasms” in around 20-30 minutes). The treatment suggested back in 2017 was Botox injections, funnily enough though no one has stepped up to do these injections, could that be because 1. I don’t have spasms my face is paralysed and 2. Botox and MG are contraindicated?

Its like the home oxygen supply I have,  apparently I don’t have any issues with my breathing well other than the suggested breath holding by the twat of a pulmanologist I saw ten years ago….. yet I have an oxygen cylinder and an oxygen concentrator. Do you see the running thread here at all? One might suggest there was a hell of a lot of ass covering going on here.

I have breathing problems on quite a regular basis. A lot of the time the shortness of breath can be alleviated with a booster dose of mestinon… you know the tablet that doesn’t work. On my very bad days I will use my oxygen concentrator. Tonight maybe one of those nights. I know why this is happening it is because I have been pushing myself so hard physically the last few days trying to get jobs completed. It’s the first time in around a year that I have done this much and as usual I have totally ignored the fact it will knock me on my ass.

Due to me having PoTs I take mestinon (also known as pyridostigmine bromide). It raises standing blood pressure, I can’t say that I have noticed any effect on my blood pressure but it really helps with the Ptosis and muscle strength which I lose as the day goes on. But obviously the muscle strength thing is all in my head and the ptosis resolving is the placebo effect. I just think it is another case of arse covering.

Some days when things are really bad the mestinon does nothing. It doesn’t help the breathing or the ptosis. Those days I stay in bed and pray that I don’t need the hospital. Years ago I told Jay no more trips to hospital unless I was unconscious or I asked specifically asked. I don’t do hospitals anymore because I always get treated like I am a time waster who “thinks” I have Myasthenia Gravis. 

Even though I have multiple conditions now diagnosed, some doctors still ignore all that – even with the positive test results and jump straight onto the fact that I was diagnosed by a neurologist with somatiform disorder – notice I say a neurologist. Which is a bit like asking a cardiologist to do spinal surgery.  They also like to bring up my mini breakdown in 1999 – yes 20 years ago and use that as a reason why I am unwell. Despite the fact I went many years without any depression due to the hard work I put in through two years of counselling and CBT.

Yes at the moment I am suffering with depression and anxiety which I would consider perfectly normal considering the losses I have dealt with in the last two years. I have lost 4 friends, my grandmother and my three dogs. Obviously Frankie and Mollie passing within 7 days of each other really knocked me back. I ended up speaking to a doctor last week – more on that in a second, and had my antidepressant dose raised and was given some diazepam for when I can’t get out of the panic cycle. Thankfully since the antidepressants have been increased and I have the diazepam I have been feeling quite a bit better. It’s just as well as I have to be honest I really wasn’t coping, I was doing a great job of masking it and some people can’t get their heads around high functioning depression. Believe me I can keep going even when I feel dead inside. It takes a lot for me to finally crumble. And last week it finally happened.

Anyway a slight diversion just for a laugh, I am on the phone breaking my heart to this doctor, saying about the panic attacks, the anxiety, the grief and the depression. I kid you not I was asked if I had considered taking Kalms (  see what they are here ) and then the piece de resistance had I tried rescue remedy (here ) if I hadn’t been breaking my heart I would have launched at her. What the hell was she doing ??? look at the medications I am on does she not think that I am way past some fucking Kalms and 3 drops of rescue remedy? I couldn’t get off the phone quick enough, despite that she still managed to bang on about using meditation. I pointed out it doesn’t work for me and leaves me feeling worse.

I do a guided meditation when I can’t sleep and my mind goes nuts with useless information flying through it. It makes me seriously worry that if someone was suicidal this berk would have offered them St Johns Wort and wondered why they hung themselves. Obviously the last sentence isn’t funny its a genuine concern, when depression isn’t taken seriously and the problem here was a locum gp who wasn’t aware of my magnificent mental health history, they may try to fob someone off with mindfulness. Mindfulness is fine when people feel a bit down or stressed but it won’t treat someone who is very / severely depressed. Same as rescue remedy will not treat Generalised anxiety disorder or OCD. It is only because I can and do speak up for myself that I got what I needed, increased meds and some extra meds. I knew I just needed a bit of breathing space to put myself back together. Had I not forced the issue, well I don’t want to think about it really because I was teetering on the edge of becoming seriously unwell.

Anyway I digress, don’t I always. The way I have been treated by the medical profession especially any time that Myasthenia Gravis is raised has left me with a fear of doctors and a phobia of hospitals. I have spoken to so many other people with chronic illnesses who say the same. We stop going to the doctor because we know we will be fobbed off.

Take the doctor in July who told me the pain in my neck and the numbness in my arm was stress. In December I went back, because I was now losing my grip and the numbness was worse and I am told I have an impinged nerve, I need physio but the doctor believes I will probably need surgery to decompress the nerve. Thankfully I have avoided that by paying to see my private Physio. Someone who works with me and lets me know that she understands I know my limitations and she can’t push me.

So no the MG symptoms haven’t disappeared I doubt they ever will. They will just be a host of additional symptoms that no one is prepared to say without a positive SFEMG or blood test what it is and lots of medical arse covering will take place.

Me on Monday afternoon. Does this look like a spasm to you or paralysis? As you can see both eyes are trying to close. My right pupil has drifted to the side of my eye socket. The left eye is desperately trying to stay open by pulling the eyebrow up but as you can see the eyelid is trying to close. The fuckwittery I have to deal with is outstanding!