Tag Archives: health

Infirmity

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Infirmity, it can be said, is a word that is used for people who are really sick. Bedridden.

However, our friends over at Dictionary.com have a definition for infirmity I particularly like:

“a physical weakness or ailment: the infirmities of age”

That’s something I’m becoming more and more familiar with – the infirmities of age.

Today, I visit two separate specialists. One is my dermatologist that I’ve been seeing for years for psoriasis. The drug he has me on needs monitoring from time to time and, to be honest, I think he just likes to get the visit in. The other is a rheumatologist to see about this inability to turn my head from left to right (or vice versa) without pain.

4 doctors in face masks and surgical clothingI’ve been to a chiropractor to no avail. I’ve been to an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in neck and spine ailments who suggested it might be a type of arthritis. Yet my dermatologist (see above) discounts the fact it may be arthritis since the drug he has me on for psoriasis is also supposed to help with arthritis.

Are you following along?

Enter my GP who is really a gerontologist. A general practitioner who specializes in the infirmities of age.  That’s right. A doctor for people who are getting old!  How convenient is that?

His deal for me, other than my weight issue, is blood pressure.  It doesn’t seem to want to respond to medication so he keeps playing around with different drugs and dosages in the hope of getting the right mix.  Of course, high blood pressure or hypertension is related to me being fat. Ditto the sleep apnea which can contribute to high blood pressure.

Oh. Then there’s the dentist. Yep. It seems that the drug the GP gave me for hypertension has a side effect for my gums which now require a gingivectomy. The bad part about the dentist, of course, if that normal health insurance, even good health insurance, barely covers the cost of dentistry.

Of course, to make matters worse, I developed a toothache which required a root canal.

Here’s the bottom line: It isn’t easy getting old and it isn’t easy getting these infirmities of age.

What’s the solution?  Well, diet and exercise would go a long way. Losing the 120 extra pounds I carry around. That would help.

Easier said than done.

 

Blood Test

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We all go through it sooner or later.

The doctor wants us to get a blood test.  It could be as simple as checking our cholesterol levels or maybe something more serious.  Maybe it’s just one those blood test you get because you’re on certain medication and your physician wants to monitor its effects.

Whatever it is it means hiking down to the local lab, waiting in the waiting room with a dozen other people waiting to get a needle stuck in their arm, and then…getting a needle stuck in your arm.  Sometimes, if you’re luck, you can skip step one and just walk down the hall in your doctor’s office to get the needle stuck in your arm.

Unfortunately for me, finding that one great vein to plunge that needle into and draw some blood is easier said than done.

Yeah.  I’ve learned to drink lots of water (which really, really,really makes me need to pee) in order to plump up my veins and make them easier to stick. Sometimes that works.  Sometimes not.

Sometimes I get a great lab tech who knows just how to do an arm that has veins that roll and are just generally hard to find.  Most of the time I get techs that need to stick me two or three times in order to get the needle in the right place so blood will start coming out of my arm.

The Red Cross is the same way.  I’ll go through their whole screening procedure only to get someone who can’t quite get the needle in the right place.  In fact, the last time I tried to donate blood no one could get it (the techs almost always call in the more experienced ones to help out)

They were nice enough to give me a nice parting gift and some cookies.  Still, it doesn’t quite make up for being used as a pin cushion.

Donating blood is one thing. It’s voluntary. The blood test is another.  I really need to get it done for my doctor.  So I roll the dice and hope and pray I’ll get someone who knows how to deal with difficult veins that roll.

It’s a real pain.

Trying to Lower My Salt Intake

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You wouldn’t believe how many things you put in your mouth has salt in it.

I recently visited my primary care physician who put me on medication to control hypertension (aka high blood pressure) and advised me to watch the salt.  Yep. Salt.  He’s recommending 2000mg a day.  From what I understand, that’s damn little compared to what most people consume (about 5000mg a a day)  Get this.  Supposedly your body really only needs 500mg a day. That’s a big gap.  The big heath muckety mucks like the American Heart Association and American College  of Cardiology recommend 2500mg a day.

So my wife kindly went shopping for stuff with low sodium content.  Sure. it’s right there in the label. Which doesn’t help if you like the taste of things.  It seems most everything, even if it tastes sweet, has salt in it…and lots of it.

So, believe it or not, lowering my salt intake will have a few benefits:

  1. it’ll help lower my blood pressure and get me off this pharmaceutical faster
  2. by narrowing my choices, it’ll help reduce my overall food intake which will mean my calorie intake should be smaller
  3. I may even get a hankering for new foods that are actually healthy for me

We’ll see.