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Starburned

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Everything posted by Starburned

  1. I found a rabbit in my front yard a couple months ago. He turned out to be an incredibly sweet and well trained bunny, so when we couldn't find his owners we decided to keep him. I call him Mordecai and the vet says he's a middle-aged neutered Dutch rabbit. He's absolutely wonderful and gets along just fine with the parrots. Here's a link to a picture, since for some reason it's saying I have too many images when I'm only trying to upload one... http://25.media.tumblr.com/a6415bc456a46866df9dee7c1ab09136/tumblr_mnskbriijS1qbconeo3_1280.jpg
  2. Thank you very much for your advice! Dealing with doctors certainly isn't always easy, and I am happy that I will soon be able to see doctors that don't accept minors. I had a ton of strep infections as a child, but not recently. I've also had obsessive compulsive tendencies since I was a child, so there's no tics or anything that really fits PANDAS. I did read a bit on that, and I will a little more. I have had tender glands in my throat all summer, which I chalked up to allergies but am considering getting checked out. Thanks again for your advice and kind words! I wish all the best to you and your son!
  3. As some of you may know, I was prescribed Effexor XR for migraines when I was 14 years old. It didn't help, but I was unable to get off of it due to severe withdrawal symptoms. My prescribing doctor was not only unhelpful, but incredibly unresponsive. After he moved, the hospital refused to let me see a pediatric neurologist as I am 17. They wouldn't let me see a regular neurologist either... as I am 17. So they insisted that if I wanted to see anyone I would have to drive 3 hours to be reluctantly seen by a nurse practitioner. Not that I have anything against nurse practitioners; I was just sick of their nonsensical logical and their complete unwillingness to cooperate. With help from a great psychiatrist, I was finally able to get off of Effexor XR, but switching to lower dose Effexor and tapering with a low dose of Zoloft. I finally got off of Effexor last week, with only 3 days of increased pain and no psychological symptoms. As of Thursday, I am off of Zoloft and have had no problems so far. This is the first time I've been med free since I was 12 years old, and I'm ecstatic. One thing I have noticed, is that since the tapering, I have been screaming a lot. Anytime anything drops or I bump into anything I scream. I don't feel anxious or even particularly startled, but my natural reaction now seems to be to scream. I've also been waking up screaming in the middle of the night almost every other day since. I wake up not remembering what I was scared of, but disrupt the household and scare my parents half to death. Waking up screaming for me isn't a new development. It used to happen maybe a couple times a year. I've experienced bouts of sleep paralysis since I was a child, but I've only experienced maybe 15 episodes my entire life. And I always remember vividly the nightmare creature in my room: unlike now. Frankly, this new development is just annoying. I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this when getting off SSRIs. More in the positive, is that I'm starting college this year. I've been doing homebound and cyber school my entire high school career, so I decided to skip my senior year and move onto college. The distance learning, online classes there are SO much better, so I'm very excited. In the realm of the somewhat interesting, I've also been diagnosed with adolescent scoliosis (fun fact: I also never developed arches in my feet), polycystic ovarian syndrome, and acromial osteophytes (bone spurs). Which are all currently mild, but at this point it almost amuses me that I can't go to the doctor without them finding something else wrong with me. x)
  4. Lately (past month or so) I've been having memory problems. I've been leaving out letters in words I know how to spell and forgetting words when I'm speaking. Language has always been my strongest point, so this is highly unusual. I'll need to go back and fix words every few sentences because of this when I'm writing manually. This also happens when I'm typing and I seem to be typing a lot more slowly. I tend to forget the words for things so I need to pause and think of a synonym. It takes me a long time to figure out what I was originally trying to say. It seems to have nothing to do with the unusualness of the word or simplifying things. For example: in conversation I could remember placate but not soothe and pertinent but not relevant. I do homebound instruction, which means I have a teacher that does one on one work with me. It happens a lot that, when she's watching me and I get a problem wrong, the answer I write is wrong but the answer I tell her is correct. I could mean 43 and write 12 and not realize it until it's pointed out. She now has me talk through problems while I write them and I tend to write one number and say something completely different. And there's no disconnect in my mind until I see what I've written. Anyone else have these problems?
  5. I got really tired of the artificial taste of sports drinks really fast, so I decided to make my own. I got the water : salt ratio from here. Everything else is my own devising. Ingredients: 4 cups of water 6 tbsp (1/4 of a cup and 2 tbsp) cheribundi tart cherry juice (tart cherry juice, apple juice) ¼ cup pure pomegranate juice (not from concentrate) 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice (approx. the juice of 1 lemon) 3 tbsp sugar ¼ tsp salt Pomegranate and tart cherry juice are both recommended to prevent muscle soreness after a workout. So it's good for athletes with or without POTS. Apple juice contains almost 5 times the potassium per serving as Gatorade. And no dye or artificial sweetener in this. ^^
  6. I haven't been on much due to life stuff, but I just wanted to give an update. Last month I tried to get off Effexor again. Made it 5 hellish days before I gave up. I'm trying to get my doctor to get me on a tapering plan, but he's been very unhelpful. I'm very frustrated that I'm 17, never abused drugs, and yet an addicted to the prescribed amount of a prescribed drug that I was never warned of the downsides of. But trying not to focus on that and holding out hope. Currently getting off Atacand and have had no problems with that, fingers crossed. The day after Christmas, I went to the clinic with intense pain on my right side. They sent me to the ER fearing appendicitis. After a combined 8 hours of waiting, a CT, blood work, and IV pain and nausea meds, I was sent home with the diagnosis of a ruptured ovarian cyst. I'm finally starting to be rid of that pain just within the past couple days. The experience for me was like having food poisoning, a UTI, the worst cramps of my life, and being punched in the stomach every so often just for kicks. Regardless to say, it wasn't fun.
  7. This has been happening to me with varying severity for years. I was always told it was just stress. Sometimes I'll run my fingers through my hair gently, just to neaten it, and wind up with a handful of hair. I haven't noticed my hair thinning at all, though I've always been cursed (or so I see it when I'm trying to straighten it or brush it through) with really thick hair.
  8. I was prescribed it a year or two ago for migraines and it was completely ineffective. Have had a TERRIBLE time trying to get off of it. The withdrawal is horrible.
  9. I know how tough it is, emotionally, to not be able to do the things you want to because of health problems and being stuck at home a lot. I know for my sister and I pets have become sort of emotional therapy animals. My Hahn's macaw (picture in my avatar) in particular cheers me up with his happy, energetic, and cuddly nature. I do think he's helped me a lot in staving of depression.
  10. The same thing happened to me, initially. I went to a clinic because I couldn't get an an appointment with my physician that day, thinking that I had a UTI as I've had many times before, but the lab turned up negative. So the clinic doctor said I was probably dehydrated. Now, whenever I start to get symptoms I just drink more and it usually goes away. I didn't really see a doctor, but my doctor gave some advice/information when he gave me the lab results. He said that there is an increased risk for blood clots especially during pregnancy and when taking birth control. And that's important to be attentive even during everyday things such as long car or plane rides. He said that a daily regimen of aspirin hasn't been proven effective, and since I'm not currently at high risk there's no point in trying. The only thing he suggested is to rotate my ankles when I've been sitting or lying for a while. Hi! Nice to meet you! My deafness lasts about the same time. I get the pressure, but not the ringing. There was one occasion where everything sounded sort of mechanical and distorted. I will try changing position when that happens, thank you for the advice!
  11. In quotations because I'm not certain they are weird. I understand that different people experience different symptoms and that there are a large assortment of symptoms that come with POTS. The only other person I know with POTS is my sister, and I'm just going by what she experiences. Two symptoms uncommon between us are: Momentary deafness, in one ear or both. Frequent UTIs and UTI symptoms when not properly hydrated. If I lessen what I drink by even the slightest, I'll experience discomfort. Which, while a good incentive for me to stay hydrated, is extremely annoying. Anyone else experience these?
  12. Thank you! Especially for the sharing your experience with effexor. I've given up each time I've tried to get off of it, simply because adding more pain and knowing you can stop it is just hard psychologically. Thank you! I also had a terrible time with Topamax and was actually told I was allergic to it. I also experience a lot of nausea. I have problems whenever I eat anything and my stomach never really feels settled. Good luck to your son!
  13. Thank you! I don't know how I feel about that. It certainly doesn't sound like a pleasant test, but it would be nice to have something definitive after being stuck with "idiopathic" all these years. I understand that TTTs aren't definitive though. Thank you! It's nice to meet you as well!
  14. Thank you everyone! I actually live in Virginia, my neurologist is just in Maryland. Thank you very much! I believe it was Florinef my neurologist mentioned.I hope you daughter does well! Thank you very much! That's basically what my doctor said about TTTs.
  15. A little background: I'm a junior in high school and have suffered from idiopathic chronic daily migraines (and they are every day) for almost 4 years. I've done nerve blocks, Botox, acupuncture, physical therapy, DHE treatment, and taken every drug a myriad of doctors could think of. I'm currently only down to two drugs; Effexor (which doesn't help, but causes me to have severe withdrawal symptoms when I go off it) and Atacand (also ineffectual so far). Recently, my neurologist at John's Hopkins gave me a tentative diagnosis of POTS. By tentative I mean that he has not tested me for it and is diagnosing purely on my symptoms. He decided against doing a tilt table test and instead wants me to start treatment. That treatment being increased salt intake, increased fluid intake, exercise that brings my heart rate up to 1.8 times it’s baseline, salt pills, and fludrocortisone. This diagnosis would make me the third person in my family to be diagnosed with POTS, including my sister and our 2nd cousin. My sister is a senior in high school who was diagnosed with POTS last year and is struggling to actually attend school (and not cyber school like I've had too). Unlike her, I do not suffer from syncope, but instead a sort of dizziness similar to the feeling of being very motion sick (among many many other problems). So that's my long winded introduction. I hope everyone here has a wonderful and hopefully pain free day!
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