morethanenoughtruth

“Fine.  Just fine.”  That’s all anybody really wants to hear.  They don’t want an assessment of what’s actually going on in your complex physiognomy.  If you lined up your medicaments and explained how each one played its special role in keeping you upright and ambulatory, sensing and communicating, digesting and excreting, people would only roll their eyes.  They don’t want to hear it.

You could bore them to tears with the o-so-unfortunate story of your Glaucoma and Macular Degeneration.  The twin disasters are sure to get you in the end.  The little blue and orange topped bottles of Latanaprost and Dorzolamide can only stave off blindness for so long, and then it’s the dark.  Our constant love affair with screens has initiated a brand new sickness as their high frequency blue light attacks our rods and cones.  Now we must belly up to the prescriptive bar and demand Preservision to get the necessary Lutein and Zeaxanthin to protect them.  What’s next?  Something to deal with the blepharitis caused by the dry eye attendant to the ageing of us all.  Restasis has taken its rightful place as the go-to treatment but is perhaps prohibitively expensive.  Since one of the side effects of its oral formulation is listed as lymphoma, it remains to be seen what the Restasis future might be.

What do you do when your Thyroid gives up?  You supplement.  But first you test, and test, and test.  Every few months you re-test to verify required dosage.  And you pop those pills, Levothyroxine, one a day, every day, forever.  Thyroid is too important to forget.  It controls your body’s furnace, and it balances other endocrine functions that, like every dog, must have their day.  Last time I had an actual exam, the specialist counted nine little goiters on one side of me.  Years and years of keeping them turned off and compliant has caused the opposite side of the gland to dissolve, absorbed into my body’s own mystery.  It’s gone—all gone.  Unless somebody invents a way to grow me a new one, it’s I and the little pink pills for the foreseeable future.  An interesting aside: The Levo part of the name concerns this molecule’s ability to rotate light in a counterclockwise direction, ie. to the left.  There is surely a mirror image chemical called Dextrothyroxine that rotates it to the right, but that one won’t work for us humans.  We see the same quandary with Dextrose, a complex sugar we use to sweeten tea.  Levulose exists but doesn’t float our boat or spin our light in the correct direction.

Omeprazole, the generic term for Prilosec, a protein pump inhibitor, is great for holding off GERD (Gastro-Esophageal-Reflux-Disease).  I believe I prefer the acronym.  There was a time when one-a-day did the trick.  Now for me it’s two-or-misery.  One coterie of doctors asserts that such treatment turns off digestion of all protein.  The opposition counters that the stomach’s hydrochloric acid is strong, too strong to be inhibited by a silly little pill.  What do I know?  Even they can’t decide or agree.  It’s complicated.

Metoprolol Succinate, a time-release generic version of the popular Lopressor, is my go-to beta-blocker to handle my over-the-top blood pressure.  I use it daily along with a diuretic, hydrochlorothiazide, to fight the good fight.  We do what we must.

At one point, after spinal stenosis led to two spinal fusions and the pain was unspeakable, my doctor prescribed Oxycontin, guaranteed it to be healthier than Tylenol/codeine, and less deleterious to my dear, dear liver.  That worked until it didn’t.  Then our culture declared it to be a problem, so I decided to stop taking pain medicine altogether.  Sure, it hurt, but it was just pain.  “Self,” I instructed, “get over it.”  I did.  Now I rely on water-walking at the J (Mayerson Jewish Community Center) and Yoga (before getting out of bed in the morning) to stay nimble and supple and somewhat pain free.

A sore bottom is misery, pure and simple.  A lifetime of poor diet and straining at stool will tear up the most dedicated of rectums.  Its lining begins to break down.  Blood pools in the loose tissue, and you are the dubious owner of your own case of hemorrhoids.  They burn, itch, bleed and make you the very personification of misery.  Mine are presently held at bay by Preparation H, an old but useful over the counter remedy.  Evaluation of your sitting problem is a simple in-office assessment.  Putting it off only promises you more pain.  Embarrassment is inevitable, but doctors have a very poor memory for bottoms.  A week later yours will have been forgotten.

Women deserve our own corner of this conundrum.  Ever since a creative research tech collected urine from a pregnant mare, separated out the female hormone and convinced a menopausal woman to add it to her tea, the age of hormonal replacement was underway.  Equine estrogen as Premarin was introduced 75 years ago and was an instant success, even though it only partly relieved hot flushes, etc. because the horse estrogen molecule isn’t precisely identical with the human form, estradiol, and the female human body doesn’t recognize it as the real thing.  Research has isolated and reproduced several forms of precisely human estrogen, and women seem to need them in varying combinations.  They have been for many years prescription available and offer to extend every woman’s zippity-do-da.  However, the kind of replacement estrogen most often prescribed is still the horse variety called Premarin.  Time marches on, as should progress.  Doctors need to keep up with the research.  Pharma technicians have better things to do than run about, buckets in hand, chasing after big-bellied mares.  Have you ever seen a horse roll its eyes?  Clinical studies have shown that estrogen replacement reduces cardio-vascular disease by 50%.  It works to prevent Alzheimer’s, sagging breasts, flapping underarms and reluctant vaginas.  Yes, it even makes sex feel good again.  Don’t waste another day of your life on horse tinkle. 

Some chemicals are too simple for big Pharma to make a killing on, such as magnesium carbonate.  If I take it every night, I don’t wake up in the wee hours with leg cramps and throw myself out of bed with a shriek and a run around the Serta howling, all to break the  convulsive restriction of my leg muscles.  Electrolytes seem to affect the operation of muscle tissue and need to be delicately balanced, with Magnesium playing a prominent role.  Staying alive and functional is indeed a lot of work as well as way too much cerebration, cogitation and rumination.

All this is so fascinating to ourselves, but is such a tremendous bore to others, especially the young.  The safest thing to do of course is to smile and say,

 “Fine!  Just fine!  Never felt better!  And how are you?”

Of course you hope they’ll have the wisdom to not tell you.  The one exception is a person who happens to share similar afflictions.  Then you can compare horror stories with a willing co-conspirator.  Similar to pre-kindergarten sex, “You show me yours; I’ll show you mine” is often a productive negotiation.