Saturday, May 30, 2009

My first ER visit as an adult...

So the pain of eating and drinking became way too much today. I decided it was time to go to the hospital to try and find a remedy.  I had called my regular Doctor, but they had suggested that I go to the hospital to get quicker results. A few seconds after I swallow food or liquid, I get severe pain, I'd say 9 out of 10 on the pain scale. Today I actually refused to eat or drink anything. :(

We got to the hospital around 2:30 or so.  After a lot of redundant stuff - questions, blood pressure tests, etc, and 5 hours later, I finally get a prescription to help heal what we all think I have, which is probably an ulcer or inflammation of my esophagus caused by the Doxycycline  I only took for four days.  I stopped taking the meds Monday night and it's Friday night and I have the same constant pain. I'll probably have the pain for another week until it heals. I've been given a proton inhibitor (i think) to help it heal. I have to make a follow up appointment in a week, and if it's still bad, I believe they well scope my throat. I just hope I can manage to find the energy to eat and/or drink until then.

We talked to our fertility doctor today who prescribed this terrible antibiotic for us, and he says this kind of reaction is rare. I doubt that, since all my research on the net showed many many people with the same problems. I was also told that an allergic reaction to the Lupron was also extremely rare. How is it that I'm the special case? I'm afraid that all of this bad stuff is going to hinder me in some way. I really hope it doesn't. I'd hate for them to pull me from the shared risk program, because I become too much of a risk.

Tomorrow it will be a week on the Lupron, and we have an appointment for blood work and an ultrasound. We are getting closer—only 19-24 days left until our transfer!  Anyone know how close it gets to when they can narrow down the dates a little better?

I also had my first acupuncture appointment today. It went well. I really liked the lady I saw. I felt comfortable with her. The session lasted 2 hours and she now pretty much knows my whole life story. I find that strange, but if it helps, then I'm all for it. She's recommending two sessions a week until we get to transfer time. I hope it helps with some other ailments like my lower back pain, calm me, and work it's fertility magic on me. I do find it all strange, but am willing to try anything for this to work! I didn't feel any different during or after the session, nor do I now, but today was an unusual day, spending 5 hours at the hospital and all. I'm going to lay in bed now and do some deep breathing. I am hopeful.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Started taking meds...and have been cursed.

So far, not so good.

I started the Lurpon shots saturday morning, 20cc. It went o.k. at first, needle in, meds out. Shortly later though I start swelling up. First about the size of a mosquito bite, but then bigger, and then bigger. And it itched like crazy. The swelling lasted an hour and a half. We had gone Kayaking and when we got back I called the answering service and talked to the oncall nurse. She suggested I take Benedril 20 minutes or so before the next shot.

O.k., so now it's Sunday, I took the Benedril and then the shot, and everything was good. No swelling. This time however, I got soooo very sleepy. I ended up sleeping until 5pm. Not exactly the best way to spend part of a 3-day weekend. At this point I have also started taking 100mg of Doxycycline. At first I assumed it was like most antibiotics and are taken once a day. Well we did that for two days before I realized we were supposed to be taking two of these a day.

Monday, I take my Lupron shot, this time using Benedril cream around the injection site and I take my morning Doxy. The anti-cream worked just as well as the pill so that's good, but the Doxy made both me and my husband very nauseous (we took it on an empty stomach).  It's confusing because the paperwork from the pharmacist says take on an empty stomach and the paperwork from the doctor says take with food.  Lesson learned I suppose. Eventually it wore off and we were able to enjoy the second half of our day.  I took the second Doxy an hour or so before bed.  I ended up sleeping terribly. I started getting very weird chest pains. At first I was dreaming someone was squeezing my heart, it felt so uncomfortable. It was and actually still is coming in waves. Almost every time I swallow, especially with food, I feel pain down my chest.
I just want to be asleep now. I'm no longer taking the Doxy and I hope very soon, this pain goes away.

I took my last BC pill yesterday and now have 5 more days of the Lupron. I get to look forward to a lovely painful period this week, hopefully my last one for a while. I sure hope this cycle works on the first try or my body builds up a tolerance to all these drugs. My boobs are still super sore from the prescreening & BC pills.

I contacted an acupuncturist today. Kind of expensive and she can't see me for a while. The earliest would be Saturday or next Wednesday. It's $140 for the first consultation, then $80 each, if I buy two with the consult, I will save $50. She says the follow up visits are 30 minutes. I'm not sure what I am going to do at this point. She's local. The other place I am looking into is actually associated with Shady Grove and may be more flexible timing wise with my transfer (they are in the same building). I would have to drive a ways to get there though for the other appointments. I will try to call them tomorrow to ask questions. I wasn't up for it today.

I'm going to take something to help me sleep. Goodnight.