No Answers, But What Else Is Knew?

I had my appointment with the endocrinologist today and while something being off was definitely noted, what that something may be was not. As I have said before, my calcium levels are high and I have a problem with kidney stones. I currently have a about 4-6 sitting in each kidney and every once in a while it goes acute and causes me a lot of pain. I have never been able to have one of these stones analyzed to find out what they are made of, but with my calcium issues it has always been assumed they are made out of calcium.

The endocrinologists seemed to want to get a better handle on what the stones are made of. Usually when calcium is high, another hormone called the parathyroid hormone will also be abnormal. In my case, the doctor called it "inappropriately normal". This confused them and opens up other possibilities for why my calcium is high. None of which are that good, and none of which I really want to get into right now mainly because it's kind of scary.

The plan for now is to redo the calcium, parathyroid and all of those tests. I'm getting more kidney function tests and some other hormone tests. Then we can make a decision as to whether imaging needs to be done of the parathyroid gland to check for masses and if the doctors need to actually retrieve the stones from my kidneys to verify the stone's composition. Just hearing how the stones would be retrieved made me cringe.

I also saw my endometriosis specialist today and I am reducing my Aygestin. He basically said anytime my prednisone doses are changed around it will interact with my Aygestin and cause the problems I have been having. But since my lungs like to swell up so much, getting off the prednisone is proving kind of difficult.

I'm pretty discouraged. I just want my body to work. There were other alternatives mentioned that are too hard to really think about right now, and my mind is spinning a little bit. It just seems like every time something starts to do right, I fall back into another medical quagmire. And I am getting very sick of it.

Well, That's Done

The semester from HELL is over. I finished my last final at 2:30 Friday and went straight home. It took me three hours to get home because I left just in time for rush hour traffic, but it was good to be home nevertheless.

By my last final, my brain was off. It was for my history of film class and I could barely remember any of the movies we had seen over the semester. Hopefully I did not bomb it too badly.

Now I have a whole month off to do NOTHING and it is so wonderful. I do not really have any plans, but that is fine with me. We got our Christmas tree yesterday so I can finally start getting into the Christmas spirit.

I have a couple of upcoming appointments next week. One with an endocrinologist to see about the issues I have with regulating my calcium and one with my endometriosis specialist for some issues I have been having with it. I also got a call saying that I was scheduled to see surgeon in the endometriosis specialist's office, but no one talked to me about that. I really DO NOT feel like having another surgery for it.

I hope everyone has a good holiday

My Other Autoimmune Disease

I thought I should probably do a post on endometriosis because it is something I have known I have had since I was about 15 years old and was once a huge part of my life. According to the Mayo Clinic

Endometriosis is a disorder of the female reproductive system. In endometriosis, the endometrium, which normally lines your uterus, grows in other places as well. Most often, this growth is on your fallopian tubes, ovaries or the tissue lining your pelvis.

When endometrial tissue is located elsewhere in your body, it continues to act as it normally would during a menstrual cycle: It thickens, breaks down and bleeds each month. Because there's nowhere for the blood from this displaced tissue to exit your body, it becomes trapped, and surrounding tissue can become irritated.

Trapped blood may lead to cysts, scar tissue and adhesions — abnormal tissue that binds organs together. This process can cause pelvic pain, especially during your period. Endometriosis also can cause fertility problems.

I was 10 years old when I got my first period and started having problems when I was 11. I distinctly remember one day trying to walk to my grandmother's house after school and having to lay down in the middle of the street because I was in so much pain. I also bled very heavily for often longer than a week. Eventually the pain became chronic. I was 2004, just before I turned 16, that I had my first laparoscopy. They found endometriosis on the lower part of my colon and started me on injections of a medicine called Lupron Depot. About two years later I had another laparoscopy.

I no longer have chronic pain from my endometriosis and I do not take the Lupron anymore. I am on a medicine called Aygestin and it makes it so I do not get periods.

There is some debate as to the cause and nature of endometriosis. There seems to be some consensus, however, that it is an autoimmune disease. I even found this link here that links endometriosis and the lupus anticoagulant antibody and the antinuclear antibodies. As far as I know I do not have the anticoagulant antibody, but I do know that I have the antinuclear antibodies.

It is really interesting to me how once you have one autoimmune disease it puts you at risk for more. If I pursue a career in medicine, which seems more and more likely, this is something I hope to study further. I will post later all about how indecisive I am about my future career.

More In Depth

I realized that I didn't mention a lot in my post last night.

On Monday I met with the endometriosis specialist about my bleeding and treatment. He took me off the Lupron injections because they have given me osteopenia, which is a precursor to osteoporosis. He said it should resolve after I stop and I hope he is right. He put me on Aygestin, which I was already on, but at a dose 3 times higher. He said that often the anesthesia during surgery can mess up the hormones and cause bleeding. I am still bleeding, so hopefully as I taper up the Aygestin dose that will stop.

My wrist is doing a lot better though it is still a little weak. I think that it will get better in time.

The weather has been phenomenal the past couple days. I was worried I would not have nice weather on my break because it started out with a terrible 3 day rain storm. I think we are still under a state of emergency because of all the flooding it caused. Luckily my area was not hit that hard. We had some minor flooding of the roads but that was it.