A Pain In The Buttocks, Well It's Really In My Shoulder

image from google

I went and saw my GP yesterday afternoon. I now have an 'official' diagnosis. Well, I had a diagnosis before but this has definitely been confirmed now that I've had an ultrasound. Dr F. (my GP) even gave me a print out of the radiologists report.  I have a partial thickness incomplete tear of the supraspinitis tendon with associated subacromial bursal thickening causing impingement. In other words it is PAINFUL but thankfully not all the time.

For now we are just going with pain management. I have a different pain medication, tramadol, which I have never taken before so I only took one capsule last night after tea. It didn't seem to help all that much so I will try two some time later today. At least this hasn't affected my head like panadeine forte does. Codeine always makes me feel light headed and pays havoc with my system if I take them for long periods of time. I usually just put up with the pain for as long as I can. I reckon I rattle with the amount of medication I take anyway without taking any extra.

Dr. F said that he would refer me to an orthopaedic surgeon if I wanted to. I may go that road if things don't improve. The bad news is that it may take up to two years before my shoulder is back to 'normal'. I am crossing my fingers, toes, eyes and anything else that I can cross and hoping that it will not take that long. It's already been six months since I initially hurt my arm. I don't want another 18 months of this.

Wish me luck in a speedy recovery!

It's Official

I promised that I would give an update on my Doctors appointment this week in regards to the Glucose Tolerance Test I had done a couple of weeks ago. Well I saw my GP about 45 minutes ago. It's official, I am now a diabetic.

I have no idea what that entails at the moment. My Mum was a diabetic as was my brother Wayne. Considering Mum passed away over 10 years ago I don't remember everything that she needed to do & I never really saw Wayne so I have no clue what he did either.

My doctor suggested told me that I needed to get one of those glucose machine thingys (sorry my mind has drawn a blank at the moment) and suggested that I shop around to get one at a reasonable price. They aren't that expensive as I have checked them out at our local chemist. A glucometer? (still drawing a blank here).
He also recommended that I join the Diabetes Association. Apparently I can get discounts with some equipment like the strips and possibly other services.

I did speak with my Dad on Sunday telling him that I needed to see my GP today to get the results of my GTT. The first thing he said, without even skipping a beat, is why what have YOU been eating? Sheesh, make it hard on me Dad. I was hoping to get some sympathy and reassurance from you. I didn't expect him to be quite so harsh. I don't think it matters what I ate. There were many risk factors stacking up against me anyway it was just a matter of time.
I'll be phoning him shortly to tell him the 'news'. I hope he is a bit more supportive this time.

I have an appointment with the Practise Nurse for next Wednesday afternoon (it was the earliest I could get in to see her plus it gives medicare time to set up whatever it needs to set up), I'm not sure what her job will be in my new health plan. She might be the diabetes educator, who knows. I guess I will find out next week.

I guess for now I do some research and find out what I need to do & shop around for one of those monitors.

Test Results

I finally remembered to call the Practice Nurse at our clinic to get the results of the boys blood tests. It only too me over a week to remember to get Brodie's results o_O
There is only a one hour window each day to make calls to the nurse to get results and I would often remember an hour or two too late.

Brodie's results for his tegretol level were fine & in the therapeutic range. So that is ALL good. He's still had the facial pain but only once since his medication was increased. Well only one that I know of at any rate.

Angus's results were good. Liver function, blood sugar levels, haemoglobin were all within normal ranges. He did however have high cholesterol (5.7) and for a child his age it should be 4.5 or less. It surprised me really. I never expected any of the results to come back as anything other than normal.

For now I have Angus using the same cholesterol lowing margarine that Mark is using. I don't know if I can rethink how I cook things. I don't fry food in fat. I use cooking spray or olive oil and dry fry. I have a health grill that allows the fat in foods to drain away. I don't know how I am going to change what I already do to make our diet better.

Do you have any ideas? I'm at a bit of a loss.

Phone Calls

We've had made three reasonably important phone calls made today. Firstly, I made a call for Mark for an appointment at the radiologists we go to for his Facet Joint Injections (ouch). I managed to get an appointment for him for next Thursday. Thank goodness most of the cost is covered by medicare & we only have to pay the gap of $229.10

Secondly, I made a call to my GP's surgery to talk to the practice nurse so I could get the results of my Glucose Tolerance Test. I don't know if I am happy about the results or not. Perhaps you could say I am mildly happy. I am what is called pre-diabetic. My fasting Blood Sugar Level (BSL) was 6.1 and my BSL two hours after the sugary drink was 10.8. The results weren't that good but at least she didn't say I was a diabetic. I'll go into this more later on in another post.

Finally, Mark made a phone call to the cardiologist we saw a few weeks back to get the results of the scan he had. Good new on this front at least. There is nothing wrong with Mark's heart! Thank goodness. So the chest pains he has been getting are not heart related. Its a relief to know that that its not his heart but still a puzzle as to why he gets them. Something else for the GP to check out I guess.