Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving in America. I know what I'm giving thanks for.
{Smile}

I am thankful that I made it thru both medical crises this year. Both
the toxic reaction to the cholestorol medicine and the flushing and
blackouts from the niacin were pretty scary. I am thankful that I'm better
in time to enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas without worry. {Smile}

I am thankful for the friends and family who stood beside me when I was
sick. I am thankful for the ones who hoped and prayed that I'd get better,
and I'm thankful for the ones who refused to let me face the problem
alone. {Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

{RELIEVED SIGH}

Well, the switch to time-release niacin worked. I've officially made it
thru a period without a nasty flush. {relieved sigh, smile}

Thank you, God! I needed that so badly. {Relieved Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Hope.

Well, it's been about two and a half weeks since I stopped taking the non-time-release niacin. I haven't had a nasty flush since. Oh, I've gotten overheated once or twice, but there's been no attack with burning sensations, pain, or threat of blacking out. {relieved smile}

I have real hope that we found the worst problem. I won't feel sure until I've been thru my next menses without incident, since the flushing seemed worst during the last set. However, this looks promising. {hopeful smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Hope?

Well, we haven't called the doctor. This is not a bad thing. {smile}

On Sunday around bedtime, Dad brought up something he remembered about his older sister, my aunt Kitty, having trouble with flushing when she was taking niacin. I am taking niacin for my balance, so he thought that might be involved.

One thing led to another, and we discovered that I am not taking 250mg of time-release niacin like one of my doctors suggested. The current bottle is not time-release; it's all at once. I'm pretty sure I remember that my doctor specified time-release to reduce trouble with flushing and burning sensations, as well as to improve it's effects on my balance.

I found some time-release niacin like I'm supposed to take. I haven't taken it yet. Monday I didn't take any niacin beyond that found in my vitamins. I wanted to give my system a chance to calm down. It didn't get a long chance. I started having balance trouble after 10pm on Tuesday, so I took one time-release niacin pill just now. I do hope it works, and doesn't cause any flushing. We'll have to see what happens. If necessary, the flushing was worse than the balance. However, I don't think time-release niacin caused flushing before. {cross fingers hopefully, {smile}

So far I haven't had any flushes since I stopped the other niacin. However, it's only two days; that's too soon to tell. Last week I don't remember what happened Sunday and Monday. However, I do know I had one Tuesday morning, one Saturday morning, and no bad ones in between. That's longer than I've been off niacin so far. {resigned smile}

I'm hopeful - much more hopeful than I was when my doctor prescribed vitamin D. This might not be the full story. I am beginning to near the expected age for menopause, after all. Still, this looks promising. Even if it just cuts out the painfully burning flushes, that would be such and improvement! I hope I'd get my life back if I got rid of those. {Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

{steadying sigh}

Well, yesterday Dad managed to get the test results out of a nurse at my doctor's office.

Thyroid: normal
Pituitary hormones: normal
Vitamin B12: normal
Vitamin D: LOW

So my doctor wants to put me on theraputic levels of vitamin D, and run another test in a few weeks.

I know that Vitamin D deficiency can be a serious problem. I'm too old for rickets, but it can increase tendencies for osteoporosis and other bone trouble. I don't want that. However, I don't think Vitamin D affects hot flushes/flashes much. I can't find anything that claims it does, and Dad doesn't know of any connection, either. {half-smile}

I had another nasty hot flush yesterday morning. I couldn't go to the air conditioned room a few rooms away. I couldn't clear the table. I couldn't even get up to turn on a fan, or pour a glass of ice water. I had to wait for my parents to get those to help me cool down.

Mom picked up the Vitamin D this morning. I've taken two pills today, and will continue to do so. However... if I have another bad flush, my doctor will get a call that hopefully will make it clear that waiting a few weeks to do anything more for the flushes is unacceptable. {grimace} I don't feel I can take on any new projects until they're fixed somehow. That includes applying for a librarian position that's come up at the university. The deadline is in November, so I can't expect them to get
fixed in time. My health is just too unreliable when a single flush knocks out a whole morning, or a whole evening. {resigned look}

I just want my life back. {Sigh}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

{peek in}

{peek in} Hello. {smile}

I'm sorry I've been neglecting my blog recently. I'm afraid this summer has been all too interesting on the medical front, as some of you already know. {rueful smile}

I had a really nasty reaction to a medication in July; it took me half a week to identify, and three weeks after going off to feel reasonably like myself again. Then in the first week of August, I had a panting-and-coughing-up-pink-mucous attack that was diagnosed as a panic attack, but followed by a similar attack without the worry.

The week after that, I had a really nasty hot flush, during which I blacked out. My doctor noticed that my diabetes was acting up. so she decided to treat that as the most likely cause of hot flashes. Well, the blood sugar levels responded favorably to the insulin she prescribed. The hot flushes did not. I've had a few near black-out since.

So my doctor is now beginning to look into the flushes. I'm... not handling waiting for test results as well as I'd like. {half-smile} I've caught myself being far too sensitive this weekend. I just hope my friends will understand. {tentative smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Hurricane Felicia

Well, Hurricane Felicia seems to be passing Hawai'i by quite nicely. Hilo got hot, muggy weather, with some clouds, but not even much rain. Other parts of the state are seeing some rain, but no more than heavy-normal. Nobody seems to be getting much more than usual in the winds.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Here's three local news sites. Each had too many stories about Felicia to list each story separately. {Smile}

KHNL's news

KHON's news

KITV's news. This one also links to stories from two newspapers. {Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

A smile and a wince

Dad and I just got to listen to an unusually long "concert" by a Chinese thrush in our Surinam cherry tree. He went on particularly long, maybe because he was competing with another bird further away. {Smile}

I think his concert just about made up for canceling Advanced Dungeons and Dragons tonight because I re-strained my back at church this morning. {rueful smile, Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Caught up?

Maybe I'm caught up with my general blog reading. {cross fingers} At least for now. At least if you don't count the week+ worth of posts added because a former high school classmate just told me where his blog is. {Smile} I'm looking forward to that reading project. It's past time I caught up with what he's been up to. {SMILE}

Now the main trick is staying caught up with the blogs while catching up with not only that one friend, but all my friends on LiveJournal. Plus not falling too far behind on Facebook. Wish me luck. I think I'm going to need it. {SMILE, chuckle, SMILE}

Oh, and also while trying to figure out where I might submit a short story. Yes, I'm finally working up to actually trying to get a little story published, instead of just sharing it with my friends like I do on LiveJournal. {SMILE} I'll need luck with this, too. {BIG SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

No computer virus? {cross fingers hopefully}

Well... I hope I've come thru the computer virus attacks safely. I read all the advice offered, figured out which I could do without messing up, and which sounded reasonable. Fortunately, the stuff I could do mostly sounded like reasonable precautions. The most alarming solutions were beyond my limited computer skills anyway. {Smile}

So I did what I could. This might have closed a couple of loopholes in my computer's anti-virus defenses. {cross fingers hopefully, smile} Even better, the virus warnings quit, and no repeating "new tricks" turned up. I hope those are good signs. {cross fingers} It's certainly how I'd hope a non-infected computer would behave. {Smile}

If things stay calm for a while, I think I'll count this successful. If not, I'll take the computer to the Computer Store and pay them to look it over. They're the locals I know who I trust to really fix my computer's problems, and not just replace current problems with different ones. {lop-sided Smile}

Now to get back to trying to catch up with the blogs and journals I like to follow. {SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin