Snowglobe

a Neti Pot!

I’ve been thinking about it for awhile, but - like I think most people do - I have an aversion to putting liquids up my nose… My sister uses one though, and my brother does from time to time.  I’ve heard people rave about it, and seeing as I get frequent sinus infections (and sinus headaches) I figured I might as well try it.

Plus, I had a giftcard for Target from Christmas that I figured I might as well use.

I also bought some new tea.  I love Sleepytime Tea from Celestial Seasonings, and today I found “Sleeptime Sinus Soother Tea”.  I like the Throat Tamer, so I’m hoping that this will be effective too!

Has anyone else ever used a Neti Pot?  And tips or tricks you can suggest?

Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile. My semester started up on Monday, so I’ve been trying to ease back into the routine of classes. I only did a so-so job though apparently because I feel just awful today. I was up a lots of the night nauseous, my sinuses are draining, and I have a sinus headache.
Which is on top of the other headache I already had that I was trying to prevent from becoming a migraine. I hate when my head starts to hurt at work, as it did last night (I have a part-time retail job) since there’s not a whole lot I can do about it.
And my stomach has been upset for the past few days.
One of my classes already has me stressed out (my Capstone course) because there’s a tone that has to be done over this semester.
I also won’t really feel calm or at peace in any way until the middle of March when I get letters from the Grad schools I applied to and I decide where I’m going to be in the fall (that’s if I have a decision to make… I’m not getting my hopes up for the kind of financial assistance that I’ll need for some of the bigger schools I applied to). In my opinion, a degree is a degree, and I doesn’t matter where my Master’s comes from as long as it’s from a CAA accredited institution.
At least I don’t start clinic work until grad school. Just observing now on my own time.
I guess I should mention that I’m a Speech Pathology major since I can’t remember if I noted that before or not.
As for now, my medication is starting to make me woozy, so I’m gonna grab and ice pack, put on Cars, and let my body rest. But not before I chug a whooooole lot of water hah.

This is the last long medical condition explanation post that you’ll get.  I promise.  There are a few other small things that I have to deal with, but they’re not really chronic medical conditions that I would be seeking help with.

So, SVT. Aka Supraventricular Tachycardia which is “any rapid heart rhythm originating above the ventricular tissue”.  More specifically, I have the subtype of Sinoatrial node reentrant tachycardia or (SANRT).  It’s usually easier to just say I have SVT though.

Basically what happens is that the electrical signal that is sent to signal the heart to beat doesn’t terminate when it should.  Instead, the signal loops back around, and there are multiple signals going at once, causing my heart to beat too fast whenever I have an attack.

I was diagnosed back in 8th grade.  One day in gym class, I just started to feel panicked and my chest was thumping.  I asked my teacher if I could sit out (I don’t even know what sport we were playing) and he told me to go down to the nurse.  It’s not like we had been running around, and I wasn’t the kind of kid to try to skip out on gym class, so he figured something was up.

Eventually, I ended up at a cardiologist, and had an ECG done to measure my heart rate.  I also had to wear a Holter monitor for 24 hours (which was MISERABLE).  That’s how they discovered the SVT.  My heart rate jumped up to over 200 BMP while I was just sitting in class.  AKA, not cool.

The first medication I was put on to control the SVT was Inderol (Enderol? Something like that) and although it controlled my heart rate, it also totally sapped my energy and sent me into a depression.  Needless to say, I went off of that medication as soon as I could.  I was then put on Nadalol, which I’ve been on since then.

Mostly, my SVT has been under control since then, but every once in awhile, I can have issues, especially when I’m being active.

See, you have to understand that I come from an athletic family.  My dad played every sport in the book in high school, my mom was a cheerleader, my two oldest sisters were cheerleaders and dancers, my brother played baseball, my sister Sarah played softball, basketball and ran track, Amanda played basketball for awhile, and I played softball, basketball, and volleyball and I’ve been taking dance while in college.  Just sitting it out and letting my heart be isn’t in the cards for me.

I’ve never been a runner outside of it being a part of warming up during practice, but I’ve been an avid bike rider since high school and have hopes of starting to run.  I walk on a regular basis, so I know that I’ll have to move into jogging slowly.  I guess I would want to do more of jogging than running though anyway.  The thing is, I know that I have to do conditioning to make sure that my heart can acclimate itself.  I know that I do a lot of cardio with dance, so it’s not like I’m starting completely from scratch, but I also know that just jogging or running is different.

And I should also note that I’d love to participate in some kind of marathon with the American Cancer Society and DetermiNation (my brother is a survivor of childhood leukemia), so that’s extra incentive.

So as for the heart just jumping into a crazy rhythm while I’m sitting around, my medication has controlled that for the most part.  It’s when I’m running or exercising for a long period of time where I have to put some work into conditioning my heart.

Fun times hah.

So here’s another one of my ailments to discuss.

I had my first confirmed kidney stone during my Junior year of high school when I was 16.  It’s possible that I had them before that, but when I was 16 I had a MRI and Ultrasound because of the pain and was told that I had kidney stones.

It was like that episode of Friends when the doctor tells Joey that he has kidney stones and he keeps asking “…OR?” but the doctor just keeps saying “KIDNEY STONES!”

So yeah. This is another thing that’s genetic in my family.  However, of the kids in my family, I’m the only one who seems to have gotten this particular ailment.

So when I was 16 I had pain off and on due to the kidney stones.  I was told that they were in my kidney and, well there’s not much else to do besides give me painkillers and tell me to drink lots of fluids.

However, while I was at work one day, I basically collapsed in pain.  I had to get picked up and brought to my urologist’s office (whom I have not gone back to after my surgery because of the horrible ordeal I went through with this.)

Point is, I went to his office on a Thursday and was told “Oh hey, one of your kidney stones is blocking your kidney and your kidney is getting swollen. Let’s see if it passes by itself over the weekend. You’re gonna want to lay down with an ice pack and take painkillers. We’ll schedule surgery for Tuesday just in case it doesn’t pass.”

It didn’t pass.

I spent the weekend in agony. The only peace I had was when I was knocked out from the pain or the painkillers. I didn’t keep any food down over those 5 days and lost nearly 15 pounds because I was so physically sick.  I could barely keep down water, but I kept drinking it because I knew I had to.

So on Tuesday morning I went to the hospital for my surgery.  I had a ureteroscopy and the two stones were removed. In addition, I found out that I had a UTI, a bladder infection, a kidney infection, and hydroneufrosis of my kidney where it had swollen to nearly three times its size because the doctor made me wait so long for the surgery.

That was my traumatizing kidney story.

Since then I’ve had a few attacks here and there, and have gone to the emergency room twice I believe when the pain became unbearable.  And also because I’m paranoid that a stone will get stuck and my kidney will burst or something.

So kidney stones aren’t something that there’s any one trigger or kind of treatment for.  My stones are calcium stones, so I’ve been told to avoid oxalates (I’m lactose intolerant, so it’s not like I drink milk on a regular basis).  However, I get conflicting information from people.  I don’t have uric acid stones, so the medication that they make to treat kidney stones won’t help me.  I have had people tell me that I should avoid grapefruit and berries, but then others tell me that the acid in lemonade can help prevent stones and that acidic fruits are good for me. I’ve been told that tea is a bad idea, but others say that tea can help.

I don’t know if it’s just another situation like the migraines where each person has a different reaction, but there’s got to be SOMETHING that I can do to help prevent stones.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to find out what that something is!

I’d love to find some people to follow who are on similar journeys or who might have the wisdom, experience, or knowledge to help me through mine.

Reblog or drop a note in my ask if your blog deals with/you have/you talk about

- Migraines

- Kidney Stones

- SVT (or other related heart conditions)

- Chronic Sinus infections

- Health and Wellness

- Fitness

- Alternative Medicine/Therapy

- Holistic Medicine

- Healthcare

- Yoga

- Mind-Body Connection

- Nutrition

- Food Sensitivities and triggers

- Support systems for the chronically ill

- Anything else in this area that I haven’t covered! I think you can see what I’m about from my blog and the things that will be forthcoming!! Thanks :)

Just another thing I want to note about migraines and my wish to not be on more medication than I’m already on:

My mom takes a ton of medications for her migraines.

Something that we’ve all noticed (and by “we all” I mean my family, including mom) is that the medications she takes just seem to cause more problems.  When you read the side effects for a lot of her medications, it says that they cause things like high blood pressure, headaches, nausea, heart palpitations, and other things that she already has.  As a result, she gets put on another medication to treat that new or recurring condition, and then those have side effects that trigger another reaction and therefore she needs more medication.

Thankfully, my mom has decided that she’s going to use this summer to be weaned off of her medications and start from scratch. Her medications have also caused her to gain weight that can’t be helping her conditions at all. They also make her lethargic which prevents her from having the energy to exercise.

She’s also told me that based on what I learn, she’s going to think about visiting a nutritionist or some other doctor to see if there are things that she can do for her migraines that don’t require more medication.

Hopefully, through this process, I can help my mom get her life back too.

Defined by dictionary.com as:

“an extremely severe paroxysmal headache, usually confined to one side of th ehead and often associated with nausea; hemicrania.”

Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary defines it as:

“a condition that is marked by recurrent usually unilateral severe headache often accompanied by nausea and vomiting and followed by sleep, that tends to occur in more than one member of a family, and that is of uncertain origin though attacks appear to be precipitated by dilation of intracranial blood vessels.”

Defined by me as:

“some of the worst pain ever experienced.”

I had my first migraine when I was about 10 years old and I was diagnosed with chronic migraines by the time I was 13.  I’m now 22.

When I get a migraine, my entire world just stops. It has to. Sometimes I get an aura beforehand, sometimes, the migraine strikes without notice. I just know that when I start to get a headache, I pop ibuprofen right away in hopes that I can assuage the headache and prevent it from becoming a migraine. Sometimes no matter how hard I try, a migraine develops.

My number one goal over the next few months is to greatly lessen the frequency and severity of my migraines.

I know that two of my triggers are hormones (migraines are much more common in the female population, and I can guarantee I will get one right before or during my period every month) and the barometric pressure. I still get them out of the blue sometimes though, and I don’t want to just sit around and add on more medication for the rest of my life, so I’m going to be trying some new things and other methods of treating my migraines.

This includes:

- Yoga (I’m taking a class this spring semester)
- Trying to find any food triggers
- Hoping exercise will help
- Anything else that my doctor suggests.  I’m hoping to get a referral to go to some kind of holistic doctor or nutritionist as I don’t know the first thing about elimination diets or how to find out about these triggers.

One thing that I cannot try is acupuncture. I am absolutely terrified by needles. I have to close my eyes and turn away whenever I get a vaccine or even when there is a needle in a TV show or movie I’m watching. I’ve gotten better in that I don’t have a panic attack when getting a shot anymore, but it’s still pretty bad.

Anyway, I think the thing that gets me the most about migraines is that when I tell most people about them, their reaction is usually something to the degree of

“Well, it’s just a headache.”

No. No it’s not.

Anyone who has ever had a migraine in their life can attest to the fact that a migraine is debilitating and is more than just a headache.

When I have a migraine, I get really nauseous and usually can’t eat for the duration of it. I try to stay as hydrated as I can (since I know that can lessen the severity of the pain) but sometimes even keeping liquids down is a struggle.

I also become very sensitive to light and my entire body starts to ache, especially my feet. A lot of the times that I get migraines, my neck and shoulders get really tense and hurt on whichever side my migraine is most severe on. I’m prone to left side migraines.

I do take daily preventative medication that has lessened the frequency of my migraines, and also have prescriptions for a few rescue meds for when I DO get migraines. These rescue meds usually knock me out (which can be incredibly inconvenient for a college student, or a student of any sort for that matter).

Many times, all I can do is pop pills, take a shower, and pack my head in ice for the duration of the migraine while praying it will go away.

Oddly enough, stress doesn’t seem to be a migraine trigger for me, possibly because I’m just so used to being under stress.

However, as one of the definitions before stated, migraines are genetic, and they DO run in my family.  My mom has a headache just about every day of her life.  She goes to the doctor to get injections of medication almost every week and is on a plethora of daily medications and rescue meds in addition to this.  However, she continues to get migraines on a regular basis.  And by regular basis, I mean she usually goes into work with sunglasses on because of the sensitivity to light (she’s a teacher’s aide in the public school system).  I’m also the youngest of six children, and two of my sisters get migraines on a somewhat regular basis like I do.  My brother got them when he was younger, but grew out of them, and the other two have only had migraines a few times in their lives.  They’ll get severe headaches, but not migraines.

Point is, I am on medications for my migraines, but they still occur on a regular basis.  I do not want to spend the rest of my life just increasing the dosage on a medication or the amount of medications I’m taking.  I’d rather be proactive and try to find a different way to treat them, whether it be through eliminating certain foods or adding some kind of physical restoration to my daily routine.

Hopefully, I can make that happen.

So I’ve decided to start a new blog to keep track of the progress I’m (hopefully) going to be making with my health.

This isn’t a blog dedicated to weight loss or to any specific kind of fitness regiment.  Yes, I do hope to lose weight throughout this process, but that is not the main point of this blog. It would be a happy side effect of getting my body healthier and taking care of myself like I should be.

Thing is, I have a few health issues that I’d like to get more under control and in order to do that, I need a way to keep track of a few things.  With the way this world is in a technological sense, I’m thinking that Tumblr is going to be the best way to keep track of all the things I need to keep track of.

I’m on Tumblr every day anyway, so I might as well use that to my advantage in order to help myself with this process.

Over the next few posts, I’ll be talking about the health issues that I have and the things that I need/want to do to take care of them.

For anyone out there in the universe that can sympathize, empathize, give feedback or suggestions, I fully and unconditionally welcome your comments, questions, or any inspiration that you’d like to share with me.  I believe that other people can have a great impact on the progress of other people.

At the same time, I’m kind of hoping to undertake my own “Happiness Project”.  The things that I’m going to be doing that I’ll keep track of on this blog will be a part of that Happiness Project, but you should be prepared to see some other things pop up every now and then that might not be fully medical/health related.

I’ll try to keep any rants or REALLY unrelated things on my personal blog though (which you can find through the link in my About Me).

Look at me. Talking like I have any followers hah.

Anyway, if you ARE reading this, I thank you for checking out my blog, regardless of if you choose to follow me or not.  If you know of any blogs that you think I should check out, let me know.

Here’s to the journey of life!