Health acted up... had something interesting happen.
I used to get these bouts of what I call "Low Temp"... my body temperature drops by at least a couple of degrees, I am extremely nauseated, I get a bad headache, and I deal with vertigo (if I move my head even a tiny bit, the whole world spins). I also feel uncomfortably hot and have cold sweats - and if I sit in front of a fan I feel slightly better but terribly chilled and that would magnify the headache.
I ended up in the Hospital in 2010 because of it (third time that's happened), and I even had to call an ambulance which cost us $500 (Sue was at a church meeting and had turned her phone off so she wouldn't be disturbed). I was so damned sick and dizzy that I couldn't move back out of the bathroom, and I felt like my body was forgetting how to breath (they ended up having to put me on Oxygen - which made me feel slightly better - at least I wasn't feeling starved for air any more). FINALLY, the doctors and nurses in this area got a glimpse into what I go through when these attacks happen. One nurse even commented that she hadn't realized how bad I was until I had explosive vomiting just because I moved my head (so she could administer medication). They also said I had extremely high blood sugar and my blood pressure was the highest any of them had ever seen.
(That happened a few weeks before I had my stroke...)
It started up again last night... but I had a strong feeling to take my evening medications, so I did. It was tough keeping the pills down, but for the very first time in my life the "Low Temp" stopped. I thought about it as I lay in bed waiting to go to sleep after the symptoms had gone away, and realized that for the first time, I'd taken anti-epilepsy meds along with the usual anti-spasm meds, blood pressure meds, and blood sugar meds when an attack came on. I remembered how the epilepsy meds seemed to really help with the spastic muscles. I now wonder if "Low Temp" is some sort of epilepsy-type attack, but where I'm fully conscious and affecting the part of my brain that has to do with blood pressure, blood sugar, and breathing.
I need to talk about this with my doctor. Maybe after forty years of dealing with these attacks (when I was a kid, around two a year, but decreasing down to one every few years), we can get past the "We don't know what's wrong with you" and the ever-popular "There's nothing wrong with you, it's all in your head!"
Oh, and I forgot the "It's just a little virus, there is nothing else we can do for you!"
It was really nice for the nausea to go away, and the horrible feeling to switch off. It was pretty quick, too... within an hour I felt almost normal and went to sleep an hour or two after that.
I might add that what I used to do as a kid was wrap myself in a blanket and sweat it out, while trying to force myself to sleep. It would take a day or so for the problem to go away. A funny thing is that it seemed that my body "switched modes" when that happened (no longer)... I went from being able to tolerate cold to being able to tolerate heat... if I could tolerate cold being hot was miserable. If I could tolerate heat cold made me hurt. For the last 20 years or so, I've consistently tolerated cold - which doesn't help much in Florida. At least when we lived in Va, I'd "switch" from cold-tolerating to heat-tolerating in the spring and back in the fall (it was regular as clockwork, although I couldn't predict when it would occur).
I ended up in the Hospital in 2010 because of it (third time that's happened), and I even had to call an ambulance which cost us $500 (Sue was at a church meeting and had turned her phone off so she wouldn't be disturbed). I was so damned sick and dizzy that I couldn't move back out of the bathroom, and I felt like my body was forgetting how to breath (they ended up having to put me on Oxygen - which made me feel slightly better - at least I wasn't feeling starved for air any more). FINALLY, the doctors and nurses in this area got a glimpse into what I go through when these attacks happen. One nurse even commented that she hadn't realized how bad I was until I had explosive vomiting just because I moved my head (so she could administer medication). They also said I had extremely high blood sugar and my blood pressure was the highest any of them had ever seen.
(That happened a few weeks before I had my stroke...)
It started up again last night... but I had a strong feeling to take my evening medications, so I did. It was tough keeping the pills down, but for the very first time in my life the "Low Temp" stopped. I thought about it as I lay in bed waiting to go to sleep after the symptoms had gone away, and realized that for the first time, I'd taken anti-epilepsy meds along with the usual anti-spasm meds, blood pressure meds, and blood sugar meds when an attack came on. I remembered how the epilepsy meds seemed to really help with the spastic muscles. I now wonder if "Low Temp" is some sort of epilepsy-type attack, but where I'm fully conscious and affecting the part of my brain that has to do with blood pressure, blood sugar, and breathing.
I need to talk about this with my doctor. Maybe after forty years of dealing with these attacks (when I was a kid, around two a year, but decreasing down to one every few years), we can get past the "We don't know what's wrong with you" and the ever-popular "There's nothing wrong with you, it's all in your head!"
Oh, and I forgot the "It's just a little virus, there is nothing else we can do for you!"
It was really nice for the nausea to go away, and the horrible feeling to switch off. It was pretty quick, too... within an hour I felt almost normal and went to sleep an hour or two after that.
I might add that what I used to do as a kid was wrap myself in a blanket and sweat it out, while trying to force myself to sleep. It would take a day or so for the problem to go away. A funny thing is that it seemed that my body "switched modes" when that happened (no longer)... I went from being able to tolerate cold to being able to tolerate heat... if I could tolerate cold being hot was miserable. If I could tolerate heat cold made me hurt. For the last 20 years or so, I've consistently tolerated cold - which doesn't help much in Florida. At least when we lived in Va, I'd "switch" from cold-tolerating to heat-tolerating in the spring and back in the fall (it was regular as clockwork, although I couldn't predict when it would occur).