Leg, spine, brain, whatever

[kimberly_a]

So I went to see my primary care physician today about the fatigue my nephrologist thought seemed excessive for my kidney numbers. While there, I caught my doc up on all the various health things I've had going on -- far too many of them -- including this one little weirdness that I don't remember if I've ever written about here. A few months ago, I noticed that if I slapped my hand down on my right thigh, I had a drastic reflex response, my leg kicking out in front of me as if the tendon in my knee had been struck. It's really weird, but I wasn't too worried, because it just seemed like another weirdness of my body, source of many weirdnesses.

But my doc was totally freaked out by this leg phenomenon. She tested it out, and was very disturbed. Then she did this thing where she ran that little patellar hammer along the length of the bottom of my foot, and I had another strong reflex response, involving my toes curling up dramatically. Well, apparently your toes are supposed to curl downward when the doc does that, so she was even more freaked out. She says she has no idea what's going on, but it's definitely wrong and needs to be addressed right away. She's referring me to a neurologist and wants me to get in to see him/her "as soon as possible."

I'm really really tired of freaked-out doctors urgently telling me I need to go to a specialist "as soon as possible."

If I can't get in to see a neurologist within the next two weeks, my doc wants me to let her know so she can talk to their office directly and try to hurry things up. She said she thought the problem might be something with my spine, but she was mostly just baffled. She put all my other health issues on the back burner, because this one seemed really important.

So let's see:

• I'm in stage 3 of chronic kidney disease.
• I'm nauseated at some point pretty much every day, and suffer almost constant fatigue. Both my nephrologist and PCP think these problems are more extensive than my kidney numbers would lead them to expect, and so both think that something else may be causing or exacerbating those symptoms. They both seem to suspect a GI problem separate from the kidney disease, since I'm having daily nausea, lack of appetite (more about this later), and heartburn.
• I have some weird neurological thing making my leg do a strange trick. My primary care physician doesn't want to try to trouble-shoot the fatigue or nausea problems until we've looked into this neurological weirdness going on with my leg, since that has her totally freaked out.
• Due to the lithium I used to take -- which of course caused the kidney disease -- I am constantly extremely thirsty and have to pee every couple hours. Sometimes the thirst even wakes me up at night. Ths problem may be due to a disorder called diabetes insipidus, but the diagnosis is not firm.
• I'm near-sighted, far-sighted, have an astigmatism, and have a cataract in my left eye.
• I'm allergic (or at least extremely sensitive) to egg whites, and have to be very careful about my limited egg consumption or risk dire digestive consequences.
• I may or may not be bipolar. I may or may not have PTSD.
• I have severe long-term anxiety problems that sometimes render me almost entirely unable to function. My anxiety problems are currently being successfully treated with a medication (Seroquel) which causes weight gain in pretty much everyone who takes it. It would be dangerous for me to gain weight with kidney disease -- I am at the very top of what my docs consider an acceptable weight for my height and build, and my docs want me to lose weight, not gain it! - and so I will almost certainly be taken off this med next month, after which we will try a different med (Saphris) which may or may not help with the anxiety. So I may end up going back to having no appetite while extremely anxious … but at least I won't be getting fatter.
• Probably due to the anxiety, I have concentration issues that make it very difficult for me to read anything remotely challenging, as well as making it impossible for me to do the proofreading that used to be my source of income.
• I get migraines. Not often, but any amount of migraine in your life is too much migraine in your life.
• I am prone to dysplastic moles and tend to need one removed every year or two.
• I'm apparently now extremely prone to bronchitis, and will need to watch out for it every time I get a cold.

Where can I trade in my body for a new one that works better?