This is the letter I sat down & wrote. I am sending it to Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, "The Doctors", UCLA, UCSF, UC Davis, Johns Hopkins, Duke, Stanford, Sansom Clinic. Those are all I've thought of, and that my friends have suggested. If you have further suggestions, please fill me in.
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Before I was walking, my mother set me on a concrete picnic bench at a park, and turned her back & I fell head first & hit right on my hairline in the middle of my forehead on a concrete floor. To this minute I have a cranial “lump” where I hit my head, that I try to hide with my bangs. I have told every doctor that has ever treated me, and they never look into it, they slough it off like it is no big deal. I remember being in first grade and second grade and having headaches so bad it affected the way I would hear the teacher & see the board. I always had to be moved to the front of the classroom. When I was 9, they became noticeably worse; I attribute it to hormones because that is when I hit puberty. When I was 15 I was officially diagnosed with migraines. I have had these “headaches” as long as I can remember. Now at the age of 26, I can honestly say that I get them almost daily. They start as an agitating headache & progress rapidly into a migraine. At least 3 days out of the week, my light sensitivity and sound sensitivity get so bad, that I have to have total silence, I cannot drive, I cannot go outside, I cannot have the lights on, and I throw up violently. When I am lucky, and do not throw up, the nausea is unbearable. Caffeine has been known to help, although not remove the headache. I have been on every migraine medication that I have ever heard of, so many, that I have honestly lost track of the mental list. Some made me worse, others just made me catatonic. Others still yet (Depacote, Topomax) gave me such awful side effects that there was no way to distinguish whether or not there was improvement. Migraines are by far the worst malady I suffer, however, not the only. When I was 16 I was sent in for a colonoscopy because of stomach problems I was having, and was diagnosed with Gastritis & Irritable Bowel Syndrome (the latter, I dismissed, thinking the doctor was giving me a generic diagnosis, not taking me seriously.) When I was either 20, or 21, I was diagnosed with Chron’s Disease, Chron’s Colitis, and Irritable bowel disease. This was after a 4 day stay in the hospital, from chronic diarrhea & vomiting leading to severe dehydration. The doctor at the emergency room (from where I was admitted) had the foresight to check both my upper GI tract as well as my lower, and referred me to a gastroenterologist for follow-up. I still suffer Chron’s flairs constantly. I’m in a really bad catch 22, because the migraines make me stressed, the stress triggers Chron’s, I get violently sick, which makes my headaches worse. Needless to say it affects my mental disposition, makes my depression worse, makes me more stressed, triggers my Chron’s, makes my headaches worse. Or I have an anxiety attack, which triggers a migraine, and then my Chron’s gets worse, which makes me more depressed/anxious/stressed. I’ve gotten so sick, on several occasions, that I have to go to the ER to get rehydrated, because I cannot keep down fluids or food. On a daily basis, every muscle, every joint in my body hurts so bad that normal life function is almost impossible. In addition to this, when I was 16 I was misdiagnosed with Endometriosis, and the gynecologist gave me a shot of Lupron as a solution, putting my body through fake menopause. It has left me with a myriad of side effects that still plague me to this day. I have “female issues” that are quite extensive, including dysmenorrheal that when allowed to have a menstrual cycle, is so bad I literally am unable to stand and walk, so we’re constantly rotating types of birth control to stop my periods. At the moment it is Depo-Provera, which I am having luck with in THAT department, but I am well aware that one of the many side effects is increased, more severe headaches. I can’t win. I cannot get proper medical treatment, because I cannot afford insurance. I cannot hold a job, because I always end up too sick, and get fired or asked to quit. I miss too much time. Therefore I have no income. I have been denied disability because I am only 26 and do not “have enough work history.” I have been denied SSI three times, and am filing again, this time I’m hoping an attorney will help me with my case so I can get medical help. As it stands, I am miserable; I am unable to live my daily life. I cannot afford Botox, or any Triptan medications, although they didn’t help much anyway, the only thing that ever gave me temporary relief was the Imitrex injections, but even those didn’t last. Imitrex nasal spray made me worse, and Imitrex pills made me have rebound headaches worse than the original migraine. Midrin did nothing, Zomig did nothing, there are many others, but as I mentioned, I cannot remember all of their names. My pain gets so bad, I get halos, then my vision gets blurry, and I go “blind” so to speak, I cannot make anything out. I cannot eat normal healthy foods, because vegetables make my Chron’s ten times worse, I cannot eat the unhealthy fried foods, because they make me sick, I cannot eat anything hot or spicy because it renders me sick for several days. I have cut so much out of my diet that there is not much I CAN eat because of how sick it makes me. Eating is a stressor, because inevitably anything I eat makes me sick. My Chron’s is not under control with medication, again because of no money or insurance. I have been to so many neurologists, and gastroenterologists (when I was married, I am not long since divorced) and none of them were able to help me. Gastroenterologists’ tried various medications until they stopped working, and then resolved to not knowing what else to do, and passed me along to another doctor. The same thing happens with neurologists. When I get passed to a new doctor, they start me over at square one and I have to go through the whole routine again, I’m like a car, stuck in the mud. The wheels are turning but I’m not getting anywhere. I have been to UCLA, UCSF, Sansom Clinic, and Dr. Neil Raskin at UCSF referred me back to my hometown neurologist, who said, “I’ve done everything I know to do, and I am not sure what else to do to help you.” UCLA told me to change my diet & do yoga, I told her that I did do yoga and had been doing it for a few years at that time, and she said, then there was nothing she could do to help me because everything she would advise to try had already been done, I did try the diet change (again) that she suggested because I know as we age our bodies change. When I first was diagnosed, my neurologist had me cut out itemized things one at a time to make sure it wasn’t an allergen that was causing it. None of the foods at the time proved to be the cause, but, since I was older when I went to UCLA, I did it again, but had the same results. Sansom Clinic had ideas for treatment that required me to stay for 2 weeks, but I was financially unable to afford the stay at that time, and very soon after (within months, and before I was able to afford it) I lost my insurance, because I turned 18. I come from a single parent household, my mother is deceased, and my father is disabled and cannot afford to give me financial assistance, as he barely gets by. I have no other family. When I go to the ER, they have a special county program that I have to jump through hoops for (and I do) and it is supposed to pay for the ER visit and subsequent medication & hospital stay when admitted and the doctor that I see while I am there. Somehow, everytime, 3-5 months later, I am sent bills, for thousands of dollars, hence another trigger of stress & panic & desperation, hence another trigger of major migraine & severe Chron’s flair, and another trip to the ER, add that to my catch 22. I have tried biofeedback, acupuncture, acupressure, botox, yoga, medications, Cranial Sacro Therapy, none help me more than temporarily. I am pleading, for someone, to please help me find the cause to cure it, and not just treat the symptoms. I have since then declined health wise to the point that yoga kills me, pain wise, and I am literally, in constant pain twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. It is negatively affecting my relationship and the rest of my life in general. I even had to literally fight to keep my driver’s license, because one doctor wanted to send paperwork to the state and have my license revoked. If that were to happen, I couldn’t legally get my disable father to the doctor or hospital in case of emergency, or myself, since sometimes I am the only option to get myself there, and that would potentially get me arrested, because I could not pay the fine, adding more stress adding more illness. PLEASE, if you cannot help me, can you refer, or recommend me to someone who can? There has to be an organization somewhere willing to help me, that I just haven’t found, although I have been researching for years. My dad is in poor health, he is going to be 66 in October, and has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and is fighting cancer for the second time, and this is causing him a great deal of stress as I am his only child & he worries what is going to happen to me, if something happens to him. We are the only family each other has.
I thank you, very much for your time in reading this, and any consideration and/or cooperation that you give my circumstance.
Very Respectfully,
Faith Lowery
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Visalia, Ca. 93277
(559) --- ----
(559) --- ----
Scarletmaleficent@yahoo.com –or- xxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx
(The latter is my father’s, as most days, it is extremely difficult for me to look at a computer screen, and I often do not get to check my email as a result.)
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