Pre-emptive health whinging! How can you skip it?

[muckefuck]

Every year about this time I get sick. Either before Bear Pride (thus ruining it) or after (an inevitable consequence of kissing dozens of men from around the world). This year, I'm determined it will be the latter, so I've tried to be conservative in my behaviour. Yeah, I was a little stupid staying up till midnight last night, but I will hurry home after class tonight and get plenty of sleep. For real! I'm trying to eat well, drink a lot, take multivitamins, and avoid walking around underdressed. No matter how sunny it is, there's always an overshirt and a scarf in my bag.

So when I got to the desk today and my shiftmate told me, "I don't think I'm contagious," my reaction was, "If I catch what you have I will TOTALLY kick your ass." He smiled weakly. I'm like, "No, I'm serious. My boyfriend gets back Friday night after two weeks in Oregon and we're celebrating his birthday. If I'm sick, I will find out where you live and cut you up into little pieces." "Well, you already know where I work." "I'm not going to wait the whole weekend to kick your ass."

Of course now I'm hypochondriacally interpretting ever natural aftereffect of my lack of sleep as evidence of an emerging malady. I want to rush to my pillbox and proactively swallow one of everthing in it. I want to go home and sleep this instant.

Perhaps I should go kick his ass now while I still have all my strength.

Edit: ACK! I had to touch the mouse he used! I'm doomed! Head...so...woozy...

Comments

[go-wade-in.livejournal.com]

orange juice will take care of everything. drink a liter.

[gopower.livejournal.com]

At least it will give you an aerobic workout racing back and forth to the men's room.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I always go to bed more thirsty than I should because I hate the idea of having my sleep interrupted a bunch of times to hit the head.

[prilicla.livejournal.com]

Whatever you do, don't get a kidney stone, then. (Good advice in any case, of course.) According to my urologist's cheerful tip sheet, I'm supposed to drink enough water before I go to bed to wake me in the middle of the night. After stumbling to the bathroom, I'm supposed to drink another giant glass of water so that I'm nice and hydrated in the morning. I actually tried this for a while, but it was driving me nuts, so I had to stop. I do drink a lot of water, though.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I'm not planning on it, but sometimes I fear it's inevitable, what with the way I abuse Tums.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I'm not planning on it, but sometimes I fear it's inevitable, what with the way I abuse Tums.

Have you tried H2 blockers (Pepcid/Zantac/Tagamet) or proton pump inhibitors (Prilosec/Prevacid)? I used to go through heroic amounts of Tums myself, but Prilosec seems to keep things under pretty good control. (Admittedly, I worry some about the long term effects, but FWIW my doctor seems to be in favor of it so far.)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I've been on Protonix for a couple years now--which is mildly concerning, considering that it's only recommended for short-term use. Unfortunately, even that hasn't always done the job recently, meaning I've been supplementing it with calcium carbonate in order to sleep through the night.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

You may already have been through this, but you might want to try another PPI. My insurance company tried to shift me from Prilosec to Prevacid (for cost reasons, though I think Prevacid is better tolerated in most people). But it turned out not to give me a full day's relief, so my doctor switched me back to Prilosec. Apparently different drugs work better for different people.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been meaning to schedule another check-up with my PCP to discuss this. I normally wait, however, until I have a couple of complaints so we can handle them all at once.

BTW, I've always gotten competent if not outstanding service from her, but then I haven't had any emergency situations comparable to prilicla's, so I can't really say if my provider would be any kind of an improvement over yours.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

BTW, I've always gotten competent if not outstanding service from her, but then I haven't had any emergency situations comparable to prilicla's, so I can't really say if my provider would be any kind of an improvement over yours.

Yeah-- thinking about it, anything that only involves my doctor and/or the practice isn't bad. They're good about getting appointments scheduled quickly for anything urgent, and he's good about calling back. (With the problem that sometimes it's impossible for me to be at one reachable number all day, leading to telephone tag. I do wish my cell phone reception reliably penetrated to my office.) The staff is decent, if not perfect (they gave lousy directions to the emergency room when we needed it).

But it's only when interfacing with the rest of the hospital that I seem to run into problems. And I don't really understand it, given that this is a well-funded, highly regarded hospital that's clearly put a fair amount of effort into patient comfort (e.g., building new rooms as singles, generally making the surroundings as pleasant as possible-- they don't even ban cell phones). My first thought was that I'd just been exposed to the rare problems that any large organization has, but time and experience make that seem less likely.

Of course, the scariest possibility is that this actually does constitute above-average service at a gold-plated hospital under good insurance.