I’m in the middle of what is either a fall cold or a seasonal allergy flare-up– I lean toward the latter, for various reasons that don’t really matter. The important thing is, my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls and vacuum pump oil.
This isn’t the real gripe of the moment, though. The main complaint I have today is that my stomach problems are preventing me from doing anything about my cold/allergy problem. Not for any good reason, but because the gastroenterologist made me paranoid.
(Cut for whinging– if you click below the fold, you’ve brought it on yourself…)
What I really want for this is a nice pot of tea. Some hot liquid to loosen up the sinuses, a bit of caffeine to make me feel more awake. I’m not having any, though, because tea is on The List.
The gastro people did exactly two things to treat my heartburn/ reflux problems: they gave me a prescription for double the normal dose of Nexium, and they gave me a big list of things that I shouldn’t eat. Neither of these accomplishied all that much– the Nexium made things better for about a week, and then things got just as bad as they were before (and took several months to improve), and a couple of months of careful record keeping showed no particular correlation between what I ate and what symptoms I had.
This didn’t really faze them, though. When I called them to say that the Nexium wasn’t helping, they told me to take it at a different time. When I said I was still having problems, they said it must’ve been something I ate. I got to the point where I was eating nothing but rice and steamed vegetables, and still having vicious heartburn every night, before I said “screw this,” and stopped trying to follow every detail of the forbidden foods list (and called my GP, who was more helpful…).
I stuck with The List long enough to become really paranoid about what I eat, though, and it’s hard to shake. Tea is on The List twice– caffeine is forbidden, and acidic items are bad. I haven’t had tea since February.
Advil is also on the list, which sucks, because I get headaches along with my annual clogged-sinus episodes, and Tylenol just doesn’t do anything for me. Not at the recommended dosage, anyway, and I’m not about to start taking extra pills of something that’ll wreck your liver. (I’ve got some leftover Darvocet from my last shoulder episode, but that seems a little extreme…)
I’m even a little leery of taking the usual pseudoephedrine bombs to try to unclog my nose, just because I’m not sure it would be safe. And the consequences of a stomach flare-up don’t exactly encourage experimentation– when it acts up, it’s irritated for a couple of days at least, and it’s been pretty good for the last couple of weeks.
So, I’m stuck with clogged sinuses, a mild headache, and a generally fogged head, because I’m afraid that any of the actions I would normally take to ameliorate these symptoms will screw up my stomach again. And I’m afraid of this despite the fact that most of their other recommendations turned out to be pretty damn useless. So on top of everything else, I’m kicking myself for being a total wuss.
And I want tea, dammit.
I know it doesn’t help you any, but you did just inspire me to put on some tea for myself.
For what its worth… the pseudoephederine bombs (scripts — not OTC) didn’t have any effect on my GERD.
Talk to your primary care doctor about an alternative to Tylenol. For some people, naproxen seems to work well. Additionally, Relafen (now available in generic) seems to work well for a LOT of people who have stomach issues.
Chad
Sorry to hear about your discomforts. For your sinuses, have you tried putting your head over a bowl of steaming water with something like eucalyptus and/or pepperment added? It should get those sinuses draining nicely.
As for tea, can you have herb teas? Some of those, peppermint again, might soothe your stomach and you would still have something hot and refreshing to drink.
If it is any comfort, there is something going round. Everyone in my food chem class was ill on Monday and I had a head cold last week.
Go the the GP as soon as possible. See what he thinks you should do!!!
On seasonal allergies: One OTC loratidine, and one (30mg) pseudoephedrine (half a normal single dose) are enough to get me through the days, even when the Whatever-this-devil-plant-is is blooming. The generic Claritin (not the -D variant, but the old off-patent stuff) is far more effective as an antihistamine for me than anything new; the sudafed seasoning dries out my head enough to breathe and get me over the [minor] sluggishness of the claritin. YMMV.
Tylenol: Yeah. It’s never done anything, under any circumstances, for any member of my family. And having lots of arthritics and such, you have to wonder if maybe there’s a bit of common liver function diversity in the population. And by “nothing”, I’m thinking of my Mom who took 3 grams (grams) of Tylenol ES for weeks, then stopped cold turkey, and detected no difference, and then started up again after several weeks off… and detected no difference. So you have to wonder if there’s a simple allele thing, like the PTC-tasters and non-tasters, and that people who make and sell Tylenol are somehow highly correlated with those on whom it’s effective….
As for the gastro: We’ve had a lot of luck lately with finding an old, smart doctor. Does wonders. Several family members with serious health problems recently pulled this trick, and were given generic and off-patent meds like Tagamet instead of Nexium, old generic blood pressure meds instead of the Latest Ad Thing. Did wonders for them: the older meds worked far better. Consider changing docs, or dropping a stack of PubMed papers onto their desks and insisting they comment on them all….
And, by the way, I hope you feel better.