On April the 18th I saw a Functional Medicine practitioner.  It was interesting.

She asked me a lot of questions, a thorough medical history, a short exam….it was a long visit.  But tell me, why do providers send you the information to fill out before you get there if they aren’t going to look at it until you are sitting in the office.  I feel like that’s a waste of time.  Me just sitting there while they read the information they’ve had for days.  Of course, I don’t feel they should do a lot of work when I’m not there, they don’t get paid extra, but being prepared would be nicet.

We talked quite a while.  She thinks I have an autoimmune disease, just like other doctors do, they think they just don’t have a test for it.  I don’t really see what difference it makes to know if I have an autoimmune disease or not.  There isn’t a one stop treatment for those diseases.  Mostly I see doctors giving those with autoimmune steroids.  Something I can’t take.

She wants me to get some blood tests done.  One for allergies, one for genetics, and one for….oh golly, I don’t remember what the other one was for.  My insurance doesn’t pay for any of this.  It’s expensive.  I haven’t gotten them done yet.  I was waiting on my insurance to see if they pay for anything, and now I’m waiting on my ride.  It’s a little difficult when you depend on someone else to drive you places, and that person works full time.  Stuart doesn’t mind taking me, but his time is limited.  We’ll get there.

We talked about my migraines, she is hoping to find a trigger with the tests.  She suggested Magnesium Threonate (see the image above, I got mine from Amazon), and turmeric for the pain.  I started them within a couple of days and boy has it made a difference.  I’ve had days without migraines.  That’s HUGE!  I have that base line headache all the time, it’s been there most of my life, but the migraine on top of that has left me for a few days at a time.  I’m shocked at how much this has helped me.  Shocked!  Why hadn’t my migraine specialists suggested this in the past.  It really bothers me that I may have been helped years ago, if only someone would have suggested the right form of magnesium.  Heck, I never had a doctor suggest magnesium at all.  I started taking it because I read about it.  But I didn’t know there were different kinds and I couldn’t tolerate the kind I was taking.  I’m just so grateful for the relief.

I’ll go back to the functional medicine practitioner after I get the blood tests done.

This week a very good friend of mine came for a visit.  It was so nice to see her.  She lives on the opposite side of the country from me, our visits are rare, and precious.  It was so nice to have a real friend come and spend time with us.

Kym and I went shopping.  I went out without Stuart for the first time in over 5 years.  It was liberating, but it was also a little scary.  However, Kym is one of the most level headed people I know and I knew she would not freak out if something happened.  She did something so right.  At one point I felt I needed to go home and I said so, she just said, “Okay, let’s go.”  She didn’t freak out and ask me countless times if I was okay.  She trusted me to tell her if things were getting  bad.  I admit though that I may have pushed it further but I was a little scared and tired.  It was a very good shopping trip.  No I didn’t go crazy with the spending, but I did find a couple of cute things that fit.  (I’ve lost a lot of weight recently, so I need clothes that actually fit me now.  Kym is a good person to shop with.

Vertigo has been kind to me recently.  I’ve had very little spinning, and when I do it is just a slight spin, nothing to worry about.  I did fall last week, and hurt my back a little, but really it’s nothing to be concerned about.  If things go as well as they have been I won’t have anything to write about.  LOL