Tag

healthcare

Browsing

Wellness: I am feeling so very blessed and I wanted to share my story. Two years ago I had the scare of my life and I am so very grateful to be a survivor. April 20th, 2018, I woke up and something looked wrong with my face, my left eye was tearing and I had no idea what was happening but my husband said let’s go see the doctor. It was my oldest daughter’s last day living at home and her last day at her job in East Hampton, she was moving on with her life and would be starting a new job in NYC. I said let’s go to SagTown in Sag Harbor to get some coffee. Kurt my husband had taken the day off to go to the doctor with me because I was nervous, we ordered our coffee then in a matter of seconds things were progressively moving quickly. I went to the bathroom to look at my eye and when I looked up my face had drooped more, I was immediately nervous. I told Kurt I am very concerned, so he said I will drop Dani off at work and you go pick up the eyedrops, he said we would leave my car in town and he would drive me to my doctor’s office. I went to pick up the drops and came back to my car to put the drops in my eye and wait for Kurt to come back. Kurt called me to make sure I was ok and all of sudden I could not speak, it was terrifying, I honestly did not know what was happening. I heard a tap on the window of my car, I rolled down the window and there was an officer asking me if I was ok. I was at this time unable to speak and became very agitated because I did not know that Kurt had sent them to find me. The officer proceeded to ask me questions and because I was unable to find my voice he became concerned, took my car keys, and called for an ambulance. As you can probably imagine he thought I was having a stroke and there was a small window to rush me to the hospital to minimize the symptoms if this were a stroke. I was very scared, I had never heard of Bell’s Palsy but I did not think I was having a stroke because my parents and grandmother had all had strokes within the last 3 years and I knew the symptoms.

Once I arrived at Southampton Hospital the staff was very attentive and proceeded to do all the necessary tests to rule out a stroke, once they ruled out that I was not having a stroke they then proceeded to assume I was having some mental issues because they could not understand why I was unable to speak. They kept me in the hospital overnight for observation and in the morning a very nice doctor came in and diagnosed me with Bell’s Palsy. He explained what was happening and prescribed anti-inflammatory medication prednisone to help reduce the swelling of the facial nerve. I was released from the hospital later that morning, once I got home I was completely exhausted and just went to sleep for the rest of the day.

What is Bell’s Palsy?

What is Bell’s Palsy: Google definition “Bell’s palsy is a condition in which the muscles on one side of your face become weak or paralyzed. It affects only one side of the face at a time, causing it to droop or become stiff on that side. It’s caused by some kind of trauma to the seventh cranial nerve. This is also called the “facial nerve.”

The recovery was hard, but I was so grateful that it was not a stroke, I was able to care for myself, go to the bathroom on my own, I believe my positive energy is what helped with my recovery. Many say that one gets Bell’s Palsy from Lyme Disease, but for me, I think my Bell’s Palsy was activated by stress. Prior to my illness, I suffered the immeasurable loss of both my mother and grandmother, information that was gut-wrenching was shared with me and it took months to absorb and heal from it. I found myself in the position of being the Matriarch of the family and I felt I had no time to break-down I needed to show strength and so I think all of that bottled up stress needed to be released.

During my recovery it was hard to do many things, eating, drinking, swallowing, talking, smiling, closing my eye, sleeping. My left eye did not close, so I was very tired because when your eye does not blink it can be very exhausting. It was challenging driving, watching television, or being on the computer for an extended period of time. I had to change my daily way of doing things. I went back to work after being home for a couple of days, it was a challenge because I felt all eyes starring at me, but after watching my parents and my grandmother suffered a stroke, I felt like God had spared my life and I did not focus on anyone staring at me. I focused on recovery. After the 1st day, everyone stopped starring it was back to normal. I continued to stay focused and positive on my recovery over the next month. I shut down my computer, television, and phone at 9 pm every night. I researched what I should eat, what I should not eat, and what I needed to do to recover in 4-8 weeks. I avoided foods that contained, Arginine-Rich Foods, Omega-6 Foods, and Trans Fats. This website helped me https://www.livestrong.com/article/352853-foods-to-avoid-when-you-have-bells-palsy/. 

I cannot tell you if that helped, but for me, I was going to take all advice because I was determined to get better. I slept with an eyepatch, it was very helpful, I drank from a straw because drinking from a cup was very hard, 1/2 of my face was paralyzed, I ate soft food because swallowing was a challenge. As my face began to slowly recover it was painful and sleeping at night was a challenge, sometimes I would need to take an Advil to get some sleep. Talking was definitely the hardest part, if I spoke slow I was ok but if I got agitated with someone who I felt could not understand me, my speech would get worst. At that moment I felt the agony of a stroke victim, it humbled me and I would not allow myself to feel sorry for myself. I began to see the progression in four weeks and someone who just met me for the first time would never know a month earlier I had partial facial paralysis; it was able to eat real food, swallow, talk, partial smile. In 2 months I was able to smile, it took a bit longer for my left eye to close completely, washing my face with soap was always a real challenge.

It has been 2 years

It has been 2 years and I still have some residual of my Bell’s Palsy, my left eye twitches and I never feel like it is fully closed, the cemetery of my face is slightly off, but only I notice it and my smile is slightly crooked, but I’ll take it because some never recover. I was one of the lucky survivors and I never stop thanking God for blessing my life. I share my story because I have discovered this happens to many people of all ages all the time.

I wanted someone who might be going through this condition to know that there is hope and you can recover. Be positive, be patient, and be grateful. Don’t let your physical appearance define who you are, focus on recovering and not your vanity. I had an opportunity to interview a doctor who specializes in treating patients who don’t organically recover from Bell’s Palsy, in my part two of this series Recovering from Bell’s Palsy I will share that interview.

I have wanted to share with you a personal story that affected my family regarding Lyme disease, an accidental diagnosis. I thought it was imperative to share my story with you because if it could happen to me, then it could happen to you. I wish I had someone to share his or her story with me before going through the turmoil of a child’s sickness.

Back in December 2012 my youngest daughter started complaining about excruciating headaches. I took her to see her doctor and he looked into her nostrils, checked her ears, diagnosed her with a sinus infection and prescribed an antibiotic for her. After one week on the medication her headaches did not improve and I contacted the doctor’s office to tell them that the medication was not working He suggested I get a nasal spray to treat the ‘sinus infection’ and so I did. Another week goes by and the headaches are not subsiding and I requested to bring her in. At this time I asked if she could have a Lyme disease test because I remembered when I had Lyme, I had similar symptoms. Living in a deer infested area, it is usually the first thing you think about but not the first thing you get tested for. I was told, based on the medication that had been prescribed for the sinus infection, if she did have Lyme, the medication would have taken care of the disease. The doctor told me my daughter had a chronic sinus infection and proceeded to keep her on the same medication for another week. He told me that usually most patients need two weeks on this medication before they will start to feel better. I believed him because he was my doctor for nearly 13 years and I trusted that he was giving me his best medical advice.

My daughter was still having these intense headaches and I am picking her up early from school 3x per week. She is missing classes and yet she was still pushing herself because she did not want to fall behind in school. We were at our wits end because she was going to sleep with the headaches and waking up with them and they were lasting for the entire day. We called our doctor once again to say the medication was not working and we needed to do some tests to see what was the problem. I decided to skip going to our family doctor and requested a referral to see a specialist. I then took her to ENT Specialist (Ear*Nose*Throat) and he sprayed something in her nose and she felt relief for a couple of hours. The ENT took some cultures and recommended that I invest in a night guard for her to bite while she slept to help with her headaches which he indicated might be occurring from clenching and grinding of the teeth. I was crazy with worry and willing to try anything but I chose not to buy this product because I did not think all of a sudden she was getting headaches from her teeth clenching at night.

We are now in February with my daughter is still having these headaches. The day before the huge snowstorm in NY, the ENT was supposed to call me with the results of the culture and yet he does not call. I called the office and was told he was busy with another pressing issue and had his receptionist call me to tell me my daughter’s results were negative; yet, he wanted my daughter to take some drug that he had the nurse call into the pharmacy. I blew a gasket. How dare he just call in a prescription without discussing with me about this medication, side-affects, directions for taking the drug but most importantly why was he prescribing this steroid for my 13-year-old.

I had to file a formal complaint and later that day he calls me to apologize for his oversight. Two days later, we were at his office and he tells me that he wanted my daughter to have a CT-scan. Given his earlier unprofessionalism, I opted to NOT go with his recommendation and I scheduled an appointment to see a pediatric neurologist at Columbia Presbyterian in NYC. I fought for an early appointment and was scheduled to see him within the week. We drove into the city and saw this specialist. I was feeling good about the visit until in the middle of the appointment, in our presence, he takes a personal phone call and all professionalism goes out of the window. At this time my patience is running thin. I get over my frustration and he diagnoses my daughter with chronic migraine headaches and prescribes a drug that required us to have her take a heart screening to make sure she could take this drug that had serious side effects and he also prescribed a MRI (MRI’s use less radiation than CT-scans and are indicated for use in children for diagnostic purposes). My daughter felt relieved that there was a name and hopefully a solution to stop the pain but I did not believe it was chronic migraines. I only say this because my friend suffers from really bad migraines, and even though they knock her around a bit, she has never felt as bad as my daughter does. But that could be because she’s recently learned about weed crumble, and how some types can help with migraines, (https://wccannabis.co/weed-crumble-what-is-it-and-how-to-use-it/). She’s said that it’s managed to relieve her symptoms more than she ever could’ve imagined. That’s good! And that’s why I’m even more convinced that this isn’t chronic migraines that my daughter is suffering from. I thought there’d be no harm done if some drug testing procedures were carried out to give me some more peace of mind.

When we got back home I decided to schedule a full exam for her so that we could have blood-work and urine tests administered because I was not convinced this was a chronic migraine issue. The doctors were telling us she was under stress, it was all in her head, it was the food she was eating, and you name it. The day before her appointment she was so ill, throwing up, fever and stomach pains along with the migraine headaches. I called the doctor to ask to come in a day early. My doctor’s office staff was very rude and seemed not to care about the pain my daughter had suffered with now and everyday for 3 months. I was livid and at that moment called the insurance company and changed her doctor. My Facebook friends gave me a recommendation for a new physician and I called their office and they saw us within an hour. I decided that I wanted her to have a full physical with urine test, blood test and a Lyme test. The doctor questioned why Lyme and I explained to him that my gut was telling me to have this test done. To his credit, he did not disagree with my request. He conducted a through physical and personally scheduled the MRI because we were just thinking the worst (could she possibly have a brain tumor). It was the worst 3 months of my life. We were sleep deprived, uninformed and scared. The next day she had an MRI and she was so brave. It was important to keep her spirits up and keep our promise that we were not going to stop until she felt better. lyme-disease2

It is now the end of February and 4 days after our visit to the new physician, the results were in…my daughter had Lyme Disease The MRI test was negative. I was both relieved and angry. The doctor that I trusted and was his patient for 13 years had misdiagnosed my child and inadvertently caused her unnecessary pain for 3 months because he refused to do a simple Lyme test. It is very important to note that most doctors are unfamiliar with the procedures and indications for testing for Lyme disease, luckily there are home testing lyme disease kits like those found here – https://dnaconnexions.com/product/lyme-panel/ – so I know to do it myself in future. The rule of thumb in the Hamptons is, if all other diagnosis fails and there are symptoms of unknown origin in children and adults, test for Lyme. It is more important in children because many times, they will not express if they are feeling sick and just think that feeling bad is a ‘new‘ normal for them.

What if I was not a hands-on parent? What if I did not have health insurance? What if I did not fight for my child, how long could this have prolonged. She was immediately placed on a very high dosage of antibiotics (500mg cefuroxime axetil twice a day which is a recommended treatment for Lyme). This medication started to work and she started feeling better in 2-3 days but diarrhea was a side effect. Some antibiotics will kill the normal bacteria that live in our bowel. Since my daughter does not like yogurt (the natural way to restore normal bacteria) my pharmacist recommended a probiotic, Florastor for Kids; that helped restore the good bacteria in her bowel. I just mixed it applesauce and gave it to her one hour before she was scheduled to take her medication.

I built her body back up with lots of green vegetables like black kale, broccoli, Brussels sprout and healthy choices. Within 2 weeks she was feeling back to her normal self. It did take an entire month on the medication before she had no more headaches. It has been 5 months since her last headache. If she needs the medication again, I may look to an online pharmacy to help with the Prescription Drug Prices, as they can get pricey otherwise. But I won’t compromise on my daughter’s health.

My friends, I share my story with you because this really could happen to you or your loved one. When an unexplained illness just appears and you know that you have been in an area with ticks, demand a Lyme test just to rule it out. I am no expert on Lyme but I have learned what an insidious disease this is. I am just a mother who was fighting for my child’s life and demanding excellent healthcare services. It is my hope that I have reached at least one person discussing Lyme disease, an accidental diagnosis.

For more information on Lyme Disease click here..

*Note..it is important to know that everyone does not get a bulls-eye rash…often times some do not even know they were bitten by a tick.

Special thanks to Kurt Leggard, for providing health facts in this article.
Kurt Leggard is a Registered Nurse and specializes in Long term and elder care.

SaveSaveSaveSave

Lyme Disease..Are you a victim?….Greetings Hamptons MouthPiece readers….bringing you information you may not be aware of…Today’s topic is Lyme Disease…Many of friends have been victims of Lyme disease and 2 years ago I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease…I was very ill for many weeks and really thought that I was loosing my mind because my doctor did not know what was wrong with me. Thinking back it would have seemed that doing a lyme test would have been the most logical call to action, unfortunately doctors hands are tied and many insurance agencies dictate which test can be administered. Since I did not complain about being bitten by a tick the test was not an immediate decision by my physician. I am not an exception to the rule there are thousands of people who are bitten by a tick and unaware of it. I am well now but not 100% better, I still feel some residual effects from the Lyme but I am very happy that I was finally diagnosed. Know this you have to be your own advocate and if you are not feeling well then 90% of time something is wrong…BE PERSISTENT and demand a test if your mind is telling you that it may be Lyme..

I bring to your attention this Special Documentary Screening on September 16th 2011 at 7pm.“UNDER OUR SKIN” a shocking, real-life thriller that exposes the controversy surrounding LYME disease by: documentary filmaker Andy Abrahams Wilson…
LTV Studio 3 Cinema, 75 Industrial Rd..Wainscot, NY ($15 tickets at the door)
Panel talk follows film with Dr. Joseph Burrascano renowned Lyme Disease specialist and Stacey Sobel, of Turn the Corner Foundation for Lyme research & education.

For more information check out the website www.ht2ff.com….The Hamptons Take 2 documentary Film Festival will be November 18-20 and submission are now open…