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Poked and prodded

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Today turned out to be busy!

My husband usually has Mondays off and works the rest of the week, but he did someone a favor and traded shifts so he worked on Monday and had today off instead. Good timing on the switch as I had a doctors appointment in the afternoon and if I had taken the subway as I’d planned to do it would have taken me well over an hour to get there. Instead it only took about 15 minutes by car!

I’ve been seeing my family doctor and other doctors fairly regularly because my Crohn’s just won’t settle down … plus I had to go in today to get another shot of Depro Provera. No I’m not using it as birth control – even though that is how it’s working on my system … we’re trying it out to see if takes care of my endometriosis. I’ve been on it for almost a year now and since I don’t get my period while I’m on it I’ll have to say it helped because now I don’t have those horrible horrible period pains that were almost making me pass out in pain prior to my starting Depro Provera.

The only bad side-effect is that it’s caused me to gain at least 10 additional pounds … since I have Crohns that’s not too bad (Crohn’s tends to make you lose weight!), but still … I don’t like the extra weight – not at all. Hmmm maybe I should try some Solo Slim ?

I’ve also been having a lot of trouble with my back lately. I’d say it’s been hurting more and more for over a year – especially if I walk a few blocks or do house cleaning like sweeping or vacuuming. I think it’s because I tend to lean forward a little bit when I do those things. Anyway, my back goes into spasms that get worse and worse until i lie down and let my back muscles rest.

At the beginning of February – when my husband was in the hospital with a heart problem – I did a lot of walking back and forth to the hospital. I was carrying things back and forth as well. I think that did my back in … because sometime during those first few days of the month my left thigh went numb and now my whole left leg is pretty numb. I have Vitamin D deficiency too so that might be affecting the bones in my back.

So in addition to seeing the doctor today we also made a trip to the hospitals x-ray department and had my lower back x-rayed.

Then it was off to a drug store to pick up some digestive enzymes. Since my bowels are inflamed due to the Crohn’s disease it’s causing me not to digest some of the foods I eat very well. I also don’t digest some of the pills I have to take each day either … so I’m going to try taking digestive enzymes for a while and see if helps at all.

Finally after being out for about four hours we arrived back home. I didn’t get to rest my sore back though … my husband wanted me to edit one of his posts and he always seems to have trouble resizing photos and then adding them to his blog. I’ve even written out directions but he seems to always need my help. Arghhhh! It’s not that hard – right?

I think I”m just going to relax for the rest of the evening. God knows I need to recover from being poked and prodded all day! LOL But first – dinner! I made a roast yesterday so we’re going to have leftovers … easy!





Not a great day

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I’m nervous about Chris going back to work tomorrow. He’s seemed pretty good since he’s been home from the hospital – only occasionally complaining that he has a funny feeling in his chest or that his lungs feel weird … but the true test will be once he goes back to work. We’ve had so many bad times with his as yet undiagnosed heart problem that I guess it’s natural to worry.

I think the added stress of his illness hasn’t done me any good. My Crohn’s is acting up or else I’ve got a bug. I was up half the night with terrible stomach cramps and pain and it hasn’t been much better throughout the day. Plus my back is bad and I seemed to have hurt my left wrist somehow. Geez, I guess this isn’t the time for either Chris nor I to look into a term life quote! Better to wait until we’re both feeling better I think.

Plus, we’ve been taping shows that are on this evening on our PVR. We had been watching a long movie, but once it was done we started to watch the episode of House that we’d taped only to find that it’s a rerun due to the Presidential address … what Presidential address? It wasn’t listed on our TV’s guide at all. Grrr … so several of the shows we taped tonight are messed up and I had to find them playing later in the evening and retape them. Grrrr.

I guess I’m just grumpy today. I don’t feel well and I can’t even watch the TV show that I wanted to watch.

Natural remedies and supplements for Crohns?

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It’s kind of funny. Whenever I write about my Crohn’s disease and the awful symptoms it causes me I get all kinds of advice and helpful tips from my readers. it’s nice in a way, but I’ve tried just about everything that I think is medically safe – from dozens of medications prescribed by my doctors to natural remedies that I don’t think will do any harm like Cat’s Claw, probiotics and so on.

Most of the suggestions that I get have merit, but there’s always someone that suggests diet pills (why i don’t know) or some kind of multivitamin super supplement like Lipovox. Things like that might help other disorders, but I’m not sure they’d help bowel inflammation.

One of the suggestions I receive recently was Aloe Vera pills. I might try those as others with Crohn’s have found it to relieve their symptoms to some degree. It’s worth a try and shouldn’t do any harm.

When you are sick or if you have a chronic disease have you tried natural remedies or non traditional medicines?

When will this Crohn’s flare end?

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My Crohn’s disease will just not settle down. My abdomen never feels good – at least not in the last three years or so, but I generally don’t have a really really bad spell that lasts two or three weeks continuously, which is exactly what’s happening to me now.

I’ve got more fevers each day than usual – high fevers too, plus abdominal cramps, pain in my right side and well lets just say that there’s little chance that I’d need to use a colon cleanse now or likely any time in the near future thanks to one of this terrible diseases nasty symptoms.

I wonder if the change in the weather has anything to do with my Crohn’s symptoms worsening? I always seem to have worse Crohn’s flares in the Autumn and Spring, but they can occur any time of year, it’s just the fall and spring flares seem to be worse.

Does anyone else with Crohn’s or another Autoimmune disease feel worse at a particular time of year, every year?

I can finally start walking my dog again!

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I’ve been starting wonder if I’m still a blogger. It sure doesn’t seem like it lately. I have a number of blogs and so far this month I’ve written very few posts in each of the blogs. Well … I can blame it on my Crohn’s disease this time. I’ve been very sick for most of this month, and I just haven’t really felt up to writing.

Hopefully I’ll get back in gear soon and start posting at my usual rate.

I’ve had one positive area this month. I can finally walk my dog. Well … I’m not feeling that great, so the walks from me are hit and miss, but it’s progress.

Midnight is only a year old, but she’s so strong! She’s a Lab and she’s really hyper outside, especially if we encounter other people or people walking dogs. Tug, tug, pull pull … I don’t know how many times she’s almost pulled Chris or I off are feet and there’s been a few times when she has actually made us fall.

We finally gave in last Monday. We went to PetSmart to look for a new harness for her. We’d been using the Comfort Wrap harness since June and it helped, but obviously she was still pulling much too hard on our walks. She’d also started to outgrow her current harness so we were trying to get her a larger one.

When we didn’t find a larger harness (she was already wearing a large) we decided to talk with one of the PetSmart clerks. The person who helped us was a very small woman, maybe 5 feet tall if that. She told us that the only way she could walk her big dog (species unknown sorry) was with a prong collar. She said it made a huge difference.

Neither Chris nor I were all that big on trying a prong collar, but we decided to try one out while we were in the store so she found one that would fit Midnight- even taking out two prongs so it would fit better and we proceeded to walk around the store with Midnight.

It was like Night and Day! What a huge difference. Suddenly we were in control. Midnight wasn’t pulling. We walked around and she tried to pull towards some people and other dogs and she wasn’t able to drag us where she wanted to go. She also didn’t jump at people as much either. There was absolutely no sign that the prong collar hurt her so we decided to buy the collar and try it out at home.

That evening Chris and I both took her for a walk and marveled out how nice it was to walk without constantly telling Midnight to walk nice, and not saying “no pull” all the time. In fact, we must have said “good girl” and “good walk” twenty or thirty times on that first walk with the new collar. No more coming home frustrated and sometimes in pain from being dragged along on a walk, and Midnight must have liked being told she was good so many times instead of hearing the frustration and sometimes anger in our voices that usually occurred on walks prior to getting the prong collar.

The next day I took Midnight out for two walks! That was the first time I’d walked her on my own in ages. She was just too strong for me, especially when I’m not feeling well. Don’t worry Chris has been walking her all along so she was getting two or three walks a day with him, but now she gets at least one and sometimes two with me.

The only time I noticed the prong collar hurting her was the other day when she tried to run up to another dog to greet it. She was super excited and just charged at the dog in glee. Unfortunately as she pulled on the leash the collar must have tightened and pinched her skin because she did make a few sounds like she was in pain, but that’s the only sign that the collar hurt her, so if we can try to control her better when she gets really excited around other dogs that shouldn’t happen again.

Have you ever tried a prong collar on your dog? Did it work? Did it ever end up hurting your dog?

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