Ear Woes

I turn 26 this May, which means my parents' health insurance will stop covering me at the end of the year. I am up for a better job at work which would include healthcare, but we don't know yet when that hiring process will begin, let alone be resolved so I don't know when or if I'd be getting that new insurance.

I've always tried to keep on top of my health, and I have spent the last several years going to too many doctors too often. However, with the looming expiration of my health insurance policy I've felt driven to tackle a lot of concerns that I previously considered too minor, especially compared to my other problems, to bother going to the doctor over.

In addition, one of my best friends is getting married at the end of August this year and as the maid of honor I will be in the secondary spotlight and in a lot of photos and I have suddenly begun to feel highly self-conscious of all the little things I've put off improving about my appearance. I haven't had a haircut in over two and a half years, my teeth are yellow, I'm about ten pounds overweight and far too little of my body mass is muscle... you get the picture.

As part of this general drive to fix my body, both in the sense of healthcare and in terms of cosmetic issues, I have begun pursuing treatment for my scars.

I got my first keloid scar sometime fairly early in college. It might've been the ear piercing that got infected and closed up into a big scar, but I think the first one was the burn on my lower spine. The first time I actually noticed a keloid, though, was the third time. I had to have my gallbladder removed in January of 2010 and although it was done laproscopically, my incisions were closed up with glue and the edges were poorly aligned and in general the whole thing was a mess and I ended up with three dark, raised scars on my stomach and a fourth in my belly button. The last keloid (thus far) appeared on my chest after I had a mole removed on the advice of my dermatologist. Even though a plastic surgeon did that one, it formed a big thick raised scar and a year of over-the-counter treatments and patches did nothing for it.

So finally, at the end of 2013, I went back to that plastic surgeon and he injected the scar on my chest (the only one that's highly noticeable, and will be completely visible in my bridesmaid dress) with a treatment to reduce it. It did help but I'm going back for a followup and, I expect, a second injection to flatten and lighten it further. If this goes well, I may repeat the process on the scars on my stomach.

I went to another plastic surgeon, one who is also an ENT and who I have seen before in that capacity, about the scar on my ear. It was on the back of my ear and was a perfectly round, red bump about the size and shape of half a pea where the second piercing in my left earlobe once was. The appearance of it always bothered me a little but more than that was the feel of it, and the fact that it still often itched and hurt, even years and years after its initial formation. Plus, it was so big that I couldn't wear studs in the remaining piercing in that ear.

On Tuesday I went in for the surgery to remove the scar from my ear, which was kind of awful mainly because I could hear the entire process - the incisions, the electric cauterizer, the stitches, everything. Because the scar was on the back of my ear they had to fold my whole ear forward, effectively turning it into a drum that carried all those sounds right into my ear canal. So while I couldn't feel anything thanks to lidocaine, I was forced to listen to it all and it was quite difficult psychologically.

It was also quite painful once the anesthetic wore off. I had to raid my stash of Vicodin leftover from a virus I had a few weeks ago because Tylenol didn't even touch it. It itched incessantly and exploded in pain any time I accidentally brushed against it.

I was instructed by the surgeon to wash it three times a day and, each time, apply Vaseline to protect the incision. I spooned about a tablespoon of Vaseline into a glass bowl and mixed in five drops of lavender oil, four drops of frankincense, and three of melaleuca (I am taking a prescription antibiotic and I hate the smell of melaleuca so I skimped a bit). I have been applying this after every cleaning and I am thrilled with the results. My ear has been hurting and itching less, and that is huge! It's only been two days and the swelling is supposed to increase over the first 48 hours but mine stopped when I started applying the oils (about 24 hours after the procedure). I am looking forward to watching the swelling go down because I think it's the cause of most of my discomfort.

doTERRA oils have saved the day again!

Something Right

It's been a long time since I've posted, because there hasn't been much to remark on. This past week, though, I have noticed some changes.

Now, it's a little TMI but for those of us with prolactinomas, it's pretty common for our breasts to react to elevated prolactin in... interesting ways. But lately the tenderness and the "full" feeling have diminished. I don't know why, but I'm pretty happy about it. Normally the only time I get relief is when I'm on my period, but I am not right now and I feel great.

I have to assume that it's eating better and taking my doTERRA vitamins. Maybe Breathe has helped, too - I wear it almost every day because the pleasant smell subconsciously nudges my body into breathing deeper and more often. I tend to get "in the zone" at work, during which my breathing gets slow and shallow but Breathe helps me remember to, well, breathe! That means I am more awake because I'm getting more oxygen. I also love InTune for being better than coffee at helping me to focus - between that and Breathe, I think my work productivity has greatly improved. At the very least, I'm able to come home at the end of the day and not feel wiped out.

Now, since I am generally feeling better I have noticed that my eating habits have improved. I am snacking less (I have particularly cut back on the late-night snacking) and eating small portions like I used to. I don't care for the taste of Slim & Sassy so I haven't been using it, but I think that a lot of my overeating was tied to stress and now that I am feeling less stressed, my body has gone back to healthier habits.

So here I am, holding my second box of the Lifelong Vitality Pack, and I am feeling good! Now, I have to get back to packing because my boyfriend and I are leaving tomorrow for a long weekend in California!

Improvements, Setbacks, and Plans

I was doing really well for a week or so.

Then I got a cold.

Not a few sniffles and a runny nose and oh I better stay home with some tea for a day or two so I don't get all my coworkers sick.

Nope, I lost two weeks of my life. For the first ten days, it just got worse every day. Then suddenly I was mostly better. I finally went back to work today and even made it through the day, although I am still feeling pretty sick. I just couldn't keep taking sick time that I don't have.

So now I'm not going to yoga or exercising on my own or going to meditation class because I can't breathe. And I kept forgetting to take all my supplements when I was sick. I think this is the first day in two weeks that I remembered to take both doses.

Before I got sick, I was doing a little better, I think. The lactation was really bad for a while before I started the supplements, but recently it's been much better and when I was sick it actually stopped. My period has been known to be lighter, shorter, or skip a month altogether when I'm sick so it doesn't surprise me that other hormonal body functions were also affected. I'm back to "normal" in that department now, though, which is a little unfortunate but it's motivating me to get back into the routine of living well because I really do think that it helped lower my prolactin levels and reduce lactation. I was also eating a lot of the good foods on my cheat sheet (just realized I never blogged about this - I'll come back to it in a minute) but since I've been sick I haven't been able to taste anything and have been eating less.

On the subject of my cheat sheet, I have been reading a lot about how diet can affect prolactin. I've been hearing a lot about three categories of food being particularly good for limiting prolactin levels or for dealing with prolactinomas - antioxidant, alkaline, and what I call "dopamine friendly" foods. This last category is mainly foods high in tyrosine, which is necessary for the production of dopamine and norepinephrine.

I skipped over all the foods I don't like (sorry, beans!) but this is what I got as a general outline of good things to eat:

Now, I'm not going to go around eating tons of all of this. Some of it is still a bad idea to eat. For instance, oatmeal exacerbates lactation. But I left that on there to remind me to eat some oatmeal when I'm on my period (because I stop lactating then for some reason). But the point is that I wanted something to help me look at my food options so I could choose to eat meals that include at least one thing on this chart. 

I realize that's not going to have a radical effect on my health, but it's a baby step towards more drastic dietary changes that I know have helped a lot of people. This way, if I decide one day that I want to try cutting out gluten or eating raw or going vegetarian for a few months, I already have experience making deliberate decisions on what to eat, and I know of at least a few healthy things that I like.

So for right now, I want to get back on track with the supplements and exercise, and I want to start making every meal I eat contain at least one thing on that chart because it shouldn't be too hard. And someday I'll bump it up to two, or three. Or I'll assign each item points based on how many circles it's in and challenge myself to get a certain number of points in a day or a week. And maybe someday I'll actually be able to put myself on a healthful diet because I'll be used to thinking about what I eat.

My #1 Problem

I expect this is true of most people, but the biggest obstacle between me and a healthier lifestyle is... myself. I am an inherently lazy person. When I am not feeling well, I don't push myself. I will lay in bed for three days, crawling out of it only to fulfill my needs. I think that generally my physical well-being and emotional well-being are very tightly connected. If one is lacking, the other quickly falls to its level.

I have workarounds for the laziness. I can force myself to do things, to move. But that all goes right out the window when I am sick or stressed out or exhausted. I started to feel sick on Monday afternoon at work, and have been basically lying around since then feeling sorry for myself, and honestly I cannot tell you whether I am actually sick or just feeling pathetic. My father has this same problem, and it drives me absolutely crazy so it's difficult for me to state it so plainly, but there it is. Sometimes I don't know whether I'm actually ill or if it's all in my head.

I was in bed for 20 hours (asleep for about 16 of them) on Monday night into Tuesday, and when I got up it was mainly to throw myself into the shower and boil some pasta. The highlight (if you could call it that) of my day was a short battle with a centipede over who owned my shower. I won, for the record. Oh the joys of living in a basement...

Pretty much the only thing positive I can say is that I took all my supplements. Otherwise, I have been a bump on a log. It was a little better when I lived with my parents because my mom would eventually get on my case about it, but now that I'm effectively living on my own, there's nobody to accuse me of faking illness to get out of doing something (which hasn't been the case in about ten years, but what more can you expect from a mother?). On the other hand, it is good that I no longer feel criticized every time I feel sick - which is a lot of the time.

This is one the major things I want to change about myself, one of the things that I think has to change if I want to be healthier. I think I will always be lazy, but I want to get better at fighting against that. But I have no idea how to do that. I don't know how to tell myself, "I know you feel like you're going to throw up, but why don't we go for a walk?" Because the answer is always, "Only if it's in the direction of the toilet." I am lucky if I can drag my sorry butt across the house, let alone out of it.

I am really hoping that the supplements will give me more energy. It might not help me when I'm feeling down, but if I can get into the habit of doing more when I feel well, I will either feel really guilty about being lazy the rest of the time or I will figure I've earned it. Either way, I'd feel better about it than I do now. Or if they help me feel sick less often, that would be great too.

So far it's only been a couple of days so I don't expect anything to be different. The first day or two I was really bothered by the taste of the pills, and the way I could taste them when I burped. Since then I've starting taking them before I eat, which has helped with the aftertaste, and have been taking them with juice instead of water, which has helped to mask the flavor.

I forgot about my heart rhythm meditation class tonight and missed it, and will probably be out sick from work tomorrow, too. I hope I can rally enough to make it to yoga on Thursday because I really need to be doing that, but I just don't know.

I mixed frankincense, balance blend, and lavender oil in my lamp diffuser to help me relax and that has done the trick, but it is significantly easier to settle myself than it is to motivate - and settling isn't easy.

So, this post has no real conclusion. I work through problems verbally, and this has been an attempt to figure out my laziness. I would welcome any suggestions.

Bad News and Good News

Last time I was here, I was doing well. I had recovered from post-concussive syndrome and fibromyalgia. I had been off all my medications for a year. Things were hard but I was doing my best, and I was feeling okay.

And so, I fell back into old habits. I grew complacent, and I got lazy. I stopped taking care of myself.

I didn't really notice the first signs that something was wrong. The weight gain seemed like an over-correction after my gallbladder surgery restored my ability to eat. The tiredness and headaches seemed to be from the stress of grad school.

Then, it got creepy. Now, this is absolutely positively TMI. It's a little gross. I haven't told many people about this but here I am, opening up and trying to be honest about this. The first time I thought, "There is something wrong with me," was the night I discovered I was lactating. It's just a tiny bit and I don't "leak," but it's enough to make me feel awkward. I have gone up two cup sizes.

That realization was a year ago now. It took a long time to figure out what was happening. I suffered through repeated blood tests, an MRI of my pituitary, a bilateral breast ultrasound - my doctor threw everything at it that she could think of. Aside from elevated prolactin in my blood - that's the hormone that causes, you guessed it, lactation - everything came back normal. Finally she sent me to an endocrinologist. She pulled strings to get me an appointment in two weeks instead of four months.

I went to the appointment. The doctor reviewed my files. He told me that there's only one explanation that hasn't been ruled out: I have a tumor on my pituitary gland, called a pituitary adenoma. Since mine affects prolactin, it's called a prolactinoma. It didn't show up on MRI, which means it's very, very small. Less than three millimeters. But it's still a tumor. In my brain.

I freaked out.

My doctor and I decided not to put me on meds - my symptoms are commonplace to me now, and I don't react well to most medications so unless my prolactin levels rise, I experience infertility, or my symptoms worsen I don't need to put unnecessary chemicals into my body. A prolactinoma is a benign tumor that can usually be managed, but in severe cases may need to be surgically removed.

It took me a long time to get used to the idea that I have a brain tumor. I spent a lot of time on Google. I eventually found this blog: http://ihaveprolactinoma.blogspot.com and that's where I first heard about using natural healthcare, including essential oils, to deal with prolactinomas.

The blog's author founded a support group on Facebook, and I joined it and was thrilled to find myself surrounded by people going through the same thing as me. I learned that I am relatively lucky - my prolactin is slightly elevated (48 on the last test), but some women have levels more than ten times greater than mine. I heard their stories, and I knew that if they could get through this, then I can, too.

I ordered some essential oils, fell instantly in love, and have since become addicted to doTERRA essential oils. I wear a terracotta pendant every day, to constantly diffuse whatever oil I most need on any given day. I set up my bedside lamp as an oil diffuser. I have gotten half my coworkers interested in the oils, too.

They have helped me feel better. I switched from full-time to part-time at work. I started going to a heart rhythm meditation class with my coworkers. I found a new yoga studio (and got my butt kicked at the first class!). I am working towards being in control of my life and my body (within reason, of course), so I am learning to deal with stress, trying to lose weight, and hoping to get strong and fit.

And now I've taken one more step. I am starting a vitamin regimen created by doTERRA. By the way, I apparently have a page on doTERRA here. Anyway, on the advice of my IPC I ordered:

• Women's Phytoestrogen Complex (hormone regulation)
• Alpha CRS+ (cellular vitality)
• xEO Mega (omega fatty acids)
• Microplex VMz (essential vitamins and minerals)
• DDR Prime (cellular renewal)
• Slim & Sassy oil blend (metabolism booster)

I am really excited because I know these have helped a lot of people and I fully trust doTERRA's quality standards. I have already been amazed by how well the oils work, and I am looking forward to increased energy and a general sense of well being, both of which are sorely lacking in my life right now.

I am optimistic about my life right now, and I feel that I am moving in the right direction. I am a little apprehensive about going from zero pills a day to sixteen but I think I can handle it. The support group has been a miracle for me, keeping me going and providing new ideas all the time. I don't know where I would be without them, or my oils. I hope that in thirty days I can say the same for my vitamins.

Being Well

Just popping in for an update. I'm still in school, although next week will be the last of the semester so it's a stressful time. But I've tried to be friendlier with my classmates at MU than I was at UMBC and I think I'm doing a pretty good job of being social.

Yeah, this happened. Three of my
classmates: Brian, Tabitha, and Kat.

I had my check-up with Dr. A last week. It went really well! I was a little sore from exercising (okay, Wii Fit, but come on, I was doing something) the day before but everything looked good. I've been doing so well that we've decided not to put me back on my medications, just the vitamin D because I continue to be deficient.

She had me set up an appointment in six months to make sure I'm still feeling well then, but she said I can cancel the appointment if I don't have any concerns.

Then she said something magical.

She said that if I don't have any problems, I don't have to go back. She'll be there if I need her but I don't have to go back.

I cannot express how incredible this is. I cannot tell you what it is like to have a doctor, one that I hated going to because she pressed on sore spots and gave me more pills and didn't understand, tell me that I'm well and I don't have to see her anymore. I feel like my health has turned completely around and I can't believe it.

She did point out that she doesn't know it won't come back. I'm being very realistic about this - it probably will come back at some point. But right now, I am well and I am healthy and I am not sick, I don't have to go to the doctor every three months or even see a specialist at all. I can use my Wii Fit for a half hour and I'm exhausted because I am in no kind of shape whatsoever but I have knowledge of a hundred types of pain and exercise doesn't give me any of the bad ones anymore.

Sunset in Greece

I took almost two weeks off from school and went to Greece for a job. I climbed a steep, high hill every day for over a week and did intense work clearing land and searching the surface for artifacts, and it was awful sometimes but I was okay. I rested more than the others but I never reached a point where I had to sit down and say, "I can't do this."

I am well, and it is indescribably beautiful.

No News is Good News

I haven't been posting here because I've been doing pretty well. The summer flew right by. My mother and I drove out to Iowa where I visited the graves of my Gammon ancestors. My only real problem that whole time was that by the time we got home I was having muscle spasm in my back, probably from a combination of being in the car almost all the time and sleeping on cheap hotel mattresses.

The gravestone of my great-great-great-
grandfather James Wilkenson Gammon.

After I got back from Iowa I made a costume and went to Otakon in Baltimore. My feet did some weird things that weekend but otherwise I was fine.

My costume as Schia Donnerstag from the
game Atelier Marie. With our dog, Cookie.

I've been off all of my medications since May. I have had bad days but no fibromyalgia flares. My doctor wasn't pleased that I went off my meds but she is glad I'm feeling better. I'll see her again after Thanksgiving to talk about going back on Savella - usually I feel worse as the weather gets colder. My cognitive problems have let up too, though, so I wonder if maybe the fibromyalgia is going away as I recover from that concussion.

As it turns out, I did apply for graduate school at Monmouth University and was accepted. On the way to Iowa, mom and I stopped at IUP. It's so far and it's not a place I could see myself going to school. Now I am living at home with my parents and going to school only a half-hour away. I got mono and missed a bunch of class, so now I am only in one class. I really thought mono would be the thing to bring the fibro back, but it didn't. My classmates are great, I try not to talk to them too much about my challenges while still being honest. So, with any luck, I will have a master's degree in anthropology in a couple of years!

I am just taking it one day at a time for now. I still believe that there is a day coming that will bring fibromyalgia back into my life full-force but I am happy it hasn't come yet. I'm holding onto my painkillers because I need them when we travel. I will probably start taking the vitamin D again but I really want to avoid medications as much as possible. I am not exercising but I am taking the stairs more often than the elevator on my way to class. I am pushing myself informally, at events with friends and the like. It thrills me to make it through things without pain or fatigue, but I am still scared of pushing too hard.

My greatest victory is this: I do not feel like a sick person. I still think of myself as a sick person, but I don't feel like one!