I hope everything works out.
Thanks mang.
Long story ahead -
Last week in general was high stress. I spent most of the week somewhere between upset and furious.
Thursday night I was casually putzing on the computer when I suddenly noticed a visual anomaly.
In the center of vision on my left eye there was a circular area that was out of focus and slightly dim. The size was comparative to maybe slightly larger than a golf ball at arm's length. It was also shifting color when I blinked. If my eye is opened, it is slightly orange. When I close it, it turns blue and persisted. The transition when I blink looks sort of like a flash. In low light it is very noticeable. Outside in daylight the effect is drastically reduced, almost nonexistent. If I close my right eye and strain it mostly comes back into focus, but not quite. So I'm thinking nerve problem.
Very disconcerting. Thought I may have been having a stroke, a tumor, a detached retina etc etc. Of course the first fucking thing I do is start looking at websites. All sorts of scary shit. MS, mini-strokes, fungal infections of the sinuses, diabetes, the list is fucking never ending.
One thing that came up was Central Serous Retinopathy. Matched almost exactly my symptoms minus the color shift.
But you know what? I'm not a fucking doctor. But I don't think about that fact. I figure I know better than people who do things for a living because that's sorta how people like us tend to operate.
So Friday we shoot up to Greenfield Village, like I talked about in another thread. I'm 400+ lbs and sit at a desk most of the day. Sure, I go out and buy groceries and clean house and stuff, but I'm outta shape. So I have this vision thing which I think but wont say is maybe a mini stroke and I go walking what is basically a two or three mile jaunt at tourist speed through a spooky haunted village setup. Less than halfway I'm feeling pretty fucking bad. Sore, face and head feel swollen. Kinda dizzy. So I freak out a bit and want to rest several times. Trying my best not to freak my wife out. She can obviously see I'm tired and not well.
Anyway we take a breather and I start to feel a lot better. We finish the walk and have a generally great time. Watched kids and parents all dressed up, THOUSANDS of them, walking though the old timey town. Great fun.
But I know there's a fucking problem and I know the weight thing really has to come to an end.
We tried the Rice Diet and I lasted maybe six or eight months. I was miserable and hating life the whole time. I'm sure I was pretty intolerable to live with.
I went on Weight Watchers. Counted points for my own food rather than buying their prepacked meals. That worked pretty well for me, but I was cooking for two (I do most/all the cooking around the house, unless it's baking. M does the baking.) I had a good bit of success. Lost close to thirty pounds in 12 weeks or so. But it was expensive and M was having major problems with it. Very hard to cook two separate meals all the time. I found I was spending a couple hours a night and maybe a three hour stretch on weekends trying to put together premade dishes that could be reheated. Food became a constant worry and balancing points became sort of an obsession. When Mel's last contract ended we couldn't afford it anymore so I went back to cheap and unhealthy and gained most of it back.
So we talk Friday night about the issue. We decide we're gonna try the Paleolithic Diet because we've got friends who have been having a lot of luck with it. I'm not gonna go fucking blind and die of a stroke at 37 years.
We start Paleo Saturday. Everything seems fairly cool. (Mind you, eye symptoms are still here) Sunday good. Monday good. Tuesday I start to feel shitty. Mild Headache, maybe a tiny bit confused and disoriented, generally fucking tired as hell and mopey. Forgot my pin number at the store for a second. Decided it was my blood pressure and had wife bring home a bunch of aspirin. Took too much and had aspirin OD side effects. Tinnitus etc. That evening we're watching something after dinner and I'm breathing deeply. All of this stuff is scaring the shit out of me and I'm trying deep breathing exercises. I hyperventilate myself.
So now I have Aspirin OD symptoms, eye symptoms, hyperventilation symptoms. Hyperventilation can cause nausea and numbness to the face. Sure, it's not localized, but FUCK I AM HAVING A STROKE.
So I have a near panic attack. Look more online and consider maybe that it was the deep breathing. Try to calm down and numbness goes away. Still generally feel crappy so I go to bed at around 7:30 or so. That night I had to get up to pee like five times and sweated like a mother all night.
Yesterday I wake up feeling even shittier than before. Headache, slight nausea, totally lethargic. I'm starting to think that the high protein, high fat, low carbs of the Paleo diet are gonna kill me dead.
Pretty much spend all day yesterday in bed feeling horrible. Start looking for info about Paleo diet and lethargy. Some dude posted about how he needed more potassium because of constantly having to pee and there being a balance between salt and potassium you have to work out.
I realize that I have changed my diet from probably 90% carbs to probably 5% carbs in one fell swoop and have barely been drinking anything.
So I look up dehydration.
90% of the symptoms are overlapping with all my other combined symptoms.
So at around 3pm I start sipping half a mouthful of water every ten minutes or so. About an hour later I start peeing every half hour. I keep drinking. M gets home with Potassium tabs. I take a couple and keep drinking. Pee breaks get down to every fifteen minutes or so. The quantity of water I drank in that time period wasn't crazy. It was about one liter over four hours. Urine was clear like it had never seen a human body. Found Diabetes Insipidus online. (It's not a sugar thing but a hormonal problem that makes your kidneys kinda ignore water, and makes you drink more to compensate, chronic but not life threatening problem.)
So I decide I have that. Suddenly, without warning.
I am feeling better (Because I was definitely dehydrated and was treating it.) but still felt woozy and out of sorts and my head was feeling weird. Not quite there, all the way. So I finally say yes when M asks me if I'm willing to go to the urgent care joint.
Special note - We have equipment in the house to test sugar levels. I did so four or five times between Tues and Wed. Lowest was in the 80s and highest was 129 about an hour after meal. Highly unlikely that I have T2 Diabetes coming on. It's definitely not a sugar thing.
M has a new jerb and her insurance kicks in Nov 1. This is the reason I haven't gone at the first symptom with the eye. I'm not stupid, but I am cheap and afraid of medical costs. Great timing to be right in the five day period where we're uninsured.
We go to urgent care. I tell the whole story to an intern, who writes shit down. My primary concerns are the visual problem and the peeing every fifteen minutes.
Dude comes in and asks me a few questions. Looks into my ear.
You have a sinus problem. Not draining. I can see it. Your eye hurt when you look up? A little, yes.
He looks into my eye. No problems with back/inside of my eye, or nothing obvious.
He asks me if I have drainage from my eye. I'm not sure what he means but for months my left eye has been goopy and crusty when I wake up.
Yeah, you have a sinus problem.
Antibiotics, steroids, (Not taking yet because if the eye is something else it could make it worse) and a bunch of Xanax to help me calm the fuck down. Tells me to go see an Ophthalmologist just in case.
BTW -
Blood pressure - 130/90 (Not super but not even in the danger zone)
Heart - Sounds fine. Pulse was 86. Oxygen level normal.
Pee issue started to taper off. So I start antibiotics last night, take another this morning. Feel better. Eye was still packed with goop this morning and maybe a tiny bit blurrier. I go up to the pharmacy and jump through hoops so I can buy a package of fucking Sudafed. Take some. Twenty minutes later I start to feel hot liquid pouring into my nasal cavity and throat. Eye symptoms lessen. I can now, if I cover my right eye, read fairly well. Still a circle that changes color and is blurry, but I can see now. +1.25 readers make it almost negligible. Sunlight or a lot of light in general also also reduces.
Not sure at this point if the issue is totally being addressed, but it's starting to look better.
So here's the deal - I'm am not having a stroke or heart issues. After days of near panic and freakout and creating more symptoms, what I may have had all along is chronic sinusitis. Not 100% sure yet, but I feel better.
Real problem - Sinuses and dehydration.
What I thought it was - everything in the world.
What I learned - Go see a fucking doctor. It cost $50 for the visit and $45 for the meds with no insurance at an urgent care joint, and I feel a lot better knowing rather than chasing every symptom on Earth and wondering if I have MS or a tumor or a stroke or heart failure or what.