Tuesday, July 31, 2007

I saw my family doctor today

My insurance company wants me to apply for Canada Pension Plan Disability because I've been off work for awhile and it's expected that I'll be off for some time yet. My family doctor has to confirm that I do have a medical reason to be on disability. I also needed to update him on what's been going on with the Ritalin, the radiation, and the possible cataracts. He figures that I most likely have the start of cataracts as well. Sigh.

Mostly, I needed to talk to him about some problems I've been having digesting certain foods. I don't seem to be digesting foods like bananas, lettuce, and red peppers properly. When I eat these foods they give me terrible pain (it kinda feels like razors scraping my insides) followed by diarrhea that sometimes wakes me in the middle of the night. I've always had problems digesting some foods like fat and dairy products, but the inability to digest the foods above is new and is getting worse. When I talked to my doctor about this today, he at first told me to just not eat these foods. After I explained what it felt like and what happens he decided to look into it further. He's referring me to a gastroenterologist.

It's entirely possible that the problems I'm having stem from some subset of the drugs that I take, or that I have some kind of food intolerance, or even that I have an H. pylori infection gone wild. I don't know whether to hope for more tests to figure out what's going on or for the specialist to say that these symptoms are nothing to be concerned about. I guess it's important to get these symptoms checked out.... but in some ways I'd rather remain blissfully ignorant. You know?

1 comment:

Darling Jee said...

For some reason, "an H. pylori infection gone wild" made me laugh. I know it's not that funny, but the imagery is funny. I guess I'm picturing that going on in my tummy too :)