Hope you didn't click on this thinking I could solve a problem with your kitchen table!
I know nothing about furniture. But I DO know how to spout an unqualified medical diagnosis while sitting at my kitchen table.
Remember how Farmer H has been having pain in the back of his thighs? Such a bad pain last week that it curtailed his Friday afternoon fat-chewing session with his cronies, an activity that requires nothing but sitting on his rumpus. AND he skipped an auction, because when he got up to leave the last one, he was afraid he couldn't walk to SilverRedO.
Anyhoo... I first thought he had overworked himself while putting flooring in Back-Creek Neighbor Bev's new old house. And that he needed some slow stretching exercises to limber up. But no. Farmer H said he only CUT the boards, and had his Old Man Buddy put them down.
I moved on to asking if he was on any new medication. And if he was taking statins for cholesterol. He is. He asked the pharmacist, who said they COULD cause muscle pain. But I figured it would be odd to only have pain in those back-thigh muscles.
When Farmer H was so debilitated that he had to hold onto furniture while walking through the Mansion, sighing so heavily that I thought his lungs might fling themselves out his pie-hole... I suggested that maybe he was having issues with his back. Namely, a disc pressing against a nerve. He's had surgery, you know, for such a thing in his neck, and has also had further treatments for it, to relieve the pains in his arms. So it would make sense that a disc problem lower on his spine could affect his legs. The pain was worse in the morning. Which was the case with his arm pain as well.
Anyhoo... Farmer H's nurse practitioner sent him for an MRI of his legs, and an ultrasound to check the circulation. Which came back fine. No circulatory problems. He didn't get the results of the MRI, but made an appointment to see is his NP on Tuesday. That's the only day she works! Which would have me getting a new NP, since the odds are only 1 in 7 that I would be sick on a Tuesday.
Anyhoo... he was feeling a bit better, with the severe pain having lessened over the weekend. When he got home from his Tuesday appointment, he said his NP had sent him for a back x-ray. I swear, they have made Farmer H a six million dollar man, with all the tests he's had over the years from that office.
Anyhoo... Farmer H had a revelation that he learned from his NP:
"She thinks it's my back. In the discs. She put her thumbs on my lower back and pressed, and I about went through the roof! That's exactly what is causing my leg pain. She said she could give me a steroid shot and clear that pain right up."
Which is also what I'd told Farmer H about immediate treatment for his severe pain. He's not one to take pain pills. They make him queasy. He has some from his most recent surgery, but hasn't taken them. I don't know if the NP is waiting on x-ray results, or what. She did NOT give Farmer H a steroid shot. Maybe next Tuesday...
I guess I'm as good as a one-day-a-week nurse practitioner for diagnosing back-of-thigh pain. And without expensive tests.
2 comments:
My kitchen doesn't have a table, there's no room for one. You were right about the discs, I remember when my son had back surgery because a disc was pressing on a nerve and he still gets pain in his legs, just a lot less, but has trouble sitting down. He stands up or he lies down, no sitting. He manages short trip in a bus or taxi.
I wonder if Farmer H has queasiness because he takes the pain pills without eating something first, those pills ALWAYS require food to be in the stomach when you take them.
River,
Farmer H seems to get more pain from lying down. It was the same with his arms, before he had surgery and got a metal plate put in his neck. He still gets pain in his arms now, too, but had some procedure that makes it better for about a year or more each time. The leg issue is new.
The medicine thing seems to be unrelated to food. Farmer H almost always has food in his stomach! It's something about the medication itself. He will tell the doctors, and they'll prescribe something different, but it seems to be most of the opioids that affect him.
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