Is Coeliac Disease Hindering My Recovery from the Stroke?
Over the last few days, I have been getting out to London and Cambridge and today I will try to get to Ipswich. It all depends whether the taxis are running to get me into Haverhill to catch the bus to get me there for the 10:15 coach to the home match against Swansea.
I saw the stroke doctor at Addenbrooke’s yesterday and he suggested that I stop taking the Amitriptyline, as the Keppra was obviously doing its good work. But by nine o’clock last night, I was having a lot of discomfort in my face and in a tooth, so before I went to bed, I decided to take the 20 mg. I should also say that yesterday evening, I was choking slightly on some sort of muck that was getting to the back of my throat. I also had a nose bleed, for a few minutes before I retired. But it was just one of the usual ones that have plagued me all my life, from where I had a wart removed from my nose. But I do worry because of the Warfarin I’m on! But in the end, I slept very well and had about eight and a half hours of good sleep. I was only woken by the lady who organises the Ipswich coaches just after seven calling me on the phone.
My ENT doctor on Monday had given me an all-clear on my sinuses and he had advised me to keep going.
But I can’t get it out of my mind, that something due to the coeliac disease is not helping me recovery as quickly as I should.
But then I’m an engineer and a scientist and all my life I’ve been solving problems. This is probably the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced in my life and I’m determined to beat it. I owe it to my late wife and son to win.
Or it could just be the cold? The basset has decided that she’ll sleep the weather out in the warmest place she can find, only waking for her lunch.
As I write this piece, I’m being watching by the stallion, who has his head over the fence guarding the gate. As I said in an earlier post he’s twenty eight on January the first which is a very good age for a horse. He’ll probably outlive us all!
I Can Now Shuffle a Pack of Cards!
I tried this a few months ago and couldn’t do it, but I thought I’d have a game of patience about an hour ago and I shuffled them without too much trouble.
So my left hand must be getting better!
But the patience didn’t come out!
Digital Rectal Massage
According to QI, this is a cure for hiccups. I didn’t believe them, but I found this on the New Scientist‘s web site.
So next time you have hiccups, you can either try this or that other favourite remedy of drinking a pint of beer from the other side of the glass!
Am I Feeling Better Because of the Keppra
My typing has improved again and I seem to be making fewer mistakes. I seem to have much more control over the Shift and Control keys and I don’t make the spelling mistakes I did a few days ago.
Could this be an effect of taking the Keppra?
Melanie Reid
I follow her articles as she recovers from breaking her neck in a horse riding accident every week in Saturday’s Times.
She is an inspiration to anybody fighting back from a serious medical problem. Myself obviously included.
I hadn’t realised it until today, but I had written a post based on one of her articles in August 2009.
A Setback Yesterday
\i spent most of yesterday in hospital at Addenbrooke’s after what they thought was a post stroke seizure. I was back home by eight with a prescription for Keppra, which is an anti-epilepsy medicine. They also gave me a CT Scan, which showed there was no new damage. So that is good news.
Doctors Working Alone
This post was suggested by some of the comments to my post about Changing Doctors. But in my experience of doctors in the last couple of years, increasingly specialists are working alone and doing much more of the donkey work themselves.
I’ll give three examples.
- In Hong Kong, I had a consultant speech therapist, wh0 did the X-rays himself to check that I could swallow properly. He even gave me a VHS video of it.
- My cardiologist in Cambridge, did the eectrocardigram on me, himself. Whereas the in most hospitals this is delegated.
- When I had the ENT examination after my episode with A&E, the consultant did everything himself.
I have a feeling that this approach is getting more common, as it obviously is more efficient and the doctor an modify his examination depending on what he finds. There is also no communication problem.
I’ve also been told that INR tests are done by the doctor, at my new surgery, so it’s not just at the consultant level. I’ve also had two specialist x-rays recently, where the radiologist worked alone.
To me it’s seems the way medicine is going for relatively simple procedures and some specialist complicated ones too. Obviously modern medical equipment helps, as in many cases it de-skills the actual examination and lets the doctor do what he does best, the analysis of the problem.
But what are the knock on effects in the number of anciliary staff that aren’t needed? headlines such as nurses made redundant are never good publicity, even if the downside is that there were so many more patients treated.
Changing Doctors
When we moved here, getting a doctor took a couple of weeks, as the surgeries were all full. But yesterday, I got a new doctor near to my new house after a couple of phone calls. Incidentally, the one number that dhould have helped me never phoned back.
I’ve told my current GP and she is going to organise a printout of all the relevant details for me, when I go to get my next blood test on the 29th. She aso said that the bulk of the records would be moved by electronic transfer in due course.
So at last we’ve sen some progress in twenty years!
A Replacement for Warfarin?
On BBC Breakfast this morning, they were talking about a replacement for Warfarin, that would be just one pill a day.
For a lot of people, this will obviously be better and it is likely that the cost to the NHS will be less in terms of blood testing. But this new drug will not be cheap.
In a way, I think that the alternative of providing an up-to-date National Anticoagulant Service might be much better.
As an example, I’m moving to London in a few weeks, so I’ll have to get that sorted fairly quickly. But as I usually have to be tested every two weeks or so, I can envisage a few small problems, especially as I’ll be needed to be tested over Christmas.
Stem Cells and Stroke Patients
A lot of people mat well object to the fact that foetal stem cells have been used to help a stroke patient in Glasgow.
I’ve probably been fairly lucky with my stroke and it is doubtful whether I would have needed this treatment.
But, would I have said yes or no, if I had been offered the treatment. I don’t know, but I would have always wanted to get better.
It is interesting to postulate what families and the NHS will say. After all, if someone is completely disabled, it doesn’t help anybody, least of all the patient.
I must admit too, that if this treatment is a success, then the three parties involved, the patient, his family and the health service will all probably be in favour.
It will be interesting to see how the moral arguments develop.
The Anonymous Widower 