Medication Resumation

It seems that after I have a good week and I'm actually feeling half decent, along comes some snag or issue that pushes me back a notch. The issue for this weekend was a pain in one of my thighs that felt like someone stabbed me in the leg. (I didn't see a knife or a gaping wound, so I don't believe that this was the case.) Anyway, the pain was so bad that it was difficult putting weight on the leg. It really sucked... ruined my weekend. Even the Patriots thrashing of Buffalo did little to raise my spirits.

After speaking with a doctor yesterday, I ruled out a blood clot. I've come to the conclusion that I just bruised my leg, and the fluid I am retaining is just pushing on it, causing serious pain. I blew off the dust off of my water pill bottle and took some Lasix to give my leg a break. I believe that did the trick as there is less pressure on it, and it's feeling much better.

As I reported a couple of weeks ago, I was playing with all of my medications to see if they were the cause of some of the aches and pains, fatigue, and other issues over the last month or so. It seems that when I take my Crestor medication, I get all achy and don't feel good. By the way, this is a common side effect with any lipid medication. So I stopped taking it.

Whenever you get any side effect from any medication, it is very important to let the doctor know as soon as possible. While most side effects are harmless, there are some that could be indicators for a major issue. Thus its better to be safe than to be sorry. I complained to my cardiologist about this, and he allowed me to resume it again at half dose (20mg/day). So we'll see how that goes.

-

Some of you may know that our friend Philip is going in for his second transplant very soon. He'll be writing his experiences on his second time around on his blog. There's only one thing worse about getting high-dose chemotherapy -- that's getting it twice. But I can say unequivocally that the second one is much better to manage than the first. This is because you are already familiar with all of the intricate details of the treatment, and you are better prepared mentally to handle them. There's also a desire to get not want to go through the process again, so you tend to "get better" quicker so you can get out of the hospital as soon as possible!