Now it’s time to talk about my
new neurologist, Dr. Boor. My
requirements for a new neurologist were that he or she had to be the best in
the area and had to be able to administer Botox since I had gotten some relief
from using that under my New York neurologist. Dr. Boor isn’t the closest neurologist to my
house but totally worth the 30 minute drive for my appointments. I’m so glad I found him, wait I didn’t find
him, one of my wife’s co-workers gave me his name, but anyway he’s great. He has at least one other Chiari patient so
he’s familiar with the symptoms and knows what we are dealing with. One of the things I like about him is that he
will spend as much time as needed with you during your appointment, will gladly
answer any and all of your questions, and he'll listen to and actually respond to
your concerns. Of course this is great
when it’s your turn to see him, not so great when you are waiting for him to
finish with the previous patient, and the previous patient won’t shut their yap. Most appointments go something like
this…Barely sit down in the waiting room, get taken to the scale, go directly
to the exam room for vitals, then wait, and wait, and wait for him to finish up
and then come into the exam room where I have been not so patiently waiting. It’s a common occurrence to have to wait in
the exam room for almost an hour, thank God for smartphones; at least I’m able
to answer work e-mails while I’m waiting my turn.
Bear with me while I tell a tale
of woe that seems like it has nothing to do with Chiari but turns out is very
relevant to my journey. Let’s talk about
Kidney Stones! WORST PAIN EVER!!!!! Last year we came down to South Carolina in
April to look for and purchase a house. It was quite hot that week and I must
have gotten a bit dehydrated because on the day we were leaving to drive back
to New York I woke up in the middle of the night with pain unlike any I had
ever experienced, it was the WORST PAIN EVER!
I had never had kidney stones before so I had no idea what was wrong I
just knew I couldn’t stand the pain and all I wanted to do was curl up in a
little ball and pray the pain away – more like swear the pain away. In case I didn't make it clear, I was experiencing the
WORST PAIN EVER? My wife informed me that
it was probably kidney stones and that she was taking me to the ER. I knew by the tone of her voice and the look
in her eye’s that I was a dead man if I said I didn’t want to go, so off we
went to find an ER in a city where we had no idea where one was located. Of course being as awesome as she is my wife
found an ER almost instantly. When we got there I paced around the waiting room
like a madman, of course the pacing only occurred when I wasn’t curled up in a
chair, it was like some kind of weird dance that I hoped would reduce the pain...
Pace-sit-curl, pace-sit-curl. When the
nurse came out to take me to an exam room he took one look at me and said “you
have kidney stones, I could tell by watching you in the waiting room, you are
doing the dance every guy that has kidney stones does”. After
getting settled into an exam room it was off to the CT scanner, where they
confirmed the kidney stones. Did they
really need to do a CT scan, I mean I had already been diagnosed by two
extremely smart people, the nurse and my wife.
Did I mention that I also had a brutal headache all this time, I know
shocking isn’t it? Back to the
stones…the nurse tells me he’s going to give me a drug that is like 8 times
more powerful than morphine. I’m
thinking to myself “big freakin’ deal it ain’t gonna work” because as with any
high powered pain killers I had ever taken it won’t do anything for me because
nothing has ever gotten rid of my headaches; I figured my body just doesn’t
respond to narcotics. Wow was I wrong,
that stuff took away the pain from the stones almost immediately. It was great,
hell everything was great after that stuff kicked in. Of course being cranked up on some serious
pain killers meant I couldn’t drive so my poor wife had to handle the driving
duties back to New York. Oh and all
those wonderful pain killers didn’t even touch the headache, no surprise there.
Back to my neurologist story… I’m
at my first appointment with Dr. Boor and we are going through my medical
history both past and present. I tell
him the story about the kidney stones and how that wonderful pain killer took
care of the kidney stone pain but didn’t even touch my headache. He stops taking notes, looks at me and says,
”Narcotics won’t do anything for your headaches”. I don’t know why that statement blew my
mind, but it did. By the end of the
appointment we had a new treatment plan.
I went home with headache journals, some samples of drugs to use in an
attempt to try and break really bad headaches to see what would work and what
wouldn’t and a prescription for Lyrica.
You’ve probably seen the commercials for Lyrica on TV for diabetic nerve
pain and Fibromyalgia. It is also
prescribed for spinal cord injury nerve pain.
Dr. Boor has had success using it for his patients that suffer from
headaches, so we decided to try it.
My next post will be all about my
Lyrica experience and the joys of dealing with a new health insurance
company. I’ll warn you now that the next
post may contain some really bad language.
