Monday, May 9, 2016

My New Neurologist

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.