An Interesting Development
Robert DeSavage
Wishing you the best of the day.
I don't know if any scleroderma or CREST victims have experienced
this. But the last couple of days I've been experiencing severe
itching where the sensation would 'travel' to random areas of my body.
I must confess that although I enjoy a beer every now and then, for a
change of pace I started drinking gin and tonic. That's when the
itching attacks began. This happened a while back and when I stopped
drinking gin, the itching stopped.
From what I've learned about CREST, much of it involves the kidneys.
One rheumy looked at the 'numbers' on my chart and told me that I have
the kidney structure of a primate. He was serious about this. I kind
of gave this a lot of thought and believe that CREST is a genetic
thing. Ironically, my father's sister had THREE kidneys and my brother
almost died of nephritis when he was a young child. Thankfully he
recovered. Maybe I'm barking in the wind, but I'm connecting the dots
that CREST - of part of this condition might run in my father's side
of the family. Meanwhile after I dumped the gin down the crapper I
started taking Benedryl (spelling?) which quickly provided relief from
the itching sensation.
Does what I described above set of any bells and whistles with the
people on this newsgroup?
CHEERS
BOB D
Robert DeSavage
<alle...@nospamcomcast.net> wrote:
Hi everyone!
Hoping everyone is doing and feeling well. My itching problem is
completely gone since I jumped back on the wagon. I was talking to a
friend who liked his gin and told me that he has the same itching
reaction when he imbibes too much gin.
Hop scotching to today, since I'm fed up with watching 2 minutes of
commercials with 1 minute of actual program on cable TV, tonight I
popped a new DVD in my player to watch. Kind of a crazy thing though,
since the DVD that I watched was a bunch of cigarette commercials that
were shown on TV during the 50's and 60's.
Although the DVD was 'nostalgic' and 'entertaining', perhaps it was
good for me to watch at this time. Being a cigarette smoker and having
a severe case of Raynaud's, it made me think twice about lighting up a
ciggie. So I didn't. Tobacco and Raynaud's is a deadly combination.
Maybe others who smoke and have Raynaud's should view this DVD.
While I enjoyed the ads when they were aired on TV (I was an easily
swayed kid then), watching them tonight really scared the daylights
out of me where I've got to kick tobacco out of my life. Sadly, many
of the actors who hawked Camels, Chesterfields, Luckies, and the rest,
died of lung cancer and other smoking related maladies. Cigarette
smokers stick out like a sore thumb where along with smelling like an
ash tray, you can look at their faces and see what might be considered
to be 'abnormal' features that non-smokers don't display. I could see
this on a lot of the actors faces who made these ads.
With that said, I wish all a healthier life by not being self
destructive. For sure, I've walked a tight rope all my life and need
to pick myself up by the boot straps to feel better and hopefully live
longer.
CHEERS
BOB D
Robert DeSavage
<alle...@nospamcomcast.net> wrote:
One other thing about that DVD this is absolutely hideous. While
today, a doctor will give his or her patients a royal arse chewing if
they smoke, years ago commercials would show the doctor at his desk
consulting with the patient about the results of the examination and
pull out a pack of cigarettes and offer the patient a cigarette.
Usually it was on a Camel cigarette ad where it said that nine out of
ten doctors tried and preferred Camels. But I can't resist telling the
joke that while the doctors who tried Camels, nine out of ten
preferred their wives.
Nell
"Robert DeSavage" <alle...@nospamcomcast.net> wrote in message
news:2opc46565jhkknnbu...@4ax.com...
One of my daughters stopped smoking recently. The other one still smokes.
They're 35. The smoker has a small hole in her heart and is asthmatic (so is
her sister). Both are overweight.
My granddaughter Aryanna (daughter of the recent non-smoker) is in rejection
from the heart transplant she had Dec. 31, 2004 at the age of 20 months. In
April she turned 7. They did a cardiac cath on July 14th (routinely
scheduled for 5 years out) and discovered that. She's been put on a stronger
anti-rejection drug that has a couple of nasty side-effects including sores
on her face. We won't know until January if the medicine is working. One
upside is there is *only* one antiobody attacking the heart and not two
which makes it (comparitively) easier to fight. It's a donor specific
antibody. She's having an echo/ekg tomorrow to check on some damage that was
seen in July.
I went to the rheumatologist today. He told me to stop taking naproxen
(Aleve which always helped) and ibuprophen (which never did much for me). I
could take acetaminophen. I'm to have an EDG (esophagogastroduodenoscopy) on
the 25th of this month and an esophagram on October 22nd. The doctor is
speculating that the pneumonia I'm just recovering from could have been
caused by aspiration and wants to if conditions are conducive to that.
He lowered me to one Plaquenil. He doesn't really want me taking it at all.
He doesn't think too much of it, especially for scleroderma.
He asked me how much change there's been since I was first diagnosed in
1998. I had to really think. I told him that initially I didn't have all the
discoloration of my legs I have now. He looked and I noticed a hey of bruise
on my right calf which I have no idea how it got there. I'm a klutz and no
telling what I ran into.
Nell
Robert DeSavage
wrote:
Wow Nell! Looks like you have your work cut out for you. You (as with
all) are in my thoughts and prayers.
So far so good with my knee. If I can get away by not having a knee
replacement, I'll take the money and run. Since I do a lot of work
around the house and bang my knee a lot, it's difficult to pin down
the cause. As far as Aleve, I prefer it to the Ibu genre. If I take
even one Ibu, I quickly become a zombie. The Aleve is more benign
where I can still spell my first name backwards although spelling
'Bob' backwards is not all that hard. 8-)
CHEERS
BOB