On Thursday I decided to do one of my favorite hobbies… people hunting. I don’t know why but I just love to hunt for any little mundane tidbits I can find on people, but not people I know well or don’t know at all. It has to be somebody I’ve met or seen at least a few times like my endo. It’s a sort of a game to me just like some people love scavenger hunts and to see what little treasures they can come up with. Well, I would hardly count the fact that I learned that my doctor doesn’t drink as a “treasure,” but the whole idea of the game is to see what I can find. Silly, pointless game, perhaps, but fun and sometimes interesting. She loves those slot games, LOL. 

I knew she had a house in Sacramento and was married and that was pretty much it, other than her age and a few facts found on the health site. I wouldn’t even know that she once lived in Massachusetts had she not told me. Sometimes it takes a few tries of hunting before you turn up anything. One way I have learned to get more information on people is through their friends provided you can find them on Facebook in the first place. It took me a few tries to find her there and at first I wasn’t even sure it was her because there was no personal information listed. No location, no age, no nothing. The account was mostly public, though, and while her “likes” and movies and books and music suggested that of an older person, I had no idea who it really was at first. They have only 15 friends, mostly in Gloversville, New York, and I couldn’t tell who might be directly related to her and who may be related to her husband or those bearing her last name if it really was her. 

A closer look at her friends turned up a daughter named Stormy who looks old as hell. This chick is either a lot younger than she looks or the doctor had her very young. I could see a resemblance in the daughter’s picture. Same brown eyes, same downturned nose, same wavy brown hair, same slim figure. LOL, the endocrinologists are skinny and their patients are fat. I’d describe her as somewhere between ugly and plain with a bit of a harsh appearance. 

The one thing that definitely stood out was the doc’s nature pictures. She doesn’t have an extensive account and doesn’t post very often, but many of the pics are the types I would decorate my blog with so I sent a brief message complimenting them. Regardless of who it was, they were beautiful. 

Facebook goes out of its way to make reaching out to people rather hard, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of the site, but that’s just the way it is. Most of the time you send a message to a non-friend, if they even get it, it will likely go to their other box and remain unseen. That’s what I expected in this case, but for some reason, the message went straight to her inbox. Although I never got a reply, not surprisingly, the message was read, and then I noticed a blog view from Gloversville. 

I wished I could know if the doctor was out of town at the moment because that would confirm my suspicion as to their identity. But of course I had no way of knowing that and I wasn’t about to ask… until she checked into the health site to answer my questions and volunteered that information on her own. 

So she knew I messaged her before she sent me this today: 

Hi, I am out of town right now but checking on messages and saw this and your other message. I do not think this is high thyroid. The symptoms of feeling hot and anxious in the middle of the night might be anxiety. I do not think Prozac is necessarily causing these to be worse. If these are happening nightly then I suggest for a few nights you take lorazepam as you are going to bed to relax you. If these are anxiety they should improve with time on fluoxetine though perhaps the dose is too low or there are better agents for you. If they persist let me know and we can change gears before the planned next visit. Don't think sore throat is related to any of this. Tingling in the extremeties happens with the anxiety and breathing rapidly. See yoour PCP to figure out the sore throat if it persists. Dr O 

Later… 

Going to stop sharing posts on Google+ since I tend to move things around a bit, which makes the links useless. 

I am so glad to finally say that I feel so much better and got better sleep yesterday. I still woke up nearly a dozen times and was aware of on and off throat pain, but I didn’t wake up feeling like I was on fire and like my heart was about to jump out of my chest. I also fell back asleep relatively fast. I first fell asleep without the lorazepam and then I woke up an hour later. That’s when I took it. I slept eight hours in total. 

No racing heart yesterday and so I never needed the beta-blocker other than that one time so far. I’m doing well so far today too, but that’s one of those unpredictable things that can sneak up on you anytime. As long as sitting down and taking some deep breaths will slow my pulse down, then I don’t need the beta-blocker. 

The throat thing is the weirdest thing because it doesn’t feel like acid reflux any more than it feels like a pulled muscle, and after the first day, I only felt it lying down. It is getting better, though, so whatever it is I’m not worried about it right now. The doctor said to see my primary if it persists. She also thinks waking up with a racing heart is due to anxiety and that the Prozac probably wasn’t responsible for that or the throat pain. She said that tingling could occur in the extremities from anxiety, which I didn’t know until now. The question is whether or not to try the Prozac again. She said the dose could be too low or there might be something else better for me, and to let her know if I have any more problems so we can try something else before our next appointment. 

When Tom gets up I’ll discuss it with him and see what his opinion is. I always value his opinion as well as my sister’s, since she was once a medical assistant and is as familiar with these things as I am with the rules of the romance languages. 

Tammy had a great point in her message to me earlier that I totally didn’t think of and that’s that sometimes you have to get worse before you get better. She has been on tons of meds and has experienced something or another from each and every one of them until her body got used to them. Sometimes the side effects went away, other times she couldn’t stand them and had to stop. The side effects can definitely be scarier than the disease itself. The thought of having the pocket of activity flare up in my thyroid isn’t scary, but it sure is if you’re taking 75 mcg of levothyroxine when it happens. 

There is an end, she assured me, and that helps a lot. Maybe my life in my sleep as I knew it isn’t forever gone after all. It’s just trying to be patient until everything is fine-tuned to where it’s supposed to be. Had to laugh, however, when she said this is a simple disease to treat. Yeah, that’s what I thought. I thought I would just take a pill and forget about it. How wrong I was! Hopefully, it will be that simple in the future soon enough. I have never in my life experienced anxiety to this degree even in my most anxious of moments. I definitely do want it to back off. I mean it’s great that I feel better right now, but how long will it last?