Jack, thanks for this reminder. Unfortunately it's my husband who needs to have some stress lifted more than I do. He has taken the news of my surgical cancellation very hard. After over three years of fighting the system and finding a doctor who was supposed to do surgery last week, I'm back at square one again. It's like watching a drowning man and not having a life preserver.
tc, I did have one OS say that he thought I had Fibro, that I had fourteen of the eighteen trigger points. Thanks for that information....I didn't know that the symptoms included vertigo. Unfortunately no other doctor is taking this seriously, and that fellow said it wasn't his field, and to find help elsewhere.
I looked up a few things on the web, and found that food sensitivities may be a big trigger with Fibro. So with a lot of trial and error, I've eliminated almost every food possible and am feeling a great deal better than two years ago. I have gotten off all nightshades (potatoes, etc) as of two weeks ago, and a year ago I eliminated all grains, including rice. When I accidently was exposed to any of them, including rice, I was hit with anaphylactic shock and was in the emergency ward pretty quickly. So now I am on basic meat, fresh vegetable and fruit diet. Thankfully dairy seems to be OK, as meals are pretty sparse. It's amazing how much you can make from so little
Kimmers, yes it was Dr. Bitan whom I saw. What a genius that man is, and how kind and considerate as well. He wrote several letters to my provincial insurance saying that I never should have left NYC without surgery, that I was greatly at risk of quadraplegia from any small incident. It made no impression on them, and unfortunately there is no way that I can afford surgery with him. He did want to do several levels of hybrids, including two fusion and an ADR from the bottom up at S1 to L3/4, and another hybrid at C4/5 & 5/6. How I wish I could have been under his care. The doctor that I found here was going down a similar lane with the hybrids and went to the same university overseas as Dr. Bitan so I have a great feeling about him. Now if I can only get a response from him.
I still haven't heard from the neurologist who ordered the brain scan, even for a followup. But I haven't had the best relationship with him after coming back from Dr. Bitan. He warned me that if I went out of country for surgery that I would be blacklisted here, that no surgeon would want to touch me. How 'bout them apples?
He insisted that the surgeons here were just as good as Dr. Bitan, so I went to see one of our experts. He said that the numbness in my arms and hands was from carpal tunnel, although he didn't do any testing for it, nor did he do any of the hyperreflexia testing to check for compression of the spinal cord. Dr. Bitan found me positive for both the Hoffman and hyperreflexia, but this fellow blew it off as not important. See my problems?
So after a discogram, it was proven that my L3/4 to L5/S1 are pain generators. And yes, I may also have Fibromyalgia, but many of the symptoms seem to be under control because of the very restricted diet I'm on. My cervical levels are critical according to my neurological testing and Dr. Bitan, but I can't get anything worked on now. I am back at square one, but for some reason, my stress levels have gone down. I was almost expecting the results of the metal allergies, so it doesn't seem to be getting me down. I wsh I could say the same for everyone else around me.
If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them
Oh, I can't find out how to fix my signature. I wanted to change a few things. My appeal is in limbo now because of the positive allergy testing, and I cannot afford to go to Dr. Bitan on my own financing. Both he and the surgeon I found recently have determined that my L3/4 is reactive as well and needs surgery also. But the Canadian one only wants to work on my C 5/6, not the 4/5 also, so he'd be doing four levels over all instead of the five that Dr. Bitan wished to fix. Everyone has a different idea ;-) Just please fix something, somebody!