A regularly scheduled trip to the VA has come to have a double purpose. To make sure that the doctors involved with me understand that there will be no more changing my meds around. Period!
On my last trip, my regular doctor decided that my BP was still too high and thus doubled the dosage of a rather powerful BP medication which just so happened to negate the effects of the pain medication I take that keeps me at work. As of last Wednesday I was out of work with the same “someone rammed my solar plexus with the butt end of a pool cue” type feeling I had before I began the pain med in the first place.
No more.
No more messing with my medication. The increase in the BP med didn’t accomplish anything anyway since my BP stubbornly stayed right where it always does so I’ve been out of work for nothing. Unfortunately this medication can’t be just dropped back to the previous dosage without rebound happening.
So I did it anyway. Last time I checked I wasn’t dead yet and even though my BP has risen some, rebound doesn’t last forever and maybe I’ll be able to get back to work tomorrow.
I’ll be back…
I’ve had doctors giving me BP meds since I was 11. I don’t have a medical degree, can’t diagnose or prescribe anything, and won’t ask what it is you’re taking, but I can tell you that the ARB class of BP meds tend to have few side-effects, and don’t generally involve that tapering down crap.
On a different note, there’s an older gentleman who lives just a block or so over from me. He was wounded in a Vietnam, and again, in a severe car crash. I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m a boy, by the way he talks to me, and any sentence he utters about the VA is also liberally peppered with the f-word.
I hope that your situation gets straightened out soon, even if the docs need a little prodding in order to see how you want it handled.
Hey Sam!
Welcome to my end of things here. Glad to see you.
Thanks for the info on the BP meds. You’ve been on them since you were 11? Now that’s something. Mine was a rock steady, averaging around 115/68 right up until around my 30th birthday and boom…shot right up over a two week period and stayed that way. 13 years later I finally had enough sense to listen to those Vietnam vet buddies of mine and finally enrolled with the VA. I was a Cold War submariner and I always found it ironic that my BP headed to the skies just about one year after a (very unwanted) medical discharge ended a 12 year career.
Don’t worry about what your neighbor thinks about you. The fact he talks to you at all is a compliment in itself. There’s no way you could ever understand what made him the way he is or me the way I am for that matter and hopefully, you never will. And he came to a VA fresh out of Vietnam that was much different from today’s VA. Today’s VA may be a much more organized, useful entity then the one back then but unfortunately for the old timers like your neighbor and myself, is stuffed with very young doctors and interns that simply cannot understand where we’re coming from and it’s extremely frustrating to folks like us.
When we say we’re tired for example, I guarantee you these young MD’s have absolutely no idea what we’re talking about.
Here I go getting wordy again. Didn’t mean to write a book here but that’s a bad habit of mine. Sometimes I think I write better comments then posts.
I’ll be back at the “Experiment” and regular posting when I get back on my feet. And my door’s always open. Heck, you don’t even have to knock first.
Wow, Kirk! Thanks for the response! I’ve been subscribing for a while, but today’s post was the first one where I felt like I had something to say.
I didn’t mean to imply that I was offended by my neighbor; I just think he speaks more freely around me BECAUSE he thinks I’m a boy. And I’d prefer to keep it that way. If he talks to me about lawn mower motors, teases me about girls, and cusses when he feels like it, that just means he ‘s comfortable, and I’m cool with that.
As to the blood pressure thing: Yeah. I had always had nosebleeds as a kid. I would wake up face down in a pool of my own blood. Then one day, when I was 11, it started bleeding, and bleeding, and bleeding. It was bad enough for a trip to the ER. They got it stopped, sent me home, and later that night, I had to go back because it was bleeding again. I was in the hospital for five days, and the doctors said that my BP was high enough that if the nosebleed hadn’t relieved the pressure, I would’ve had a stroke. And I can be pretty cranky about meds. So I’ve been through quite a few of them.
I hope you’re back on your feet soon, Kirk. It’s nice having you around at TBE.
Hey Sam,
I’m glad you like having me around. Thanks for saying so. And I knew you weren’t offended. I was just saying…
Thank heavens for nosebleeds, ay? Now you can tell people you meet (that don’t already know you) that if it wasn’t for nosebleeds, you wouldn’t be here. Then smile maniacally at them.
RIGHT YOU ARE SAM! I MAY BE ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES BUT THE ONLY NIGHTMARES I’VE HAD WITH THE VA HAVE BEEN A MISDIAGNOSES OF EPYLEPSY (WHICH WAS SEVERAL YEARS LATER FOUND TO BE A DIABETES PROBLEM) AND THE CONSTANT SWITCHING OF MEDS WHEN THEY WERE TRYING TO CONTROL THE “EPYLEPSY”. TODD
Hope you’re feeling better soon Kirk. I know several people close to me who fight with the VA constantly so it can be a battle I know. Just keep your head up and press on!
Hi Sara,
Always good to see your smiling face in the sidebar and thanks for the well wishes.
My head’s up, my spirit’s raring to go, it’s just my body complains a lot these days. Perhaps I could get a replacement?
Nah…..
Press on….press on! Damn the torpedoes and all that…