Hello Everyone

[mrdee 1]

Hi,hope this is posted in the right topic, as I was not sure which one to pick.I just dropped by to say hello to everyone, and to let everyone know I am still in the land of the living (only just, mind you).The thing is, I have seen my fair share of doctors, hospitals and inside of ambulances lately, so I have to take things very easy at the moment.About two months ago, I had another stent put into my main artery by the cardiologist, and I have had to go into hospital regularly (mostly on an outpatient basis) fr a number of examinations and investigations.Oh, by the way, I managed to give up smoking (by means of "cold turkey", no NRT or anything) and I am still sticking to it, although it can be very difficult at times (even after this amount of time).The only problem i now have is that i still have a number of issues, but i am getting no answers.(People in this country keep saying about their glorious NHS, and yes, it is nice if, as a patient, you do not have to pay your doctors or anything, but the saying "if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys" springs to mind.I have two main problems bugging me at the moment, one is that I have great trouble getting my food down, it just seems to get stuck in my throat, I am awaiting an appointment with ENT for this, as everything from gastrology, including a barium swallow tes, came back clear, but it is taking ages, it might have to do something with the fact that I have suspected sleep apnoea, I will find out for sure at the end of this month.The other one is that I have incredible trouble breathing.It looks and sounds like hyperventilation to me, but I am not getting any answers here, except, "everything is normal, your lungs are clear, your lungs sound normal when I listen to them".Do they think I am making these things up then???If everything is normal, then where on earth are the symptoms coming from, eg. when I keep waking up, gasping for breath???I have already mentioned hyperventilation to the doctors (more than one, as a matter of fact), do you think any of them listen?Well, I wish I could have come in here to say hello on a more positive note, but that was impossible, unfortunately.Anyway, hope my old friends on here are all OK, because, at the moment all i need is rest, rest and more rest, but I will try to pop by every now and then to update you on the situation and to see how everyone is.Speak to you soon.

[darko100 1]

Hello mrdee , and sorry for your health situation.Hope to see you on Xisto active as always ...

[mrdee 1]

Thank you, darko100.I will do my best, obviously, but as things stand at the moment I hav to restrict myself to light activity.I just spent another five days in hospital last week, where they (among other things) performed an angiogram on me again.Well, one can only live in hope, they say.

[jlhaslip 4]

Hope that your health is improving. Get well soon.

[velma 6]

Mrdee,

It has been quite a while since we heard from you. I hope you and Nanna are doing well. Maybe you should give an update on what's happening so far...

I have already mentioned hyperventilation to the doctors (more than one, as a matter of fact), do you think any of them listen?

Firstly, do you trust your doctor? Is this a person who has treated you before? If yes, then maybe he genuinely has not seen anything abnormal. If they have done the diagnostic tests correctly, you do not have to worry and instead relax as much as possible

Congratulations on kicking the butt, I know how difficult it must be going cold turkey.. And I hope you do stick to it.

Do post an update

[mrdee 1]

Thank you for the kind words, Velma.I must admit, coming to your question, that I do NOT trust the majority of doctors in this country.Without intentionally generalising, in my opinion (and not only mine), a lot of the doctors here either do not care, or are completely incompetent, or both.Th system itself is no good neither, starting at the bottom (the GP's surgery): every time yu want to see a GP, you get a different one, some of them have never seen you before and just have your notes to go by, in my case, having long term problems, this is no good at all.On top of that, at my GP's surgery, doctors keep coming and going, and every so often, they put newly graduated doctors there, who stay on for a few months, so called "to gain experience".Also, when you see three different GPs about exactly the same problem, chances are you hear three different diagnoses and et three different lots of medications.I am als sick and tired of being told what is NOT wrong with me, sometimes it is nice to hear that, but I finally want to know what IS wrong with me, and even better, I want something done about it.An example, a cardiologist gave me an angiogram and had the nerve to tell me that my chest pains PROBABLY did not come from my heart.Thismight sound re-assuring to a lt of people, but I want to know where the pains DO cme from, unfortunately, I got no answer to that questin except "I am not sure".Then again, come to think of it, the problem is no better at higher level, as in all the times I have been seeing specialists, I have rarely seen the same one twice.About kicking the butt, it will be 14 weeks on Monday, it is not too bad a feeling, although I do have the odd difficult spell.Anyway, I am still far from feeling OK, but I will surely keep you all posted.Speak to you very soon.

[sheepdog 10]

I am so sorry to hear about all your health problems. Sure have missed you around here. Do try to visit more often, you can relax and type nice and slow, we don't mind, we are all very paitent. Congrats on kicking the ciggerette habit. That is something I REALLY need to do, but just can't manage it. What a tough thing to do!

[mrdee 1]

Hi, Sheepdog,yes, it is tough indeed, it has been nearly 17 weeks now since I kicked the habit, but sometimes I still face really tough times not to light up.I don't know how much I have benefited, though, as I do not feel any better than I did before quitting.However, it might (or might not, I don't know) something to do with the fact that I have to undergo lots of further examinations and (maybe) subsequent treatment yet, I will have to wait and see.Anyway, I will keep you posted on what is going on, but, as I said, it will probably take half a miracle before I even begin to feel remotely better, especially with all the "competence" from our doctors I keep experiencing.By the way, it was nice to hear from you.

[cityzen 1]

Hello Mrdee,I stopped smoking a few years ago and my body had quite surprising reactions, maybe not so strong as yours, but similar in many ways. The most surprising was the difficult I had to recover my breath, while I was supposed to respire better. I was feeling a big oppression and felt that quitting cigarette would more long as I supposed. So far this symptoms seems related to quitting this bad habit.Then I remembered a short conversation I had with a good friend, about respiration and the benefits of meditation. As I'm too lazy to seat down and do all this things, I just started to do it my own way.Sometimes, during the day, when I wake up, before to sleep, or in whatever occasion, I just relax and try to inspire and expire very slowly and deeply, trying to have my vertebral column as right as possible without forcing. It may seem irrelevant, but I kept this new habit and it's very healthy, relaxing and it doesn't take many time or efforts, except to remember to do it sometimes during the day.This way I started to have a better respiration and concentration, I also started using this simple technique when I was sad, upset, boring, etc. It seems good for almost everything, and when I'm tempted by a cigarette, I just relax and think about how stupid would be to smoke again :)I hope this may help you and that you are fine, best greetings

[sheepdog 10]

Oh now your scaring me! My breathing is going to get worse if I quit smoking???? That would really suck, it's bad right now. Does is get better in time?

[mrdee 1]

Hello again, Sheepdog,I don't know if your breathing is going to get worse, I don't even know if it was related to quitting in my case.All I know is that I keep getting "maybe it is....." and "It could be....." from our great doctors in this country.So, what they said to me (although I seem to remember I did have the problem (to a lesser extent) before I gave up) was "Maybe it is due to the fact that you smoked for so many years and that has weakened something inside".Unfortunately, after all the "maybes" I get, they do not look further to see what it really is (they might have to do too much work).However, no matter what, I am sick and tired of being told "maybe it could be this or that" or being told what is NOT wrong with me or being told that everything is normal, in that case, where do all the symptoms I feel keep coming from????The best one is, doctors sometimes asking me "do you think it could be this or that?", EXCUSE ME, who exactly is the doctor here.However, Sheepdog, coming back to the subject, I don't know whether quitting will affect your breathing, but i must say, contrary to all I keep hearing and reading, giving up has not made me feel one bit better.Hope you benefit from it more than I have.

[k_nitin_r 8]

I have heard of a lot of people who have issues with doctors so they take a flight to India and get a proper medical diagnosis done at a fraction of what it would cost them elsewhere. The insurance firms ought to be happy to cover the bills too, as long as it isn't for a routine medical examination or for anything that might seem cosmetic or for things that they do not want to cover (and the last one is used ever so often to deny claims).BTW, about that doctor who was asking you the questions, maybe he is a psychologist. You never really know, perhaps he is trying to talk you into saying that there is nothing wrong with you through reverse-psychology. Apparently, reverse-psychology works for a lot of things, but to talk a failing organ into working or to talk a bug into non-existence is another thing. It is along the lines of talking to a ghost saying, "You do not exist. You are a ghost.", except that at that point the ghost does fade away but the bug does not and neither does the failing organ start to work normally again... or can it? Apparently there are a lot of believers in faith healing and they have been able to witness miracles that most people would think are impossible. That makes the impossible a little hard to define because after watching Criss Angel, you would have to try really hard to stretch the boundaries of impossible and define what is really possible, what is seemingly a trick, and what is actually impossible.

[mrdee 1]

Well, Nitin, the expense is not the issue, as we do not pay our doctors here.(Maybe the saying "If you pay peanuts you get monkeys" applies more than ever here).And, about the stupid answers some doctors give, oh no, they are certainly not psychologists, some of them can ask really stupid questions.The best one I remember is a doctor asking me "what do you use insulin for", I really didn't know what I heard, maybe I should have answered "because I like the taste of it so much, and I have it before meals as a digestive, and the chemist also prescribes it to the pubs in my area as it is my favourite tipple".I know, some people cannot believe what they hear when they are told about our doctors here, but, as it goes, many of them are totally incompetent, many of them don't care, or even worse, both apply to many of them.So, it is not as they will ask you some trick questions to play psychological games with you, it just reveals sheer incompetence.I could fill a few volumes with some of the things that have gone on here with doctors and the things they did which, in some cases, proved fatal for patients, but if I did that, I'd probably end up a MyCents millionair.However, one day, I might put some of those things down in an appropriate topic, and in the mean time, be happy I was not one of those patients at the receiving end (yet).

[k_nitin_r 8]

MrDee,That seems to be one thing your government is doing right - free healthcare is something that people in the rest of the world can only imagine. I sometimes wonder if that implies free food too, because hospitals usually charge quite a bit for the food they serve to in-patients.Many hospitals have medical students and interns working the emergency and general medicine wards, so perhaps you happened to meet one of them when they asked you what insulin is used for. It would make you wonder if he or she is even aware of stuff going on in the world, let alone reading the books.There are government medical facilities in India that are accessible to people who hold a particular kind of card that indicates they have been residing in a village or have been living in the slums. It basically means that a poor guy living in a city in a parking garage does not get access to the heavily subsidized health care, but a farmer who owns a quarter of the agricultural land in a village can gain access to health care by merely paying what is worth a few handfuls of peanuts.

[sheepdog 10]

I had to giggle about your comment about stupid doctors and some of the really dumb questions they ask. Reminded me of an embarassing story my hubby likes to tell about his boy when he was just a little shaver, they took him to the doctor because he was sick, and the doctor asked him what was wrong and the little boy said, "Well, if I knew what the hell was wrong with me I wouldn't be in here asking you now would I?" He certainly embarrased his father, but the doctor certainly didn't ask him any more dumb questions!