Friday, November 21, 2008

Another Mystery,

Well, once again, I remain a medical mystery.

My internist doesn't really know what caused last night's weird apparent reaction to my pain meds.

She thinks that perhaps I was/am dehydrated and that can affect how the body absorbs the medication.

During my exam today, she noted that my heart rate increased from upper 80s when I reclined to around 100 when I sat up.

I don't know what's up with that, since I drink quite a bit. But my internist says that drinking large amounts of water is actually harmful if it dilutes your sodium levels too much. (And even well before my mystery illness, my sodium levels were always below normal levels, just not dangerously so.) So she recommended I start drinking Pedialyte again -- 8 ounces twice a day.

Meanwhile, she did a bunch of blood work again, and we'll see what, if anything, that shows. She is concerned that perhaps my liver or kidney functions may have changed and that would explain why I reacted strangely to my pain meds.

I just think it was a fluke.

Time will tell.

I forgot to ask about whether there was any reason my nails keep cracking well below the white part of the nail. Just this week, three of my nails broke painfully. Looking online, I found a reference to "onychoschizia,"
commonly known as nail splitting but also known as onychoschisis or lamellar dystrophy, is a condition that causes horizontal splits within the nail plate. Nail splitting is often seen together with onychorrhexis – long-wise (longitudinal) splitting or ridging of the nail plate – and these 2 diseases together are called "brittle nail syndrome."

Of the list of causes, this is the only one that seemed possible, although not optimal: "May occur due to medical problems, including gland (endocrine system) diseases, tuberculosis, Sjögren syndrome, and malnutrition."

Guess I should remember to mention it to my doctor ...

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