Why don't you look it up on the internet?

From my wiki, Feb. 2004:

I can still hear Analee's tarty remark, "He told you to look it up on the INTERNET!"

It's true. In Feb of 2001, a nameless, young emergency room doctor, the first to see me, said that.

Eight months later, I get a diagnosis of Stiff Man Syndrome. I looked it up on the internet. The only site that had any useful information was the Yale Medical School site.

I had to google for three pages to find the Yale site today in early 2004. Three pages! Stiff Man is becoming very popular! And in my grand immodesty, I would like to congratulate myself.

Yale has updated their site. In 2001, they held the same opinion as the majority of medical articles I had clearance to read. Immunoglobulin! Immunolglobulin! Valium was considered a last resort. (I apologise for not saving the text.)

The Yale School of Medicine has useful information regarding a number of illnesses. The "medicine for idiots" site, Web MD, is unavailable, useless, or plain irritating.

I laugh while reading these "medicine for idiots" texts, because that was my "day job." I used to read medical articles and then write versions for some pharmaceutical sales idiot to sell to doctors. I have written "medicine for idiots" articles.

In 2001, the only real papers (i.e. published medical articles) on the subject definatively declared that intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) was the only treatment. Things have changed. I no longer have access to such "professional" literature - except at the library. Instead, I must rely on Yale. Here is the updated Yale treatment information.

Dated 11. 2003

Treatment

There are several important features specific to the treatment of this disease. Although there seems to be a strong autoimmune link, immunomodulating therapies have yet to produce consistent results. Anecdotal reports of response to prednisone, immunoglobulin or plasmapheresis have appeared. The most consistently effective therapy is benzodiazepines. These drugs produce symptomatic relief and discontinuation often leads to reemergence of symptoms. Other drugs which modulate the function of GABAergic neurons are employed with variable efficacy. Physical therapy may exacerbate spasms in some patients and should be used carefully in those for whom passive motion may be a trigger of spasm. The course of the disease is variable; there are reports of patients with SMS who respond well to medication and are able to exercise vigorously. Abrupt withdrawal of therapy may be harmful.

---Could you read it or just skim it? I know medical teminology is impossibole without a copy of Dorlands Medical Dictionary at your side. Basically, the Yale site updated/changed their mind. "The most consistently effective therapy is benzodiazepines (i.e. valium.)"

Why did they change their minds? In 2001, IVIG did not work on me. I also went off valium in 2002 and had a sudden re-ocurrance of symptoms.

[Today, Oct. 20, 2005] Today, there are 791,00 google results for Stiff Man Syndrome. And look, Ohhhh, the wee Yale site is Number One! Yer welcome. Do I get access to the Yale Club yet? pfft.

Why don't you look it up on the internet?
1. "I don't know what to tell you," the doctor says. Why don't you look it up on the internet.
2. If you are having trouble with the internet, just look it up on the internet. Google.
3. You gotta get out and get a job. Just stay at home, take a little time and look it up on the internet. Craigslist!
4. There may be adverse reactions to this drug. You should look it up on the internet.
5. Artists get exposure all over the world. Just look it up on the internet!
6. You can't remember your cousin's name? Look him up on the internet!
7. You want to get laid? Easy! Find someone on the internet.
8. You need someone to talk to? Find a friend on the internet.
9. You wanna know why you are so lonely and depressed? Just look it up on the internet!

Diabetes Type I.5 - the Monster

There has a been a monster in my belly since the day the spasms began. I suppose this accounts for my considering an exorcism as a viable medical option.

My back curved inwards in excruciating pain for three months. My back, through all the exercise et. al. never regained it's "posture."

I complained about the bump aka the Monster in the center of my belly. I knew my stomach was there. I would watch the monster move around. Squashing my stomach. Could it have been a swollen pancreas?

I got the Dx on Mother's Day 2006, nearly six years since the Dx of Stiff Man Syndrome. This fall I honor the onset of the spasms. 6 years.

The monster is still aggrieved. It could be the new fake insulin has left the poor pancreas confused. My blood glucose (bg) is an average of 120 mg/Dl of late. I was hospitalized with a measurement of 1000+! It's a miracle I am alive to write this.

Funny. Doctor y'd and said my bg had been tested. Y?

'cause I a skinny. And here's the skinny on being skinny. It's easy to be skinny if you're feeling ill.

Epilepsy - Pliny the Elder

Mistletoe for epilepsy*. Basil and thyme.

Myrrh mixed with hemp and wine for visions.

[Sorry. I forgot to cite this. It's from the Historia Naturalis. Jackson Heights library.]

*My epilepsy could be construed as "visions" per Pliny's work because they are partial temporal-lobe seizures. I see things in reverse. And upside down. And I've been here before. I am an angel floating in the air. Dizzy.

When I was a child, I would complain about the "Fruit Loops Guys." This was a vision on repeat. I called them, these, my visions, my partial temporal-lobe seizures that I couldn't understand, my "deja-vou'ies."

[update] The deja-vou seizures may be called tonic-clonic or something. No doctor has witnessed one. I have NEVER, EVER been given a firm Dx for my little epilepsies.

Opisthotony - Pliny the Elder

Opisthotony - a disease in which the body is violently curved backward, ref. Pliny the Elder, Historius Naturalis.

Pliny the Elder, Book 28, Chapter 52 "For the painful cramp, attended with inflexibility, to which people give the name of opisthotony, the urine of a she-goat injected into the ears, is found very useful; as also a liniment made of the dung of that animal mixed with bulbs."

[Sounds like 21st Century auto-immune therapy. I drank my urine for a while.]