OT: Health Thread

[eco's bones]

stay strong. I stayed the first couple nights in the hospital with my pops when he had the stem cell transplant. He was in for 12 days. It's a grind and I admire your guys strength.

Hang in there and be well. Brighter days ahead.

my wife can be here around 4 hours a day. I’m allowed a second visitor and that’s my daughter but she can only come on weekends. Back in January there was a no visitor policy and that’s tough though back then I was drugged to the eyeballs.

Brighter days are ahead and the sun will come up tomorrow. It’s like with the Rangers too. Things are going to get better.

 

[Boris Zubov]

Since the Rangers suck tonight I probably should do a bit of an update.

I returned to Rochester NY on the 21st and got an autologous stem cell transplant on the 23rd. That went very well. Now I’m in the Wilmot Cancer hospital on the 6th floor in day 6 of my recovery. Transplant day is counted as day 0. Earliest they tell me that a myeloma patient is discharged is day 11. Some stay as long as 20 days. It’s not the transplant that’s the issue (though one nurse told me ‘you have a 63 year old body now with the stem cells of a new born baby’—so there is some adaptation I will need to do in the coming months—one bright spot I’m not to mow the lawn for at least a year) it’s the melphalan chemo shot I got the day before the transplant.

I haven’t completely crashed yet but I’m getting close. It may come tomorrow or the next day and it may last a couple or a few days but I will recover and get home in one piece and continue on these boards for a while and one day I hope to see the Rangers win another Stanley Cup (or 5–why be greedy?) and hopefully all the other Rangers posters will see that happen too.

The worst thing going on here right now is there is a baby being treated about three doors down. That’s a tough one.

Hang in there Eco. My mom had multiple myeloma, along with a ration of other illnesses. Sounds like they've come a long way in the past 15 years in treating it, so you're in good hands. Rooting for you, buddy.

 

[eco's bones]

Hang in there Eco. My mom had multiple myeloma, along with a ration of other illnesses. Sounds like they've come a long way in the past 15 years in treating it, so you're in good hands. Rooting for you, buddy.

there’s not much else I can do but yours and East Coast Bias’s posts are encouraging and I really appreciate hearing them. Myeloma does seem to be one of the rarer cancers. I know at the local clinic where I was being treated they told me I was their only patient at the time who was needful of a bone marrow transplant and there must have been at least 80 other patients I saw there at one time or another.

For me one of the things is there will be an eye on this now for the rest of my life and it’s very unlikely I’m going to get ambushed by it again. There is also great appreciation to all those who help you get through these things.

 

[EdJovanovski]

Just had my consultation with the orthopaedic surgeon and he’s saying my ACL isn’t torn. Says the MRI showed an old sprain in the ACL but that it was never torn. He’s saying my pain is a soft tissue injury around my kneecap, he prescribed me anti inflammatory medication. I don’t know who to believe considering the sports doctor, MRI, and physiotherapist all said it’s a torn ACL. When I research soft tissue injuries around the knee it seems they all should heal within 4 weeks at most. This injury has persisted for a year & a half...

I called my sports doctor today to tell her what the surgeon said and I have a phone call appointment with her Wednesday so I’ll see what she says. When the surgeon did the lachman test I didn’t feel my ACL do anything, it was as if he didn’t even do the test correctly. When my sports doctor did it I felt the very clear snap in my good knee and then it was very loose in my bad knee. This happened when the physiotherapist did it too. Very confused now

 

[EdJovanovski]

Been doing rehab exercises and if anything my knee feels worse than it did months ago. My sports doctor agreed the best thing to do would be to get a second opinion from another surgeon, we sent that request away months ago and I they finally got back to us and told me it's a 6 month wait to see the surgeon. LOL
Pretty sure I'm going to just go to the US for health care once again it at this point, I'm looking into getting STEM cell or PRP injections. I wish I could get the new BEAR procedure but they've halted it during Covid. STEM cell injection success rate is 75% and since mine's a partial tear it will probably be higher.
Edit: Just got told the wait list does not begin yet lmao, have to go through "triaging" first. I'm not even on that 6 month waiting list yet, so who knows when.

 

[LokiDog]

I have a torn rotator cuff. It's a bummer. And very uncomfortable. 24/7 deep, dull throb running from scapula to elbow.

I'm doing unilateral workouts to try and maintain some strength and mass on the right side via the principle of cross education and neural adaptations, but it's really weird only working one side of the upper body.

 

[NYSPORTS]

So, I have periodontal disease and was told I needed a tooth extracted. So I decided to get a second opinion hoping I'll be told I don't need to do it. The opposite happened. I was told I need SEVEN (!!!) teeth extracted. I don't know what to do and my insurance will only cover a fraction of it. I'm depressed. Should I get a third opinion? Should I go back to my regular doctor and ask him what HIS take is on it? He said I only have two problem teeth and wanted to extract just one.

what type of doctor did you visit? Not difficult to find a shady character in dentistry.

 

[MysticLeviathan]

going through some health issues now myself. Nothing crazy, but still a concern. Just did an at home sleep test and will discuss with the doctor in a few weeks. I got some pretty gnarly high blood pressure as well. It can't be understated how much stress can impact your health.

Stay active, eat well, and see your doctors regularly. Hopefully you have lucky genes and everything else takes care of itself.

 

[Chytilmania]

Been doing rehab exercises and if anything my knee feels worse than it did months ago. My sports doctor agreed the best thing to do would be to get a second opinion from another surgeon, we sent that request away months ago and I they finally got back to us and told me it's a 6 month wait to see the surgeon. LOL
Pretty sure I'm going to just go to the US for health care once again it at this point, I'm looking into getting STEM cell or PRP injections. I wish I could get the new BEAR procedure but they've halted it during Covid. STEM cell injection success rate is 75% and since mine's a partial tear it will probably be higher.
Edit: Just got told the wait list does not begin yet lmao, have to go through "triaging" first. I'm not even on that 6 month waiting list yet, so who knows when.

The Kneesovertoesguy - YouTube
Ben Patrick is great with knee pain. I'd recommend checking out his videos and doing his exercise program.

 

[bobbop]

To all my online buddies, I wish you good healing and better health in the days ahead. As the old man here, I’ve lost too many friends and seen many others suffer. It’s no fun to watch.

As I learned long ago, every day is a blessing. Today is no different. So is tomorrow.

Godspeed my friends.

 

[nyrage]

I thought this was going to be a diet and exercise thread, but as I was reading this thread backwards, I was thinking that I can relate to a lot of these things from 40 years of playing hockey. I've broken and torn just about everything. Aside from some necessary facial surgeries, I didn't always take care of them at the time because I was a dumb macho hockey player and played through injuries.

If I can provide one piece of advice, it's make you sure you deal with it at the time because it only gets worse with time. Let's just say that it's pretty hard for me to sleep comfortably because I screwed up my shoulders and back. That said, I'm in pretty good shape at 54 and healthy (aside from those nagging painful residual effects).

My other piece of advice is to keep (or start) exercising. It gets harder to prevent gaining weight and things tend to snowball once you gain weight (plus any effects from your body aging). I exercise every day and do a lot of stretching. My body had become pretty inflexible around the time I hit 50. My hips were incredibly stiff, but now that I stretch every day, I'm pretty damn flexible. It's never too late to start or re-start getting in shape.

 

[Ratelleitlikeitis]

Some of you may know about my health issues I've been dealing with regarding pulsatile tinnitus (whooshing sound of blood flow in sync with your heartbeat). I had a long journey to try getting that figured out as it's often caused by neurovascular abnormalities, after many scans and seeing the top specialist in the world in NYC Dr. Patsalides he ruled out anything neurovascular, but he suggested to get my heart looked at.

I got a phone call from my cardiologist and it turns out my echocardiogram showed a slightly leaky valve with prolapse. I haven't received the actual reports yet but from our conversation it sounds like it's something called Mitral Valve Prolapse.

Mitral valve prolapse - Symptoms and causes

Says it is fairly common, presenting in 2% of the population and is not typically life-threatening, a little worried however as it has heavy correlation with connective tissue diseases. My dad died of primary heart cancer (sarcoma of the right atrium) at age 33, that is like a 1 in 100 million cancer. Sarcomas are connective tissue tumors, and literally every person on my dad's side of the family has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

When I reconnected with them a few years ago they were shocked to hear that I had no health issues, they can't even walk without a cane because of it and they are just in their 30's. I'll try to get tested for Ehlers-Danlos, it is looking very likely because of my family history, my prolapsing valve (these are caused by it being too stretchy), and the fact I am hypermobile. My wrists, elbows, shoulders are all double jointed. Like if I put my hand flat on a table I can turn it around over 360 degrees. I also have completely flat feet, and severe near sightedness (both are symptoms of EDS). Now I'm analyzing everything and perhaps that is even why I tore my ACL so easily.

Any of you guys have experience with any of these conditions? Any other health issues you guys are dealing with?

Thank you for sharing. I have recently noticed this pulsating tinnitus the last six months, particularly when I lie down in the evening. Man it's been a nuisance,sometimes more noticeable than others. I've been a runner, watched my diet, never smoked and seldom have alcohol, so I will bring this up at my next physical. Thanks again for catching my attention with the info.

 

[EdJovanovski]

UPDATE
I was told I was going to have to wait well into next year for a consultation with a surgeon about my ACL, but randomly received a phone call last week and they said they could see my next week (yesterday now). So it turned out my ACL is NOT torn. There was a tiny artifact in the MRI that the radiologist wrongly interpreted as a partial tear in the ACL. The surgeon said he has no idea why the radiologist put that I had a torn ACL in the report. He said that whatever minor injury I had has healed, my ACL is 100% stable and perfect. All of my ligaments are. They said the pain I'm feeling now is caused by stress on my knee from the strength loss in that leg that I got from babying it this whole time when I was under the impression that I had a torn ACL. So now the physio to restrengthen that leg begins and I will hopefully be back playing hockey in no time!