July 2000

July 7, 2000 I went to the pain clinic to get my sacroiliac joint injection. It was a very weird procedure. I had to lay on my belly on this elevated bed. A big blue sheet was placed over me. There was a TV screen that they used when placing the needle into my hip joint. First they numbed the area, which didn't hurt that bad. It just burned for a few minutes. Next they placed a big machine over me and it took picutes of the needle placement. I remember when they started injecting the steroids because it felt like a huge pressure. Thats when I found out that your hip isn't numb the whole way through! After the injection I didn't feel any immediate relief. I still left in a wheel chair. A few weeks later and I was starting to feel the benefits of the injection. Although this injection didn't help any of the GI pain I was having.

July 10, 2000

July 10, 2000 I had to call my GI doctor because I've been having episodes of rectal bleeding. My doctor ordered zantac for me to take at night, and corticosteroid enemas to use every night for 10 days to see if it would help. He believed that I had hemmhoroids. The next day I went to the ER because I started having hip pain andback pain, and I had a large swelling right on my scyatic nerve, and a lump right on the back of my neck. The docs increased my Vioxx to 50mg and told me to see my regular doctor. On July 14 I seen my regular doctor and he ordered a SED rate of my blood. My SED rate was 22. July 20 they checked my SED rate again and now it was 35.

July 22, 2000

I had to go back to the ER again...I felt horrible all day!! I'm sure getting sick of feeling like this. The doctors tell me that there's nothing they can really do, and the medicine has to have time to work. If the medicines going to work it would have worked by now! I suffer everyday with this disease. When is it going to end? The doctors at the ER gave me a pain shot and sent me home. What else could they do for me? nothing. Abolutely nothing...I made another appointment to see my GI doctor.

July 24, 2000

July 24, 2000 I seen my GI doctor AGAIN. Now he is ordering a Prometheus test. It is a very new type of blood test. They take a sample of your blood and send it to California at the Prometheus Labs. They look for certain marker in the blood that is typical with people that have either Crohns disease or Colitis. Both of the diseases have different kinds of blood markers, therefor they can determine if its Crohns disease or Colitis. Its almost as good as a biopsy. It should take a few weeks to get the results back. The doctor just wants to make sure what we are dealing with.

July 30, 2000

For the last 3 days I've been in bed because my back and leg pain have been so bad. Since it hasn't gotten any better I decided to go to the ER. At the ER the doctor said that I really needed to be checked for Lupus or a thyroid problem because I'm down to 5mg of prednisone and I still have alot of water retention. He says that I should have lost some weight by now. He increased my oxycontin until I can get to see the pain doctor at St.Francis.

Please..don't stop reading now...