I'm joining the pill club.

[K191145]

I don't always take care of myself, healthwise that is as far as eating and watching my weight and I also smoke but at 52 when most people are taking some kind of medication i've avoided it until now, no blood pressure meds or chloresterol meds or anything like that, good geans I guess. Well Sunday I had to go to the VA ER with Un-Godly nauesa and sharp stomach and abdomen pains, they took a contrast CAT scan then put me in the hospitol for 2 days for tests. It started as some viral infection of the upper intestines which caused swelling, that's over but I also have good ol bleeding peptic ulcers in my upper intestines. It's not making me weak or lowering my BP so I guess I can heal them at home, right now I have to take Prilosec but i'll see Monday when I go to see my primary care doc if I have to take anything else. I don't know how I got them, I don't drink at all but I do drink coffee, smoke, and eat late alot of times, I guess it's time for some diet and habit changes. As far as a misery index goes, I would much rather deal with an orthopedic injury/pain than internal stomach/intestine pain naseua sickly never ending feeling.

[Ted S.]

That sucks, man. I know I won't take medication unless the alternative is either death or the doctor. I had what seemed like bronchitis fow about three or four weeks around November last year, and had to work almost every day I had it, so I eventually broke down and took some mucinex since it really wasn't getting better.

Hope you're not on that stuff for long. Edited May 14, 2014 by Ted S.

[Monkeyman2500]

You got a few years on me but I've been fighting the docs on taking arthritis meds for a while now. Scary when you read some of the warnings and side effects. Ulcers is probably stress and a lot of coffee. I try to not drink to many cups past the morning. You can try the vaporizer route to quit smoking. I've had five people I know personally quit up to a two pack a day habit. Been a few guys on here have luck with it too. Good luck and hope you feel better.

[hipower]

Seems that one of my Docs told me that the majority of ulcers are bacterial in nature and origion, so it's not always food or drink that is the root cause.

[Grunt67]

My sympathy for being in the VA hospital, for any reason. I recently spent 4 days in the M'boro VA, Rather be

back in 'Nam.

[K191145]

My sympathy for being in the VA hospital, for any reason. I recently spent 4 days in the M'boro VA, Rather be
back in 'Nam.

Well I learned their secret codes there like, (I'll be right back), means at least 30 minutes and (shortly), is anywhere from 5 minutes to 3+ hours.
They do like to take the blood work there, I think they took more blood than my ulcers bled and you had better hope they send someone from the lab to take it instead of a floor nurse. After that one floor nurse tried to get it a number of times I thought about filling out paper work for a purple heart.

[bersaguy]

well, I have been a pill taker for more years than I like to remember but I guess with all of the injuries suffered when that truck hit me left me with no choice. I constantly keep antibiotic's on hand as i am due to infections from time to time. I suffered a small stroke if there is such a thing. I was just laying in bed reading fishing magazines and watching fishing videos when it hit. Found out it was caused because I suffered from High Blood Pressure and ignored it. Not any more. I take BP meds twice a day. Then in about 2005 I suffered a Heart attack and Heart disease runs in my family and it tuned out to be a clasped artery and one other artery was partially clogged with calcium build up. They put a stint in clasped artery to open it and used a laser to clean out other one and been on 81 milligram aspirin regimen ever since. Now with that said, i have a great relationship with my GP doctor and we talk about things. She has been my doctor for about 18 years now. We have an agreement that she will never prescribe anything advertised on TV and all of the meds I am on have been on the market tried and proven for 30+ years wit very limited to no side effects beyond 1 that causes some vivid dreams from time to time but I can live with dreams. Other than that no side effects with old meds. Problem with all this junk advertised on TV is the rush by drug companies in heated competition to be the firstest with the mostest and charge astronomical prices for it till hte other companies catch up with their own versions of the same stuff and then you see the prices begin to come down. Like the Purple Pill. When it first came out it was so expensive insurance companies refused to cover it. a month prescription was like 200+ bucks for 30 pills. Today they are under 50 bucks for 30 days because other companies have their products out there now. I could use VA but I have never trusted them and I am lucky enough to ave free world doctor and hospital coverage. At least I do till we see what the new POS health care program does to things...........jmho  

[bersaguy]

My sympathy for being in the VA hospital, for any reason. I recently spent 4 days in the M'boro VA, Rather be

back in 'Nam.

I think anyone forced to use VA should receive hazardous duty compensation for putting their lives in danger.............jmho

[daddyo]

Drugs good. Pain and suffering bad.

[netmindr]

As far as a misery index goes, I would much rather deal with an orthopedic injury/pain than internal stomach/intestine pain naseua sickly never ending feeling.

 

Seems like I've always got some nagging joint, tendon, ligament or muscle problems anymore. Could be from playing hockey for 10 years and/or the fact that I've never been one to otherwise exercise or workout, I'm not sure. I can't really complain cause I know overall I've got it better than some, but, it's no fun having pain or muscle weakness making it 10 times more difficult to do daily tasks. I'm trying to fix some of that now by going to the gym, but it takes a while for the benefits to kick in in your mid 40's.

 

However, I know what you mean about the nausea thing. A few years ago I had a 2-3 day bout with vertigo and with the world spinning non-stop, the only way I could handle it and the nausea was to try and stay asleep. If I could have been able to walk straight enough to find my gun it would have been considered. Although I'm sure I would have missed. At least with orthopedic stuff you can usually rest it and get some relief.

[bersaguy]

Well i had a buddy tell me one time " Getting Old is not for Sissies and he sure knew what he was talking about. I'm at the age now that if I wake up and get out of bed and don't hurt in several places almost immediately then  :panic:  I check  for a pulse to see if I am still alive and turn and look to make sure my body is not still in the bed and  then I :clap: to jump start the rest of the pains before heading for the coffee pot .................... :bowrofl:

Edited May 14, 2014 by bersaguy

[K191145]

Seems like I've always got some nagging joint, tendon, ligament or muscle problems anymore. Could be from playing hockey for 10 years and/or the fact that I've never been one to otherwise exercise or workout, I'm not sure. I can't really complain cause I know overall I've got it better than some, but, it's no fun having pain or muscle weakness making it 10 times more difficult to do daily tasks. I'm trying to fix some of that now by going to the gym, but it takes a while for the benefits to kick in in your mid 40's.

 

However, I know what you mean about the nausea thing. A few years ago I had a 2-3 day bout with vertigo and with the world spinning non-stop, the only way I could handle it and the nausea was to try and stay asleep. If I could have been able to walk straight enough to find my gun it would have been considered. Although I'm sure I would have missed. At least with orthopedic stuff you can usually rest it and get some relief.

 

A few years ago I got a caught a bout of what I am 99% sure was salmonelle food poisening because it was going around and I know for sure what I ate that set it off. I got the symptoms about 8 to ten hours after I ate it and it was a vegtable, pepper/tomato product from a well know mexican fast food place that I will never eat at again. Anyway, after 3 days of that miserable experience I had to get 2 bags of IV saline because the dehydration was getting dangerous, it lasted a total of 6 days. One week before that I had a plate and screws attached to my fibula where I broke it two weeks before that and anything around the ankle stays throbbing sore for a long time but the salmonella made me forget all about that, I didn't care at all about the ankle/foot pain. This case of intestine ifection and ulcers was a little worse than the salmonella pain wise, so much that even IV injections of morphine the first night didn't help at all and IV injections of diladid the second night helped very little. Any pain like that in your guts you just have to wait it out more or less.