Two Cities, Two Doctors, and One Jim

The two cities are Puebla and Mexico City.  The two doctors are a neurologist and my regular doctor.  The one Jim is me.

So here’s the story.  I decided to do double-duty while in Puebla, and go see a new neurologist.

Actually, I haven’t seen a neurologist since moving to Mexico.  A neurologist is generally who you see to be treated for migraine.  I’ve received treatment from another doctor, and have had some self-treatment based on research I’ve done, but I haven’t been to a neurologist for a while.

In case you’re not familiar with migraine, it’s a neurological disease (even if you are familiar with it, it’s still a neurological disease).  You can read lots more about migraine here.

Somebody’s head (MRI results).  I don’t know whose, but it’s not mine.  My MRI results are still in Puebla. This guy/girl looks all good to me.

I actually went with a specific question (I was looking for an unlikely diagnosis of an incurable problem from someone probably not qualified to diagnose), but didn’t really get the question answered to my satisfaction (no surprise there).

However, I got a bunch of tests – the standard neurological checkup, an electroencephalography (EEG), and a magnetic resonance imaging exam (MRI) (gracious me, those take a long time!  Especially when you have a severe headache at the time.  I have new respect for people who get MRIs.  Leave a comment, and I’ll respect you.).  The EEG could be done at the doctor’s office, but the MRI was across town in the hospital.

After all this I returned to the neurologist, feeling very much like the lab rat I am.  He was helpful, seemed competent, although completely devoid of a sense of humour.

He prescribed 3 medications for me to try, and told me to call him in the "morning".

For those of you unfamiliar with chronic illness and specifically neurological issues, the "morning" for a neurologist is generally several months. Because of the way migraine treatments work, you need to try them for several months (3 is a good number) before you have any idea if they’re going to work.  If you have some success, it may be partial success, or dosages may need to be changed.  Or the medication may do nothing at all.  Or it may work temporarily. This isn’t a pessimistic point of view, it’s simply the reality of this type of medicine.  It’s the same with other things such as epilepsy, for example.  If you expect to take two aspirin and be cured the next day, you’ll be disappointed. So you might not want to ask me if it’s helping until sometime in October.

I’ll probably see him again in September or October.

Also, though he looked at the MRI results, the experts weren’t done anilyzing them.  So I’ll head back to Puebla in a week or two to pick those up.

When we returned to Ixtapaluca, I made an appointment to see my doctor here.  The thing is, I was feeling nauseous almost all the time.  Taking a stab in the dark, after a couple of weeks I figured that probably wasn’t normal.

I saw Dr. Lechuga (Dr. Lettuce) on Monday, and he and his nurse were properly shocked at my stomach and prescribed a strict diet (no chilli!  *gasp*), and several medications to try to cure me.

I have another appointment with him in a couple of weeks.

So, how d’ya feel, Jim?!

You’ve heard the expression the cure was worse than the disease?  Well, I’m not sure now what the symptoms of the disease are and what the symptoms of the medication are!  😉  My stomach is, I think, starting to feel better though.

In another couple of weeks, the medications will (hopefully) have petered out to only one or two.  One is a preventative medication (one I will take every day to prevent migraine attacks), so it may take me a while to get used to it (if I do).

So basically I’m just really tired and out of it (no kidding! you say).  It’s probably from the medication (ya think?! you say).  I’m going to try to get a little more sleep and see if that helps.

Caffeine doesn’t seem to help.  Maybe a finger in the electrical outlet once and hour would do the trick (you know, neuro-electric therapy.  Can I get a prescription for that?).

That’s the basic story of two cities, two doctors, and one Jim.