Spiritus: You know what? I take back all that shit I said about you. You’re allright.
Wanderer:
Ugh. Regarding Christianity and life philosophy, I don’t have much to offer you. My version is more of a burden than a help and wouldn’t do you much good right now. But if you strip away all the bullshitizing and fluff it basically boils down to what filthy said. We’re all going down at some point, but you get style points if you go down swinging.
That’s it for the headshrinking. Looks to me like your head is screwed on pretty straight anyway, so let’s move on to the physical side. Since it appears that your ailment is one of those head scratchers where the doctors give you pain pills and hope you go away, may I offer a couple bits of possibly useful advice?
- You might consider seeing a chiropracter. One possible source of trouble might be pinched nerves in your lower back. A medic will tell you that is bullshit, but I’ve tried it and I’ll tell you different. For example, a common symptom of sleeping on your stomach or football injuries is ‘shooters’ or tingling pains in your fingers in middle age from years of pinched nerves in your neck. You may be experiencing something similar from pinched nerves in your lower back. A chiropracter was very helpful to me after my flying W excursion over the handlebars a few years back. It’s worth trying before going under the knife or spending the rest of your life on heavy drugs. And while it is a few bucks, it’s far cheaper than even the least expensive conventional treatment and many insurance plans will pay for it. Be aware you may run into a snake oil salesman who, while a certified chiropracter, might try to tell you he can cure your dandruff, make you better looking, etc. Chiropractic is good for aligning bones, taking pressure off nerves, and restoring range of motion, that’s it. It won’t make your dick bigger (damn!). But there can be secondary health benefits stemming from removal of chronic pain and improved mobility. Look for someone who is a graduate of Palmer Chiropractic College, the original and still the best.
- I gather from your remarks that you already are playing them close to the gravy stains about your condition. But just in case, don’t tell your health insurance company the truth if it should come up. They will deny coverage, drop you like last week’s newspaper, and then sell tickets to watch you die. Lie your ass off and say it just started, it’s a fucking mystery, etc, etc. Work it baby, work it.
- Wild ass theory alert. Do not get excited about this as it is probably 100% pure bullshit. However.
Some background; one way your immune system develops is, killer T cells which are programmed to eat almost anything are grown in the thyroid gland. A killer cell goes off when it recognizes the tag protein it is programmed for when presented in conjunction with the right cellular chemical signals. The thyroid sends all killer T cells to school by exposing them to all of the proteins they would normally see in your body. Any killer cell that attacks a human protein is itself killed so it won’t damage you. The rest are released into the bloodstream. Something like 999 of 1000 T cells never make it out of the thyroid, but the ones that do are extremely bad little ninja dudes. Further development takes place if other related B cells run into a new pathogen in the bloodstream such as an invading microbe. Bits of the pathogen are carried to the thyroid to be added to the curriculum. Special killer T cells develop to recognize that specific invader. If you lived then they won, and a small reserve of these specialized T cells still circulate for the rest of your life as rapid response shock troops. This reserve might be as few as a couple dozen cells floating around. So the thyroid does two kinds of filtering; one to protect your body, and one to prepare for known invaders. The thyroid is where your body separates ‘self’ from ‘not self’. That’s why it is not good to over protect kids from dirt. That time of life is by far the best chance to develop a strong immune system by being exposed to pathogens. That’s also how immunization works; by giving your immune system an early look at invading protein markers.
Your blood is normally never directly exposed to nerve tissue. Nerve proteins are not among the human proteins in your thyroid school. Your brain and spinal cord actually have a separate, much more primitive immune system behind the blood/brain barrier. One current theory about the cause of multiple sclerosis is a viral infection that destroys the fatty myalin sheath around a major nerve. The myalin sheath acts and looks very much like insulation on a wire, greatly speeding up rate and magnitude of nerve transmission. It also is part of the protection of your nerves against your blood. Once the sheath is removed, bits of exposed nerve and sheath proteins look like invaders to your bloodstream. The theory is, bits of nerve proteins are taken to the thyroid along with the viral invaders and your immune system gets programmed against your own nerves. It won’t happen unless there is an infection or other similar immune system threat at the same time. And even then it usually doesn’t happen.
So the exposed nerve is killed and scarring covers the stump. If it’s a peripheral (limb) nerve and the damage isn’t too great it will probably grow back. After the initial episode you might go many years without problems. But unkown causes possibly including infection or injury such as a bad bruise can expose your nerve tissue to blood again. The second and all subsequent reactions from your immune system are much more severe since it is already programmed to attack those specific invaders. The shock troops wake up, go to war, and place a rush order for an additional 100,000,000 backup troops. An example is dengue fever, where the first time you get real sick and the second time you die mostly from massive over reaction of your immune system.
So what the fuck does this have to do with your feet? I’m thinking of your badly broken leg years ago. That would certainly would have exposed much nerve tissue to your blood. Did it also get infected or get a bunch of dirt in it? You might be a fluke who mounted an immune response. No offense, some of my best friends are flukes. I’m no medic and this is a far fetched theory. I dreamed it up from general knowledge and have never read anything like it in any science journal. I’m probably so full of shit my eyes are brown. But if a chiropracter doesn’t do you any good, you might see an MS specialist and run this past him. New and effective drugs have been developed to treat MS. One of them might help you. Who knows, it might even be MS. It sounds like you’re within the typical age range to develop it and they still haven’t nailed the cause for sure. One clue is, I understand that heat makes symptoms more likely and severe. If you notice any correlation to hot weather or exertion (Florida, sorry) that might be something to mention. A later stage symptom is areas of numbness on the skin followed by localized paralysis that comes and goes. Since there is no outside infection or solid symptoms in early stages, it is reasonable to suspect that a GP might not recognize what he’s looking at. Odds are they verified no infection or knife handle sticking out and now are thinking to themselves that you’re a nut case. A specialist might at least be able to tell you for sure.
I know all this shit because a friend of mine has MS so I studied up. You could do a web search on MS and start studying yourself. Look to the hard core journals like the New England Journal of Medicine [http://www.nejm.org/content/index.asp] or Science Magazine [http://www.sciencemag.org/] for the juicy stuff. Look at the bibliography at the end of any applicable article for more leads. You’ll have to go to a major city or university library to get textbooks, but you can save a bunch of time on your feet by searching through their on line card catalogs and checking availability before you go. Try searching Scientific American [http://www.sciam.com/] or New Scientist [http://www.newscientist.com/] for solid reporting that is more in plain english. Read read read, and make a list of questions for the medic. Make a hobby out of annoying him with obscure tangential questions and then tracking down the leads he gives you. If you get so disabled that you have to stop working, fill those idle hours with classes in anatomy and physiology. Don’t take ‘Gee, we don’t know Mr Wanderer, bye bye now’ for a fucking answer. That’s what they’ll hand you if you take it because every medic in the world is very busy. They have no incentive to burn a bunch of unbillable hours doing research on your case. You’re the only one with a vested interest (besides your fellow Pitizens, of course). Chances are somebody somewhere knows and you haven’t met him yet. Besides, it’s a hobby, right? And you’ll meet people. My cousin married a nurse he met in the hospital so never stop flirting either.
That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it. If any of this pans out you have to hike over here and deliver an official Sherlock Holmes merit badge. I need something to patch these jeans with. Even nothing works and you hurt worse than ever DON’T FUCKING GIVE UP! We’re only 100 years away from eternal youth and immortality, tops. Assuming we don’t nuke ourselves to vapor in the meantime. There are more scientists working right now than the total sum ever born throughout history and they’ve just now picked the lock. They’ve got all of history to build on and ever more sophistocated tools to work with. And believe me, the R&D money is there. If you come up dry now, odds are in five years some wiz kid will discover just the magic sauce for you. You could have another century or two of healthy boozing and skirt chasing to look forward to. If you hang on long enough you might live forever. That’s my plan anyway. With a little luck I’ll see you for the big Y3K crisis.
Now snap out of it! Get out there and tear it up even if you have to drag yourself with your lips!
about seeing someone, try some reading on your own. I highly recommend Reynolds Price’s A Whole New Life, which is his account of learning to live with horrible pain and disability due to a spinal cord tumor. Plus, he is a fantastic writer–I would recommend his fiction, but that is another thread. Managing Pain Before It Manages You by Margaret Caudill is also very, very good. It is a workbook with the focus of “that pain ain’t going away, so whatcha gonna do now?”