It’s been about a month since I last wrote a post here. I have a few updates on my health.
Over the last month, I asked my GP for a referral to a different neurologist. I saw her over the next week, which was amazing that I got in so quickly. Dr. Porter is her name, and I really liked her. She was very thorough and knowledgeable.
Her assessment of all the symptoms is that these are definitely migraines. I’m surprised because they don’t feel like any migraines I’ve had before. But she’s the expert. To be sure that they are not aneurysms, I have to get an MRA (Magnetic Resonance Angiogram), which isn’t scheduled until later next month.
Dr. Porter also put me on a different medication. It’s called Quilipta. She said it would take a couple of weeks before it might start working, and I think it’s starting to do its job. I’ve been keeping track of the headaches in an app, which she told me to do, and over the last week, they’ve been getting less intense and scarcer.
During the first two weeks of using the app, I was experiencing attacks that lasted 15 to 26 hours. This past week, I’ve had a couple of headache-free days, and the attacks last from 2 to 6 hours. That’s huge progress.
I also have Nurtec for breakthrough headaches, but haven’t really needed it. The headaches are mild compared to the last ones I’d been having for months. In fact, I might get back to painting today. It’s in the plan, anyway.
I haven’t made any art at all since last year. I am disappointed, but I just couldn’t work. There was no way I could concentrate. I’ve had an oil painting sitting on my easel for what seems like a year now. I slowed down to working a couple of hours a day, then completely stopped working on it last December.
As for the nausea, I haven’t had much of it over the last few days. Another plus! I do have some right now, however, but that’s probably because I also recently started Mounjaro for my diabetes. It’s a once-a-week shot, and I’ve been doing it every Saturday for three weeks now. Nausea and vomiting are the main side effects. I’ve only really vomited once so far, which is a far cry from when I tried Ozempic some years ago. I stayed on Ozempic for over a month and quickly lost 15 pounds because I threw up every day. But this time, on Mounjaro, I’m going to be staying at the lowest dose. And I may have lost a couple of pounds already, mainly because I’m not hungry. That is what these GLP-1 medications do.
This has been a point of contention with my RD (registered dietitian). She is an eating disorder specialist and insists I eat the same amount of food I’ve been consuming normally, which is just impossible. When I did vomit (about a week ago), it was because I was overly full. There’s a point when you can feel it and can’t eat another bite. Stupidly, I kept eating, which sent me over the edge.
As a person with an eating disorder, it might sound interesting that I’ve never purposely purged in my life. A lot of people (who don’t know much about ED) think that this illness is all about purging. I absolutely HATE vomiting. You don’t even want to know. I’m not bulimic at all. My problem was restricting food, which is more associated with anorexia, though I don’t have “classic” anorexia either. Either way, I’ve been in treatment for a year now, and I feed myself these days, and for the first time in my life, really.
My RD says that I can’t rely on my hunger cues on Mounjaro because they’re “false.” I just can’t agree with that. They are not false, they are REAL! I can’t help what the medication is doing to me, and I can’t possibly eat the same amount as I did a month ago. I don’t think she gets it, or I know she doesn’t.
So, because of this medicine, which is for diabetes, not weight loss, I may have to find a new RD because she won’t back down. I don’t know what else I can do. I can’t force-feed myself, and I won’t.
In other news, I spent half the day yesterday reorganizing my Artist’s books inventory. I’m about to work with a new book arts dealer. Since Vamp & Tramp is closing its doors, they connected me to a place in Maryland (Kelmscott), and I’m sending them the first batch of my books today. Wish me luck with it.
And speaking of books, I put my 2019 memoir back up on Amazon. Why? Because I’ve been working on a new book, which might be like a memoir (I don’t know yet), and I decided to temporarily put the first one back up until I finish the new one. There will be some overlap, but since I’m rewriting all the redundant content, I’m not too concerned, especially since the first book will be going away as soon as I can publish the one I’m working on now. As I’ve mentioned before, the working title of the new one is called, Queer as Mud.
And that’s it for now.