@ dustymaker642 I saw that recipe you mentioned somewhere 🙂 Anyway, I'm just going to finish everything up now and try not to panic before my check-up. Hopefully, this is the winning combination 🙂 ...
Hi My urine culture came back showing > 10^5 E. coli. I don't have any symptoms, though my urine amylase was a bit high—not sure if there's any connection there... The antibiogram lists about 15 possible antibiotics, but apparently only about 5 can be prescribed by a GP, while the rest require a specialist. My doctor decided on 10 days of Efox, 500mg twice a day, followed by 10 days of Nolicin, 400mg twice a day. Does this seem like a solid treatment plan? Also, should I get a new culture done immediately after finishing, or should I wait a bit first...
velvetmoose9 said:Every test result really needs to be interpreted alongside the patient's actual clinical symptoms. If they had actually practiced proper medicine, they could have just called this finding non-alarming without causing unnecessary panic...
thanks 👋
Other markers were tested too (cholesterol, triglycerides, liver enzymes, potassium, glucose, creatinine, uric acid, bilirubin, urine) and everything looks fine. She’s a generally very healthy woman in her early 80s 😍, and since we used a private lab, I was wondering if we should still run this by her primary care physician...
Hi, could someone help me make sense of these results? It’s for an elderly woman who isn't feeling any particular symptoms... Do we need to worry about these high or low values?
Sandra Moore6 said:Her left arm is swelling and hurting. It’s easy to mistake it for leg pain—which always makes me panic and worry about a relapse—but now they actually want her back at work once she finishes Herceptin therapy...
Is it normal for her arm to hurt and swell this much? She’s already ended up in the ER twice because of the pain. Who should we reach out to at the Mayo Clinic about this?
Thanks in advance for any help...
The pain and swelling are actually pretty common since they removed those lymph nodes, so the lymph fluid just isn't flowing right through the tissue...😉
If she’s finished chemo—and it sounds like she has—maybe try asking her doctors about manual lymphatic drainage with a physical therapist. It might help get that flow back to normal...
I went last year and it was absolutely phenomenal! But the venue was pretty empty, so I don't think there's any chance they'll move to a massive arena this time 🤷
I even found myself wondering if we might see some "audience fatigue" during this run 🙄
Dealing with thyroid issues, PCOS, side effects from birth control, Duphaston, some depression, and an eating disorder (swinging between too little and too much)... I still try to work out pretty regularly, despite being a somewhat winded Hashimoto's patient 😉
It's not like I'm just sitting on the couch with a bag of chips 🤷
The obesity clinic falls under metabolic disease outpatient care, and yeah, it's a legitimate medical condition And no, getting a referral isn't easy—you really have to be struggling 😉
Thomas Fox67 said:Can you, like, expand on that a bit? Why exactly do you think he was being such a jerk and all that?...
And did they just hand you the tests and the meds right away, or did you have to fight them for it? How'd that whole thing go down?
After talking to some of his other patients while waiting for my appointment, I've realized it isn't just me or my subjective impression😳
The guy is genuinely unpleasant, I don't even know how to put it into words🤷 He won't let you get a word in edgewise, he just goes on these patronizing monologues. If you actually try to ask him something, you end up offending his ego and his whole persona🙄, everyone else (the other doctors) is clueless and incompetent, while he obviously knows everything there is to know. You, as the patient, are just incredibly stupid and insignificant in his world, and he just repeats the same clichés over and over again🙄
Anyway, I'm really unhappy with his attitude and how he carries himself. If I keep going there, I'll be looking for a different doctor☕
There wasn't any pushback regarding the lab results.
Jelčić just gives everyone the exact same pitch, which means there’s zero personalized care involved... On top of that, he's incredibly rude, arrogant, and just plain unpleasant to deal with.
The only silver lining was that after endless searching, I finally tracked down the psychotherapy I desperately needed. ☕
Nicholas Wright56 said:The only thing that really confused me was when I saw my gynecologist regarding a breast ultrasound—I honestly thought that would fall under gynecology, but she mentioned that the referral actually has to come from a primary care doctor, and she also suggested it's best to have one for the first time once you're over 35.
It’s probably the same way for hormone testing; I don't think a general practitioner can order those, so it would likely have to be a specialist like a gynecologist...
So, I guess that's just how the whole process functions.
I'm a little out of the loop here, but I wouldn't take that "after 35" rule too literally... If there's a history of breast disease in your family, you really should get one sooner... That's just my humble opinion (plus, my PCP didn't give me any trouble with the referral)...
It's the same deal with testing your hormone levels—my primary care doctor can't do that, only an OBGYN...
If you go to your OBGYN and they see something like cysts on the ultrasound and want you to test your hormones, then the specialist handles the referral...
But if you're already seeing an endocrinologist who sends you for those tests, then your primary care doctor provides the referral...
edit: Angela Wright beat me to it while I was typing...😁
The search function always pulls up these totally random, useless posts for me, so I think Henry Morales32 is right to ask...
I could never find what I was actually looking for using the search tool, not even back then 🤷 (not even things I eventually found just by digging through everything manually)
vividsailor7 said:I don't think it’s very likely to be any kind of autoimmune disease. If your OBGYN told you it was that concerning, why didn't they send you for antibody testing (ANCA, ANA, C3, C4, RF, etc.)...
But is it even right to scare a pregnant woman like that when she's already so far along?... I'm no doctor, I can only try to comfort Kenneth Sanchez by saying that some people just naturally fall outside the standard ranges...
There are people who have a slightly elevated temperature their whole lives and they're perfectly healthy...
Wait, isn't CRP usually elevated during pregnancy anyway?
And regarding autoimmune diseases, there are plenty of them out there. I have a milder one, and my CRP stays low.🤷 My sedimentation rate is also low, except when I'm dealing with a virus or something similar...
Losing weight also lowers your insulin levels, which in turn lowers testosterone too.
Regarding your question about how PCOS develops, there's increasing evidence pointing to hyperinsulinemia (high insulin) as a core factor in the syndrome's development. It’s also well-known that weight, especially during adolescence, is a major driver for the onset and worsening of PCOS.
One theory on why PCOS happens is that excess body weight, combined with a certain genetic predisposition (specifically regarding how the body handles insulin), leads to hyperinsulinemia (elevated insulin levels). This then triggers the ovaries to produce more androgen and affects the liver by reducing the production of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), which ultimately causes free testosterone levels to rise.
That second part—the drop in SHBG and the rise in free testosterone—is actually reflected in your lab results.
Best regards. 🙂
Thanks for the reply, Felix, but I'm a bit confused about the insulin part, since my tests for it were done back in June, okay?
Glucose 5.1 (4.2-6.2) Insulin 6.0 (2.6-24.9) OGTT 0 min. 4.7 OGTT 120 min 5.0
Everything is within range 🤷
Do you have any advice, maybe regarding other tests or something similar? I have my follow-up with the endocrinologist in September.
I've dealt with a whole bunch of different diagnoses over the last two years. I can list them all if it helps, but for now, just mentioning Hashimoto's (euthyroid) and PCOS...
Thanks!
edit: For meds, I'm taking Nexium 20mg, Synthroid 50, and Elicea. I'm also carrying quite a bit of extra weight, so birth control isn't really an option for my PCOS right now...🙄
Anyway, I just wanted to tell everyone here that during these kinds of outages 😛 if you hit "submit" and get an error, please don't keep spamming it. Most of the time, your post actually went through anyway.
Don't go blaming the server for all those duplicate posts... 😬