Gross medical issues

[hobbsyoyo]

How? I'm curious.

Well, my father is a colonel in the US Army (USA #1! and if you don't agree my daddy will drone bomb your house and/or cave) and as such he has TriCare insurance. It's socialized, one-payer health insurance that military members and their families get and it's AWESOMESAUCE. Seriously, there is no better healthcare in USA #1! than good ol' socialist TriCare. Anywhoo, when they passed Obamacare with the provision that all people 26 and younger can stay on their parents insurance, they purposely exempted TriCare from that and pretty much all of Obamacare.

I'm not 100% sure why they did this, my best guess is that the dems were afraid if they touched it that they'd get hammered for messing with military benefits or something.

In any case, I was actually in DC lobbying the government on behalf of my college when they passed Obamacare and in a giant cosmic coincidence, I was turning 23 that same week (you lose TriCare at 23) and so I was hyped up because I thought I would be keeping my insurance. Boy was I wrong.

Also, seriously that doesn't sound well, dude. In Denmark you'd get an exam snapquickly and everybody would still love you even though it sounds like much of this might be your fault, with those fatty foods and all. Solidarity all the way. Grossed-out hugs from the bifag Dane.

The bolded means a lot to me for a few reasons. A few weeks ago VRWCAgent said something that upset me quite a bit and I think that much of the vitriol the right expresses towards Obamacare can be over the top and hurtful to a lot of people in a way the right doesn't understand.

Missouri passed an anti-Obamcare law in November, it's purely symbolic and doesn't change anything, but I didn't know it at the time. VRWCAgent was gloating over it and it hurt my feelings. Here I am, without health insurance but working 20hr/week (the most the school will let me) and taking 15+ credit hours of engineering classes with a wife who is a teacher full time and the only hope I have to get insurance is Obamacare. And VRWCAgent was gloating over the fact that I could be denied health insurance.

I want to pay into the system, I don't want to be a free loader, but I can't afford a bill that costs a month's rent every month for insurance on top of my actual rent. People against Obamacare often have never gone without insurance and don't know what it's like to suffer without help in this way or to face bankruptcy over unavoidable illness.

We can debate merits of Obamacare till the cows come home, but it sickens me that people would rather have nothing and therefore have people die every day for lack of care. Particularly because these same people who want to deny coverage talk about the sanctity of life blah blah blah all the freaking time. It's hypocritical, un-Christian and disgusting to talk about 'free-loaders' and 'dead beats' not deserving coverage because they can't afford it. Again, my problem isn't that people don't like the law, it's that they wouldn't like any law that covers the uninsured and demonize those without insurance.

So yeah, the point of my rant is that I appreciate people not treating me like I'm a horrible dead-beat goodfornothing free-loading free-pony hippy-face who can blow off and die because you got yours and screw me for not having insurance.

And yes, my diet was atrocious but I'm working on changing it just like I quit smoking and the doc doesn't actually think it's the junk food that's doing it (though I wish this was the problem because it's an easy fix).

Get yourself to a doctor, Mr Hobbs. It may be there's nothing particularly wrong, but blood in the stool is not a thing to take lightly, imo.

The doctor says it's going to be a diagnosis of exclusion. We have to cut out things from my diet one at a time and do different things until we hit a diagnosis. This week I'm supposed to cut out glutens because I may have a gluten-intolerance. If that doesn't work, she'll start me on medicine for IBS, because she really thinks that is it but it's easier and cheaper to start with cutting out gluten before giving me medicine.

I actually appreciate her approach. Since it's a clinic and I don't have insurance, she's being smart and taking a step by step approach. Most doctors start with expensive tests and diagnostics even if the chance you have something they can detect is vanishingly small. They get paid for doing all that even if there is marginal benefit. However she is doing things smart and doing the easy and cheap stuff first to narrow down the list of potential causes instead of throwing me in a lab for 30 $300 tests. This is the kind of thing Obamacare should encourage.

If it's clearly red blood then it's most likely hemorrhoids (perhaps!!! I ain't no medical person - where's holy king when you want him?), blackened stools have blood in them (I have heard) from further back in the colon.

Just stop eating crap food, anyway.

Crap food is gone, out of my house. It sucks that we just went grocery shopping though because now I have to not eat gluten stuff and I didn't know that when I went shopping. I really hope it's just a bad diet and not hemmorroids or something like IDB.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

What foods have gluten? Everything with wheat?

 

[MobBoss]

Fyi, TRICARE would be your dads insurance...not yours.

Maybe you should enlist yourself and then get some of that awesomesauce tricare for you and your own family.

Btw, if your wife is a teacher full time why arent you on her insurance?

 

[WindFish]

Yes and stuff with Barley and Rye

 

[emzie]

What foods have gluten? Everything with wheat?

Wheat and other grains (barley, rye...). Look at ingredient labels and avoid dextrin/maltodextrin which are gluten fillers.

There are gluten-free flours to substitute if you bake.

Fyi, TRICARE would be your dads insurance...not yours.

Maybe you should enlist yourself and then get some of that awesomesauce tricare for you and your own family.

Btw, if your wife is a teacher full time why arent you on her insurance?

As he said earlier, it would cost more than their rent to add him to their plan. See how powerful teacher's unions are?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Fyi, TRICARE would be your dads insurance...not yours.

It was mine in that neither of us owned it but we both used it. Yes, he paid for it, but I was still entitled to use it. What the hell kind of point is this anyway? Oh right, hair splitting is fun here.

Maybe you should enlist yourself and then get some of that awesomesauce tricare for you and your own family.

I tried in 2006 but they don't take people with thyroid disease. And yeah, that's a great reason to join up, for the insurance. Why doesn't every uninsured American join up, that's a reasonable assumptiom.

Btw, if your wife is a teacher full time why arent you on her insurance?

HeadStart has crap insurance and it costs close to $500/month to add a spouse.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yes and stuff with Barley and Rye

Wheat and other grains (barley, rye...). Look at ingredient labels and avoid dextrin/maltodextrin which are gluten fillers.

There are gluten-free flours to substitute if you bake.



As he said earlier, it would cost more than their rent to add him to their plan. See how powerful teacher's unions are?

Thanks guys for the info. Also, HeadStart isn't unionized im this state. She does the same job as union teachers but makes half as much and gets crap benefits. She also works off the clock so much it isn't funny.

 

[classical_hero]

Thank you, but I can't afford a specialist.

It might cost some money, but it will be money well spent. I know what it is like to have similar health problems and yet told there was nothing wrong with me. It was a great relief to find out what was wrong, in the fact that I had two parasites in digestive system. Is it still possible to ask your parents for some money and tell them that it is for your health, so they will understand.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

If I have to, I will ask them for money to get tests. For now, I'm just going along with the free (but limited) treatment the clinic doctor gives me. I don't know if they'll have anything to give me as things for them are a bit tight, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

What were your intestinal parasites and what were your symptoms, if I may ask?


_______
I spoke with my wife and I won't be able to go on a gluten-free diet this week. We went grocery shopping this weekend as we had an empty fridge and bought a bunch of healthy food for a week of planned meals. It's all healthy but stocked with gluten. I can't afford to throw it out and my wife can't eat it all herself. But next week when I go grocery shopping I'll get gluten free stuff. This also gives me more time to plan things out, gluten-free is a big lifestyle change.

 

[classical_hero]

The one that we knew the name was a parasite called dientamoeba fragilis and the second one they don't know what it exactly is, since they haven't found all the human parasites nor all the sub types of the ones already known. I have a feeling that my second parasite is called blastocystis which is one of the hardest ones to remove. Have a look at this site, www.badbugs.org/ and read what other people have told about their suffering with parasites and see if you are similar to those who have written to that site.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

That sounds really terrible, especially because they didn't know what you had. Are you better now?

 

[Richard Cribb]

First of all, I wish you will get well soon.
I am not a doctor, but I have learnt a couple of things through having different chronical illnesses, one of them being celiac disease. What you describe does not sound typical to intolerance to gluten, but it is possible and something one should always look for. So you probably should have a tube inserted in you somewhere (gastroscopy and or coloscopy - don't worry, it is not so bad. I do this sort of thing every year myself.), but that is something your doctor should decide.

Wheat and other grains (barley, rye...). Look at ingredient labels and avoid dextrin/maltodextrin which are gluten fillers.

The first part of this is correct, the second not. Maltodextrin is always gluten free, even if made of wheat; dextrin usually gluten free. What is important though is to be very carefully which checking virtually everything you are intending to eat, things like chocolate bars, condiments or processed meat just to mention a few things can in fact contain gluten.

There are gluten-free flours to substitute if you bake.

Indeed. Apart from that many bakeries and grocery shops will also have gluten free ready-made products available.

 

[Core Imposter]

Had a family-in-law member that had to have a dead portion of intestine removed, wore a colostomy bag for a year. This was not pleasant and I fear produces some long term psychological issues.

To complete the threadjack, my doctors have told me I am too sick for my surgery tomorrow. This either means I am really sick or my surgery isn't too serious. Not sure which. I do have to go in for another test in a few hours.

Advice to the kids here, avoid aging.

Hobbs, get good medical help and figure out a way to pay for it later. Send them a ten spot a month, whatever. Dead people have few medical issues.

In regard to the free clinic, you get what you pay for.

Another option is to punch a cop and refuse bail and petition to see a doc (not in Arizona). Prison doctors are very well paid.

Whatever it takes pal.

 

[Zelig]

The doctor says it's going to be a diagnosis of exclusion. We have to cut out things from my diet one at a time and do different things until we hit a diagnosis.

That really seems far more difficult and time-consuming than doing the reverse - eat nothing but broccoli and spinach, and start adding one thing back into your diet at a time until they cause problems.

 

[WindFish]

Had a family-in-law member that had to have a dead portion of intestine removed, wore a colostomy bag for a year. This was not pleasant and I fear produces some long term psychological issues.

It will cause long term psychological issues.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah the doctor doesn't really think I have gluten intolllerance, she's leaning more toward IBS. But it's easier (and cheaper) to start by eliminating gluten before prescribing medicines for IBS.


I pushed so hard this morning I almost passed out. I'm going to die like Elvis, I think.

That really seems far more difficult and time-consuming than doing the reverse - eat nothing but broccoli and spinach, and start adding one thing back into your diet at a time until they cause problems.

Hmmm....that's an interesting notion. I'm going to do her gluten-free thing and if that doesn't work, I'll take the IBS pills. But I'll bring this up to her to try after that.

To complete the threadjack, my doctors have told me I am too sick for my surgery tomorrow. This either means I am really sick or my surgery isn't too serious. Not sure which. I do have to go in for another test in a few hours.

Are you going to be ok? Do you mind sharing what you have?

Hobbs, get good medical help and figure out a way to pay for it later. Send them a ten spot a month, whatever. Dead people have few medical issues.

She didn't bring up anything like cancer, so I'm going to go along with her treatment plan for now. If it turns into something catastrophic like cancer, I may have a plan.

In regard to the free clinic, you get what you pay for.

This one is OK, it's paid for by our tuition. The main problem is that they're really only equipped for handling the flu, std's (students like to have sex, whodathunkit) and other minor illnesses. For more serious issues, they can run some tests but then have to send you to the hospital next door, which I can't afford. We'll just have to see.

Another option is to punch a cop and refuse bail and petition to see a doc (not in Arizona). Prison doctors are very well paid.

I will do this if it turns out that I have some terrible disease with a low chance of survival (I highly doubt it's anything like that). This way I won't put a burden on my wife and family because medical treatment gets ungodly expensive.

If it's some serious issue that can be easily treated (but is expensive) then I will divorce my wife, knock her up and take sole custody of the child. All on paper, of course, nothing would change except we'd have a baby. You can only get on Medicaid in Missouri if you have a small child, so my life is less valuable than a baby's, but whatever.

Of course, Obamacare will be implemented by that time, so I guess I won't have to do this (hopefully).

 

[Core Imposter]

Divorcing the wife and then knocking her up is immoral. Punch the damn cop.

 

[MobBoss]

Did they even examine or test you to see if it was cancer? Or did they just rule that out willy nilly?

Reason i'm asking is I had some rectal bleeding this past fall, and the doc mentioned to me that a colonoscopy was needed to rule out cancer. If you didnt get one of those, then its possible the doc hasnt crossed that off the list.

 

[peter grimes]

I spoke with my wife and I won't be able to go on a gluten-free diet this week. We went grocery shopping this weekend as we had an empty fridge and bought a bunch of healthy food for a week of planned meals. It's all healthy but stocked with gluten. I can't afford to throw it out and my wife can't eat it all herself. But next week when I go grocery shopping I'll get gluten free stuff. This also gives me more time to plan things out, gluten-free is a big lifestyle change.

That really seems far more difficult and time-consuming than doing the reverse - eat nothing but broccoli and spinach, and start adding one thing back into your diet at a time until they cause problems.

My wife and I had to do something similar a couple of years ago, on the advice of her nutritionist. Like Zelig mentioned, ours went in reverse. I say 'ours', but it was really hers. I went along with it to support her and understand what she was going through.

First we cut out all sugars, caffeine, alcohol, gluten, soy, dairy, and meat. The hardest thing in that list to watch for is soy. It's in everything.

We ate a lot of rice and beans - and to be honest, it really wasn't that big of a change to our daily lives. Except for the whole no soy thing. That resulted in us not being able to grab lunch out, or takeout, without some serious planning.

After a week, they did some blood analysis and decided it was OK to bring soy back into the diet. It was like a whole new world!

But i digress.

Don't get too worked up about no gluten - it's not as earth shattering as you might initially think. At first it was a huge adjustment, but then we realized that if we simply don't have pasta or bread, that removed 95% of the gluten from our diets. So what was left? Well, Everything else!

Where you'd normally have a bready element, now you have a ricey element. But I won't advocate buying things like 'rice-flour loaf' and other such engineered products. My personal opinion is you're better off with just a regular bowl of rice and veggies. Industrial food manufacturing just doesn't make me feel good, you know?

There are wonderful varieties of rice out there - I'm sure you can get something more interesting than a hulled white rice in your area. Just find out where the Desi community shops

Oh, that's one thing to keep in mind - for the most part, indian dishes are gluten free. Just don't get the Naan or Roti In fact, for home preparation, you really can't go wrong with Punjabi stuff. Plus, it travels well for bringing a lunch to work or class, doesn't need to be heated up, can be eaten with fork, spoon, spork, chopsticks, fingers - whatever!

Yes, it is a change. But it's not as if you're going off the grid or anything.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Divorcing the wife and then knocking her up is immoral. Punch the damn cop.

It is immoral, but I don't want to have to go to prison (I doubt I'd be in jail long enough to get whatever treatment I need if it's that serious of an issue, so I'd have to do more than punch a cop) to get treatment if I can avoid it.

Did they even examine or test you to see if it was cancer? Or did they just rule that out willy nilly?

In her opinion as a trained medical professional, my symptoms do not point to cancer. So we're going to eliminate all the other possible causes first.