Hello, I am planning to move to the UK with my FIV+ cat and before I do so I'd like to know what treatment options are available. I know there is Virbagen Omega, but I am not sure how often vets there actually prescribe it. Do they seem knowledgeable about it and FIV in general? Are there any other treatments they offer?
Just switched to Cigna on my spouse's plan because I left my job and lost my own insurance. So I have no other insurance other than Cigna. They aren't processing the first claim because they want to know if I have other insurance. I go to profile - other insurance and the page just reloads to the profile page. I can't get the other insurance page to load. Tried two browsers, turned off all filters/ad block. Can't find a form for this to download and mail. The chat bot is beyond useless. Anyone have any knowledge of Cigna and can give me some pointers on how to do this stupid form? Thanks!
Hi, this might be more of a vent post, idk really. But I think I have celiac and I think my late mother did too. In the end it doesn't matter because she's gone and I'm going to only eat gluten-free, but it's all very frustrating to look back on.
I just realized this past week that my mom probably had dq 2.2 and 2.5, and that I probably have dq 2.2. I say probably because this was a test from Ancestry for her, and Ancestry and 23andme for me. I've had these results for over ten years and just never knew to look into celiac alleles. :(
My mom had really bad ADHD - it really messed up her life. She grew up in the 50s with it and was just a ball of energy and her teachers hated her and told her she was stupid all the time. That gave her a lot of insecurities that manifested in poor life choices later and life-long overeating. I hurt so much when I think of what those teachers did to her life. Eventually in her 50s she was diagnosed with ADHD, and then later bipolar (doctors went back and forth and which she had or if she had both). Treatments for both conditions never seemed to really help her and life was always a struggle. She did really well in college in her 40s but couldn't focus in math and since it was before accommodations she couldn't pass math and quit her degree. She died in poverty from lymphoma.
From her 30/40s on she had worsening intestinal issues (I remember her eating nothing but Ensure, bananas and rice for a month), anemia, her teeth started falling out, patchy hair, weird rashes, joint pain and deterioration, sleep issues, terrible restless legs syndrome, diabetes... other things I can't remember. And the worsening mental health issues. I once helped her do disability paperwork and it took us about 20 hours to fill out a few forms and the whole 'herding cats' analogy completely fits for what that was like. She could be exhausting!
My mom would have bouts of eating 'healthy' where she'd stay away from sugar, wheat, and flour, which she said she was addicted to, and she'd make lots of fresh veggies, beans, rice, and barley and freeze portions and stick to eating that. And looking back, her personality was different when she did this - she'd be more focused and energetic and she got really into exercising and new hobbies. And she just seemed less chaotic. But she'd always lapse back. I remember her telling me once she went back to sugar, wheat, flour and ate a bunch of doughnuts and it hurt so much in her stomach she had to crawl across the house to the bathroom because she couldn't stand up.
Meanwhile, I developed where issues after a bad sunburn in my 20s and started being allergic to everything. An allergy test said I was allergic to wheat, mildly, but not gluten, so I mostly quit eating wheat but subbed in barley and rye and quinoa and oat and millet. But I mostly ate quinoa with occasional barley. I also started eating a bread, Deland, that recently told me they do use a wheat-based started in their millet bread so even though they don't list that on the ingredients I'd been eating wheat for over 20 years unknowingly (wtf Deland). My health kept getting worse - I had bad joint pain in my 30s and premature ovarian failure, then small fiber neuropathy all over in my 40s. I've had chronically low ferritin it seems most of my life, at least since I was 20 (so 30 years+) and once I started supplementing a few years ago it was discovered I don't absorb iron well. My B12 was also on the low side and no longer responds to oral supplements. D is always low and is hard to raise as is my zinc.
Then 7 years ago I had recurrent bladder infections and then persistent bladder pain every day since. It dominated my life until finally after 6 years a urologist gave me hydroxyzine and said that it was probably a mast cell issue in my bladder. That helped so much, so I started wondering if something I was eating might be causing an issue in my bladder (I was already on the IC diet without relief). I pinpointed that when I had grilled cheese (vegan) sandwiches my bladder hurt and thought it was the cheese. But cutting that didn't help. I was reading about Deland bread for some reason and saw some comments on reddit claiming they used that wheat starter, freaked out, emailed Deland and once I go their email confirming it, I quit eating that bread. I also cut out the only other sources of gluten I had been eating - chickpea barley miso (I made it from scratch - it was so good!) and asafetida (wheat binder). My bladder pain went away within a week and it's been a year and it has not come back. Another thing that went away was terrible stomach pains that I'd been getting for about 5 years.
So it got me to wondering. My neurologist had done bloodwork that showed no celiac, but the amount I had been in eating in the bread was small most likely and it was sporadic, I didn't eat it every day. So I don't know that it would have shown up? I assumed I just have gluten sensitivity, and like I said, in the end it doesn't matter since I won't eat gluten now. But, I happened to look at the raw data for those old DNA tests and saw the 2.2 result for me and the 2.2 and 2.5 result for my mom. And I still don't know we have/had celiac, but it really makes me wonder. And so angry - my mom's life could have been so different if ever a doctor had tested her for celiac when she was an adult. I don't know if they tested for it in the 50s? She grew up eating Wonder bread and cakes. She was doomed.
I doubt anyone wants to read all this! But if you did, thanks.
Hello, my husband is 50 and got a PSA test recently. It's been normal in the past and the doctor doesn't seem concerned this time. His total PSA is normal, but his free PSA is low. Is this anything to worry about or retest for? His father did have prostate cancer that needed to be treated as around age 65-70. We don't know many details about it because he didn't tell anyone until it was over with and never divulged details, but he's fine now (77).
My husband isn't too concerned but I want to make sure he's going to be ok.
I hate this so much. I'm using universal control to control my mac mini using my macbook trackpad and keyboard. It's going great, except every couple minutes the little icon for opening Safari from my macbook pops up in the menu bar on my mac mini and that for some reason breaks my universal control. I have to get out my mouse, open the handedoff Safari icon on the mac mini (which takes me to a tab I have open on the mac mini, not the macbook! wtf) and then the icon goes away and I can go back to what I was doing using universal control. But then it happens again, and again. And, periodically a Chrome handoff icon appears on my macbook saying it's something from the mac mini - I don't even have Chrome installed on the mac mini! Why is it doing this and how can I stop it? It's completely insane.
Hello. My urologist was a little mystified by this, but I feel much worse when my urine is alkaline and better when it's acidic. The alkalinity gives me a horrible dull ache. Does anyone else experience this?
Oddly, I got brave recently and discovered I also can tolerate ascorbic acid just fine and have been popping vitamin C this week without any issues. Oh, and taking Prelief in the past used to give me bladder pain. Lol, I don't understand.
Can anyone tell me where to look for obituaries from New York (NYC probably) from 1990-1999? edit: ok, somehow that question wasn't clear - where can I find NYC obituaries from the 90s online? Any known newspaper databases outside of newspapers.com?
Hi, long-time chronic UTI sufferer, usually 4+ a year for the past 7 years. Also have IC, which is controlled with diet and hydroxyzine.
I had a UTI in February, took Macrobid, two weeks later it returned in early March so I took Cefixime for two weeks and it seemed gone. This past weekend I ate some food (tomatoes) that irritates my IC (trialing it to see if it still bothered me) and I woke up the next day (Tues) with horrible pain and lots of visible blood in my urine. Strip showed blood and WBCs. Went to lab and got a test and culture - the test lit up red - nitrites, WBCs, bacteria (few), blood, protein, etc. all positive. Waiting on culture. My bloodwork also had a high neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio and neutrophils were out of range (high).
Seems like an infection for sure... but the weird thing is that since Tuesday afternoon I've felt fine. The strip still shows blood but less, no nitrites or WBCs on the strip, no visible blood, and no pain. The only things I took were hydroxyzine and pine bark extract and I've been drinking a lot of water. Just wondering - is it possible the pain was from the tomatoes I ate and I just happened to see a low-level infection on the urine test but my body is fighting it off? It's just bizarre - I feel fine and I never feel fine with a UTI - they're agony.
has anyone taken both hydroxyzine hcl vs pamoate and noticed any differences? i have taken hcl for a year and it's been amazing - i take one pill a day and it has changed my life and i barely ever get drowsy from it. i asked my doctor's office to refill my prescription and they changed it to the pamoate one, for some reason. i complained and now they're being pissy and saying i need to come in. i don't get why they changed it and why they're being pissy about undoing the change. i don't want to take pamoate because i read it is more sedating and i don't need sedation. also, the ingredient list is kind of gross with all the coloring agents.
anyway, has anyone noticed a difference between them? if i can't get the hcl refilled i might have to take the pamoate for a bit and want to know what to expect. thanks!
so, my employer years ago bought me a macbook and the person who purchased it for me said it was mine to keep. it was delivered to him and he gave it straight to me, unopened. few years later he asked me for info from it, the serial number and some other things, because it turned out he had been wrong and had been buying computers for people thinking they could keep them and that wasn't true... lots of people left and kept their computers. i was really annoyed and just never replied to give that info to him. i'm assuming maybe the serial would have been on the purchase receipt or something and he could have gotten it? my employer never had the macbook so they didn't install anything on it. it's an intel 2020 model.
is it possible for my employer to go through apple in some way using the serial number to do anything to my laptop? like turn off access remotely, brick it, or track it? anything? sorry if this sounds really dumb!