Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Pediatric Neurology

It sounds so imposing.  Emily is 5 and 11-and-a-half/12ths, and her GP's office is searching for a Pediatric Neurologist within reasonable driving distance who takes our insurance.  We may have to go to San Jose.  But her GP (General Practitioner aka: regular Dr.) was impressed with my note taking skills.  What I didn't tell him is that the reason I upgraded when I could to a new iphone is so I could have a migraine journal I could talk to, literally.  Now I have two migraine journals on the same phone that I can talk to, and it made Emily's Dr. appointment today go really quickly.  He said I should also keep track of what she eats.  Funny.  I then told him what she eats, so again, not my first rodeo.  Her being the 4th generation (we know of) in a line of females to get migraines does a lot by way of genetic research, and so far we don't seem to have food triggers. (Well, except possibly for nitrates and sulfites.)  We have schedule and stress and light and noise and weather triggers, you know, things less easily controlled.  Food, now that's easy.  By comparison anyway.

In one sense I'm rather proud that Em's going to be getting her first neurologist in the summer before 1st grade.  I didn't get my first neurologist worth her salt anyway until about a year and a half ago.  I wish I'd had a GP worth his salt when I started getting heinous migraines regularly in college.  The idiot I was seeing was no help whatsoever, and he eventually sent me to a neurologist who was also no help whatsoever.  They probably had some sort of a deal.  I hope we find someone worth having, although there isn't much you can do at this point unless I want to drug the kid up, an option I'm still not really into.  And since I am no longer in denial that Em is in fact getting abdominal migraines, we're managing them better and she hasn't had a severe one in a couple of months.  But school starts up again soon, and I am already upset about them interfering with school, which is probably the wrong attitude to have in general.  *sigh*  Effing migraines.

But back to food, we eat a good diet, and we keep striving for a better one.  We're also trying to get back to a better schedule since Sasha has taken to wetting the bed almost every night since summer began.  Also, Sasha appears to be manifesting the demons we haven't seen since she was eating wheat and corn, although her skin is still in perfect condition.  (I mean, the bald spot is still mostly bald, but it's slowly growing back in...) That girl's body has a way of telling us in no uncertain terms when trouble is a brewin'.  Lord help us all come puberty.

I read about a study recently concerning the human body and its schedules, and the stress incurred when one deviates even by an hour from say, lunch or other expected activities.  It suggested that you can really increase the stress in your life by Not keeping a routine, which had all kinds of negative physiological effects like increased blood pressure, etc.  Conversely, by keeping a good routine you could decrease stress.  I was like, no shit.  Sometimes I feel like science could learn a lot by observing my little family.  Screw with our schedule and Emily and I will get migraines, and Sasha manifests demons and wets the bed.  DESPITE the massive diet change.  Just to keep my family alive and functional, I not only had to change 98% of what we were eating, I also have to keep an extremely tight reign on our schedule.  And to prove it, very soon half of the human occupants of this house will have their very own neurologist, and will I really be surprised if that number jumps up to 75% of the human occupants in another couple of years?

So what do I do with this beside plow through and blog about it?  It would seem that life is affecting us, manifesting differently for each of us.  We still play and sing and eat, but we suffer too.  Doesn't everyone?  I guess most people eat wheat and corn, and don't have their own neurologist.  But on the scale of neurological disability, migraine isn't really so bad.  We steer by the 7th dorsal wing...

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