November 6, 2007
Eureka!
I’m going to talk about my health again. Hopefully, this will be the last time for a while.
I’ve said before that I’ve been feeling really terrible for a really long, long time, especially bad since my trip to Atlanta in August. I’ve been going to the doctor once or twice a week for the past couple of months. Other than PCP and a COPD exacerbation we couldn’t figure out what the fuck was wrong with me. Both of those things would explain my symptoms but not why they weren’t going away. It was maddening.
I figured my lung disease had gotten worse with the PCP and that was that. This was pretty much the best I was going to feel for the rest of my life. I lived through the last few years of my mom’s COPD and I know it’s not something I would want to go through myself. I started thinking about making preparations for the big dirt nap, not right now but I wanted to be ready when the time came. If I felt this terrible and was this miserable now I couldn’t imagine what was in store for me in the future. I decided to sell my bike instead of having it repaired since it was pretty obvious I wouldn’t be riding it anymore.
When this episode of poor health began I knew I needed to stop smoking again and was finding it impossible. My doctor prescribed Chantix pills. What a miracle drug! Before the first week was up I had absolutely no desire for a cigarette. Chantix does two things: It releases some dopamine into the brain (just like nicotine does) but it prevents nicotine from releasing it. So smoking a cigarette does nothing except taste bad. There’s no pleasure left in smoking at all. It’s incredible how fast the habit just fell away. All that stuff about people being addicted to “the ritual” is horse shit. Really.
Crystal meth releases dopamine, too, and lots of it, which explains why I never wanted a cigarette when I’ve done it. That lead me to my next decision. I’ve suspected for a while that my depression is more dopamine-related than serotonin-related. I’ve done lots of crystal meth in my life, almost daily in the late 70s/early 80s punk era when I played in bands and I still like it sometimes. (Before you start, I don’t want to hear any hypocritical shit from people who get schnockered at the Bike Stop every weekend or did lots of “crank” when it was acceptable but now toe the “meth is death” line. Get it? We’re all still here.) It never made me “tweaked” as much as it made me kind of calm but with lots of energy. (My doctor didn’t disagree and even suggested that my previous heavy use might have led to a dopamine deficiency but was hesitant to prescribe Adderal because of it’s potential for abuse, the bastard. He called it “Atta Girl!”) The Chantix seemed to be having a similar effect but certainly not as intensely. Because of that, I decided to go off of my anti-depressants, Wellbutrin and Cymbalta. That went as well as can be expected. The electric shocks and incredible—and I do mean incredible—constipation that come with SSRI withdrawal are really unpleasant but ultimately worth it, at least in this case. I started having spontaneous erections! Seriously, I had no idea how much damage these pills were doing to my dick until I went off of them. (Bye-bye Viagra!!) Never again.
I’ve written about being sober from alcohol for nearly 20 years. Last month I really wanted a beer so I bought a few. They were incredibly satisfying. I didn’t like the drunk feeling as much as I used to but it was taking the edge off being sick a bit. I wasn’t completely comfortable with the whole idea but I did it and I made sure to only buy two at a time. I figured I didn’t drink for 20 years so I proved that I could do it. Yes, yes, I was justifying it to death but, what the hell, I already made the plunge. (BTW, I settled on Fat Angel Ale by Magic Hat Brewery. It’s incredibly tasty but, boy, two of them had me plastered!)
I noticed that every time I drank beer I got really short-of-breath, really quickly. Since I have COPD my lungs don’t do a very good job anyway, so this was pretty alarming. My albuterol inhaler was next to useless, too. The worst episode was at the Westbury bar. The folks who volunteer together at The Gay and Lesbian Archives of Philadelphia© usually go out for a beer and a bite there on Wednesday nights (if we can find anything edible on the menu besides the fries) and I was kind of excited to finally enjoy a beer with them. That pint of lager made me feel like I was drowning! I ended up just staring quietly into the table while my companions had a conversation. I remember when drinking was fun! What the fuck happened?
That night I looked up beer allergy online and was pretty much convinced I had one. Shortness of breath is one of the major symptoms. DAMMIT! The people whose accounts I read online were pretty pissed about it, too. I went a week without a beer and still felt like shit. I bought two Fat Angels and drank them. Again, I felt immediately worse, very short of breath. The beer didn’t really cause my symptoms, though, it just made them much worse. I got really drunk, though, and almost called an ex-boyfriend in the middle of the night! Ah, the good old days.
I did more research. (A good friend of mine says he suggested this next thing to me before I discovered it myself but I don’t remember it.) I finally came to the conclusion that I am allergic to wheat/gluten. What put the lid on it was that I was waking up feeling relatively good every day and deteriorating quickly after my daily breakfast of shredded wheat! Also, I'd gotten into the habit of eating a Wawa pretzel and sour cream donut every night.
Last Thursday morning I had shredded wheat for breakfast and avoided wheat for the rest of the day. I felt profoundly better by that night. I continued the gluten-free diet. By Saturday night I felt better than I have in years. Literally. No more congestion and coughing. No problems concentrating. No more itchiness. No more constant shortness of breath. I’m not constantly hungry and tired. I don’t need a pill to fall asleep even though I’m more awake and alert. I am really horny. On the minus side, I’m kind of cranky and have worse sidewalk-rage. Hopefully, those will subside but I know for sure that I’m not going to take a pill for them. (Just get out of my way!)
I am a classic case. Gluten allergy can be triggered by all sorts of things like stress or infections or an increase in gluten intake. I had all of those. Supposedly, I’ll be able to slowly add things back into my diet after a couple of months. I sure hope so because there is a HUGE list of things I love that I’m now unable to eat. Cake, pasta, cake, bread, cake, pizza, cake, you name it. The substitutes at Hole Foods are execrable. If not, I’ve had a great 54 years of being able to eat anything I wanted.
Anyways, that’s the scoop. Ironically, if I hadn’t decided to drink again, I don’t think I would have ever figured this out. Weird, huh?
I’m listening to “Take Off Your Cool (Feat. Norah Jones)” from Speakerboxxx/The Love Below by Outkast.
Technorati Tags: health
Posted by HighStrungLoner in Health at 5:27 AM
Comments
Yay!!
Posted by: toshio on November 8, 2007 4:37 AM
