Gastric Acid on Vocal Chords, Sitz Baths & Serfs



Photo History: Well, I don't know. But I found This photo from: lifewithcushings.com- Danielle Resenski has endured so much and she has a lot of information that she has provided us folks on her site.

This photo is one of them. Poor dog!

She has even spoken at an Ivy League school to empower future doctors, endos, and future professionals about what to look for.

So, Dogs and horses get cushings and this picture is I wish I had this dog's courage to stand for the photo shoot.... I am really impressed with this blog and the great information that the blogger has provided.

Back to my blog......


This morning I awoke to a half viewed video on the effects of gastric acid on the vocal chords on my lap top along with a bunch of different files for different things I am studying. Vocal chords are fine by the way. Sinus infections, asthma, and acid from the gut all play a role in raspy voices. But my chords will be fine and I will be singing off tune again shortly.

However, my search falls into that category that I said I would tell you every so often of:

 'What I googled,'

As one of the high lights I could do like Dave's "Top Ten" or Ellen's, uh, when she has people send in what the smart phone edits for them, what does she call it? -hey, that gives me an idea....
(P.S. I hate having to edit my text messages for my smart phone mistakes...)



(photo courtesy of Dan Gregory. A random pic of him on Aconcagua)

 

Anyway, I am writing to tell you that a sore throat and sinus infection can be an Entyvio side effect, can lead to sitting up while sleeping; needing a hose to clear a pathway for air and is really, really not fun.

So, "not fun", that the recommendation to "gurgle salt water" may have you simply reaching for the

 

Epsom Salts

 







 that are meant for sore muscles in the bath; applying to bruises with Vicks to help circulation and pain, and to help with Sitz Baths and gurgling the diamond sized granules to pull the junk out of the throat.

Btw, do you even know what a sitz bath is? I didn't and totally nodded and lied when my GI asked if I did. (this was years ago but I'd had Crohns for some time..... I just figured you put some Epsom salt into an inch of water in the bath tub. Nope. Sadly that is too easy)


Sitz Bath Definiton:
these are something the GI tells you to do- or an OB after you have a child  because some damage to both places took place, and you just nodded like you know what you are doing. Like you would know what to do when you left the hospital with a newborn. Even if  you did graduate in Child Development. Why don't they send nurses home with you on your first one!? Just so you don't get so stressed out??

 So ya lie that you know what a Sitz bath is, When you didn't. Here is what it meant and what I should have done.

You have to buy a 20-30 $  Plastic Basin, sandwich it inbetween the seats of the toilet, fill what looks like an IV bag but flimsier, with warm water and Epsom salts, hang the bag  from a high place in your bathroom and connect it to the basin. This too looks like an IV pole.

 Upon completing these steps  you are to  sit on your basin and water will overflow through a gap provided around its edge and overflow into the toilet much like the holes in a sink or tub. And this si is part of Sit "z" in "Sitz Bath."

Vintage Norway Poster that I would love and reminds me of their saunas... which are NOT sitz baths.


It isn't a true "bath". Which throws people. It will take TWO times of filling the Epsom Salts and the Warm water to add up to TWENTY MINUTES of sitting. If that is what your Dr. has ordered. Which makes you wish you could take a bath. And that is why they call it a Sitz Bath. Because you have to do this 3 to 4 times a day to help promote healing.

(Hey! A Norwegian submerssion in cold water may take the place of the Sitz Bath- and just HEAL you right there with cauterizing cold!

(taken from roomstravel.info of some Finlan Swimming...)

Another reason they call it a "bath" is because  you will need a book to pass the time. And most people enjoy a nice paperback book to read while taking a bubble bath. Pick a book no one wants to read. But guess what! They should cause, No one Left Behind (get it? Behind? ) is an awesome book about preparedness in an emergency situation. It is about a hospital's handling of Hurricane Katrina.
 (I know, I know you won't read it based on that. Nurses, janitor's, patitients, etc. all have quotes in it. I don't know if they have Ebola quotes in it but it is about Hurricane Katrina and one hospital's bad A approach to the whole thing. I love that I said that: Bad A. It's ranks up there to deserve me trying to swear on my blog.)

Where was I? Aw vocal chords. Guess what? They are affected by prednisone. Yeh! I know I totally left it out of last week's analogy up on Everest.



(This is what it would look like. But this is Dan Gregory, not me. And it's a real trip and not an analogy of Everest. Have you climbed Everest, Dan? hmmm. I should ask him in person. )

Your VOCAL CHORDS are affected by the stuff. Not just your hyped up Everest trip but prednisone.

When I went hoarse after what I thought was mere drainage and sinus congestion and debated just gurgling the Epsom Salt Crystals, I experienced the point in which those things, along with sub 2 degrees weather and asthma collide:

 

An "asthma attack" is not fun!

 

 

In fact, it isn't. It just makes climbing Everest pretty darn miserable because if you were on top of there when it happened- your rescue inhaler wouldn't work. Too cold. So remember Apoo, the fictional Nepalese guide you acquired through a fictional blog to help you summit Everest in your attempt to compare it to tapering prednisone? Well, he comes back to life in this post and says:



(photo courtesy of Dan Gregory on his Aconcagua hike. I had a friend go there when we were hanging out and I was sorta scared for him. But he lived. )

"I left your inhalers along with the extra oxygen by Green Boots! The place I lost your Padre's McManus book! "  he says downtrodden. "And your Epi-pen won't help because it is frozen. But you just need more prednisone is all! It will help you with the delivery of your child, the speed at which you can get around the mountain, and set up your tent. At first!"


(Dan Gregory and his photos of great vistas have inspired me! Thanks, Dan)

And he will nudge your doctor acquired from Kathmandu who has amazingly figured out how to get a vein at this altitude and fill you full of IV prednisone. Or Solumedrol. What????? This truly does help with what Apoo says you gotta do. And apparently is part of the tapering prednisone package as you have been coughing with your infection and you are basically just wheezing through a straw because your lungs are diminished at the altitude you are at and should have taken into consideration before you climbed your analogy. And before you fell. And before you went to the hospital to do labs because that is where you sat parked and waiting to get out when you were hit by a truck.

Back up on the Everest tapering of Prednisone story from a previous post, you now have to endure a quick dose of prednisone which makes you have to go HIGHER up on prednisone. In order to get off of it. Which makes no sense. And you can't have a sitz bath at this altitude because the water is hard to melt over a small stove fast enough before you have to get up and move three feet and pitch your tent again.
(taken from sometimesinteresting.com)


And a frozen Sitz Bath just doesns't work.

So,  Readers, I am out of ideas on what to make us do on our fake Everest trip in order to liken it to a mountain expedition and how hard it is to taper prednisone. I guess I could say you get bottle necked on the Hillary Step and end up making your own steps. 

I could throw in an Avalanche?

But then I would have to read about it from some climber's or Apoo's fictional blog.

I could rack my brains for something funny. But that isn't happening after the Dr. ordered me to add not only more prednisone but an inhaler to boot. And rescue inhaler every four hours. This is starting to sound like J.'s sick days.

Speaking of J. -isn't it lovely that a plus sides to having off-spring is that you have an immediate servant?

Well, after teaching them to eat, walk, bath, dress, learn a couple languages, clean up puke from orifices like your ears and from your long hair you cut recently cause on prednisone.

 Which you'd grown from being really long and pretty from the last time you were on prednisone. Of course You have to teach them to work and THEN you can tell them what to do when they say they want money.

And that is when you have an immediate serf.

Just pull out the "To Do List" you wrote before giving birth, heck, the one you wrote in Sr. Year Honors English Class! And  have them start doing that! They need their youth for the goals you put in that letter!

 And pay them.

I know! It makes them think they should graduate with a Master's just for money... Just don't tell the minimum wage right now and they will not know the difference until they apply for a job at 16, and then you an tell them they are earning less due to inflation and bad financial decisions made on everyone's part.

And, Readers, if you see your neighbor mowing their lawn after an Asthma Attack+ Prednisone Rescue, don't stop them just because it snowed a couple of inches the night before because Padre's mower is industrial strength and can run through anything. It may as well say it is fueled by Prednisone."

 Your neighbor might not recognize you are trying to help, and don't realize yet that prednisone is a

big band aid

and they still have ALL their symptoms. They may possibly have amnesia, be mis-informed and told Prednisone works like Voo-Doo magic which they contracted when they flew to Dallas on a business trip and decided to go to the hospitals instead of the Alamo for a tour

So now, back home, they suddenly felt like mowing in the snow to pass the time before the holiday rush.

Yeh,  before they coudln't walk and they missed it so much, they wanted to mow the lawn using their Trekking Poles and singing through their face mask used to block the hail storm beating them in the face and not necessarily prevent any allergens worsening their asthma. Did you know that asthma allergens are in the winter months too? I sorta thought it was Spring Vacation for Asthma... but I guess not! GREAT! Just a tid bit for all those in our family that have the bad gene. And for the nephews who are allergic to their animals. And the kid of mine allergic to his job as a mower.

Readers, this shot of him by this mower has more stories and never gets old to look at it. I need it framed. His cousins look on in wonder..)
&

 Because the Dr. ordered that the Serf-child can't mow due to his allergy to grass and his sickness, your neighbor may be desperate to get the grass winterized before the REAL Idaho winter sets in. None of this cold weather, "hey, it's a good day to wear one of those [cheery chemo mask]" moments.

This actually happened today folks! It is SO cold in Idaho, so it is perfectly acceptable to say to a masked person:

 

"Hey, good day to wear one of those!"

 
(this only blocks out dust and maybe some cold air. not the one I wore. But mine is cute.Upload later)
 

*I am Idahoan and don't mind comments and ya know that one made me pause, cause if you are needing to wear a mask to keep from getting sick; I don't know of many 'good days to wear it.'

Unless it is 2 below Zero.

Then, yeh, she had a point. My cute and cozy fun mask Care sent me a few years ago, was perfect. As I hadn't broke out my fleece scarf yet.

And the air is

 

COLD, READERS!

Which is hard on asthma. Which I had an attack the other night and J. helped me realize it was an asthma attack. Thank you, Son. You are the best.

And thank you lung specialist who gave me breathing treatments.

 

Oh, my. Air is right up there next to money, ya know?

Ya just need it.

So it was a good idea that
and not get yelled at in some NY city fashion, or roaded with rage like a Utah driver for driving the speed limit in the construction zone. Yup, we Idahoans don't care if you comment on our mask wearing. I don't. Don't be afraid to look and say hi. Rather than that "look" then quick look away cause you don't want to stare- well, ya do, but not be rude. We all wonder what people's deal is. We care that's why. And we don't know what a person is doing and inquiring minds wanna know so that we can care..

Right?

So you will have to teach him how to do things that you want to learn to do, like sewing a quilt for instance. Or how to do origami. Or wrap Christmas gifts and draw cute things on the packages cause he will be bored and have energy on prednisone. You may consider taking him to Driver's Ed so that he can run errands for you while you are tapering off of prednisone, pioneering Entryvio, and prepping for a really expensive trip to Mt. Everest.