I am now pretty much convinced I'm anemic. I always hate self-diagnosing, it inevitably makes me feel like a hypochondriac. BUT I also hate putting my health care completely in the hands of others. It makes me feel helpless. So I do my research. I guess maybe I'd rather be a hypochondriac than passive and helpless. I just like to think of it as being a hands-on patient.
But the other day this sneaking suspicion was actually given credibility: it seems my flattened intestines may be preventing me from properly absorbing certain nutrients. Yes, flattened intestines. Well ok, it's not really the intestines themselves that are flattened, it's the intestine walls. But still.
"Look, I don't want to hurt your feelings or anything but... your intestines, well... they're just so flat. Just rather dull, really. So lacking in villi. I mean really, if you were a nutrient, would you want to stick around?"
Oh dear. What is a flat-intestined girl to do. Well apparently take Omega 3 Fatty Acid, but that's another story. As for the possible anemia, pernicious or otherwise (pernicious is soo ominous sounding), I know I should really get a blood test... but oh god, I am a horrible coward and just the thought of the needle spikes (no pun intended) up the level of light-headedness from the slight buzz I've been walking around with for weeks to an all-out squeamish fluster. I wonder if I can just load up on b-12 and iron alongside the fatty acids (why do I just love saying fatty acids so much?) and hope it helps...
I'm really not a hypochondriac. I swear. In fact, I tend to subscribe to the "if I ignore it, maybe it'll go away" philosophy, which has gotten me in trouble on more than one occasion (turns out if your knees or ankles start to really hurt from running it's not actually a good idea to push through the pain). But after weeks of feeling unable to focus and like I'm functioning at half capacity, even I have to admit that maybe it's time to stop giving this anemia or whatever the silent treatment and tell it to go fuck itself. Politely, of course.
after i got my wisdom teeth pulled, i remember growing unhealthily tired.
ReplyDeletepartly because i was living off of jello and yogurt and going through finals... but i had thought maybe i had anemia.
the doctor told me i had strep throat and gave me some medicine before actually checking the results of the throat culture.
he was positive it was strep.
as it turns out, i had mono. the stress/lack of nutrition/etc rendered me ill. and the medicine he was giving me was making it worse, apparently.
and i can't count how many doctors have come up with an excuse to tell me to poop in a bucket and save the poop for further examination.
i guess i have no point, but i have realized this: there is no problem being a hypochondriac because half the time the actual doctors have no idea what they're talking about. you may as well diagnose yourself-- you know more about you than they do.