Saturday, November 23, 2002

Well, it turns out that all I have is a mild gastritis that possibly developed due to the stress of school (though the stress is usually only in the days preceeding exams) and then exacerbated by my night of drinking the evil beer and then throwing it all up the next day. I have realized that being identified as a medical student now makes me partially responsible for developing my own treatment since Dr. Conrad asked me what I wanted to do after I seemed hesitant about taking a proton pump inhibitor for my problem. I mean, it was getting better in terms of reduced frequency of symptoms but at the same time, I thought it would be nice to not experience the pain at all. So after I couldn't decide what to do, he gave me a 5 day free sample of the proton pump inhibitor to let my gastric mucosa heal a little. Now it's day 3 on the pill and so far no symptoms. But now I'm wondering, if I didn't take the pills, would it have eventually gone away on its own or would I still have pain. I guess I'll never know. What I do know is that the GI cocktail is one nasty diagnostic tool. And I read an article that says it's not even that great of a test! It was vile! I think it was Mylanta, lidocaine, and a proton pump inhibitor and those things put together are nasty. Or maybe it was just the mylanta by itself. I personally have never had it until then and now I don't care to try it again anytime soon. I even told Dr. Conrad that I don't do liquid meds too well (god bless pills) and asked him if it was disgusting and this man, who knew I was a medical student and perfectly capable of understanding the utility of diagnostic tests, LIED TO ME!!! I mean, if he was honest, I certainly would have dreaded it but then I would have been prepared and I would have gulped it down in one drink but instead, since I wasn't prepared for anything bad, I didn't do that and I ended up drinking my entire 21 oz bottle of water in a pathetic attempt to cover up the bad aftertaste. And then, on top of that nastiness, the Lidocaine kicks in and everything this green liquid touched that I have conscious sense of (mouth- just before the proximal esophagus) went numb! It was kind of a weird feeling to swallow and not really fully feel the water slip down my throat. Okay, that's enough of that.
So my ducks lost the Civil War game today. No big surprise since they don't play the second half of the football game anymore. It was one of the worst losses to OSU since I have been a fan but I guess they've had worst losses that I'm not aware of. Well, ending the season at 7-5 is a far cry from last year's 11-1 season. I guess I can only hope for next year. Geez, I wonder if they even get to go to a bowl game this year and whether or not it will be played even before I finish my exams before christmas break! Well, I'm going to study the esophagus now...or maybe I'll just go to sleep
~me~ at 10:32 PM

Wednesday, November 20, 2002

Beer is evil. On friday night at the block party, I decided to try just drinking beer as opposed to my usual hard alcohol I drink. So I got drunk on Abita Amber beer and saturday morning I threw up abita amber beer. Well, I really don't know what it was but all it appeared to be was water cause yeah, I watched the stuff come out and then I had to look at it in the toilet. I wasn't drinking any water so I don't know where it all came from but it kept being generated. Anyway, since then, my gi tract has been acting funny and tuesday at 4 am, I woke up suddenly cause I had severe epigastric pain. And then all day long, the same pain though not as bad. Interestingly enough, it seemed to get worse when I was using my automatic toothbrush and then the vacuum cleaner - both of which vibrate. Now, having gone to lecture the previous day, the only thing in that area that I had been taught that would hurt and is related to excessive alcohol intake was acute pancreatitis and that's deadly, so yes, that thought passed through my mind but my pretest probability was low or so I hoped cause I eventually did fall asleep through the pain. And since I'm still alive, I'm taking it as a correct assumption. Anyway, I decided to make an appointment at the student health center cause I had another one of those days today. At first I thought maybe it was cause I needed to eat but after I ate lunch, it only stopped briefly then started up again. This morning it hurt while I ate my grapefruit. It's probably just indigestion but since my student health fee covers the cost, I might as well still go to the appt and see what this dr. thinks. He'll probably think I'm just another hypersensitive 2nd year med student but I guess in light of what I've learned in pathology, I'd rather be healthy and have moments of delusion than have something I've read in Robbins. Afterall, I discovered my thyroid hormone incidental overdose by going in after my moment of what i thought was significant chest pain (ie not heartburn). Well, I need to study some more GI stuff since I want to do well this block.
~me~ at 6:20 PM