by request, i have started this corner to answer questions related to health and illness. this is no replacement for standard medical care from an individual's primary health care provider, but serves as a topic for questions and discussion on health-related topics...

OK ...so have to see an orthapedist (sp) this Fri.. i seemed to have fucked up my left arm (good name for a move that - my left arm!)... now at one point my doctor said i should do physical therapy.. which I have to say is a load of bollocks... n'est pas? I went for it when i had a hand operation and what I found was a bunch of ole Yentas in a room bending then straightening their pinkies for an hour then being asked for $80! what a joke... reminded me of the time I went to a nutritionist she said with a white coat on and asked me all these questions about my eating and food combos and time of when I eat...wrote notes ..walked out the room came back and all serious said "Well... what you need to do is...eat more fruit and veg, less junk food and candy ...and ..you need to eat less/smaller portions" THAT WAS IT... then she quickly herded me to reception and I was slammed a bill for $150! HA! I felt so raped I went out and cheered meself up with a big cream bun! what a fricken joke.. i want that job so badly.. but it was the conviction that she had that she was telling me some amazing new thang.. wow I could have spend that $150 on dinner at Daniel! LOL So... Nursey my Q is.......Physical therapy is it really just movement for idiots who would have a prob and just sit in a chair and not try to get more mobility... another way of getting $ for a bogus created industry..??

Physical therapy is not bogus, but like anything- a good hairdresser, good chef, even a good nurse- it all depends on the person doing it (along with the facility to which you go)...the exercises that are prescribed are meant to restore function, increase strength and mobility, and also to help relieve pain and discomfort. A good physical therapist will prescribe you an exercise regimen, take you through it (stopping before or at the onset of pain which is the body's warning sign), and then provide you with ways to help relieve pain with applications of heat or cold. When I had my hip fracture almost 3 years ago, I went to PT and had a great therapist (who I had little crush on, he was Dutch and so cute), and I credit a large part of my recovery to him, along with my own diligence to walk (and dance) again, though after that, I gave up the 6" fredericks fuckme shoes for more sensible heels.

This reminds me of a Stephen Saban column in the Details of the 80s where he talked about being sick with a horrible flu, and made the point that everything he did was downtown, but when it came time to find a good doctor, he went uptown (horrors! crossing 14th Street to go north) to find someone really good. I may dislike the sterile and boring Upper East Side, but no argument that there are so many good healthcare providers up there, and like him, everyone I see is uptown.

So Anna, it sounds like you didn't get the top notch of therapists. There are great physical therapists and hand therapists in this city, like Bradley & Munson on 58th & Broadway, and for hand therapy, NY Hand Rehab on 69th St. Insurance should pay for therapy (if you have it through your work, which you should), so it shouldn't rape your pocketbook. Alas, if you are one of the 44 million Americans (even though you are a Brit) that don't have health insurance, then cash is needed...but alas that is a whole other topic in itself, and one that again becomes a BIG issue in the coming presidential election.

[This message was edited by randella on 01-29-04 at 05:11 PM.]

LAD, I started to answer your question early this morning, but then I got busy at work and never got back to it. If you have pinched nerves by EMG (lovely test, right? zap zap, jerk jerk for an hour or so), then it means that something is compressing a nerve somewhere in your spinal column. This can happen from the natural thinning of the cushions between the vertebrae (bones) of your spinal column (which go from the base of your skull all the way down to your buttocks) which is due to aging or some injury. Sometimes just a twist, jerk, or pull is just enough to cause a nerve to be pinched. Sometimes for diagnosis, additional tests like an MRI is ordered to determine the extent of the injury. Treatment typically is based on your symptoms & level of function and consists of rest, physical therapy (not bogus either, see above), and also medications (a combo of nonsteroid anti-inflammatories like vioxx, celebrex, or ibuprofen, sometimes muscle relaxants like flexaril, sometimes narcotics if the pain is really bad, and sometimes short-term steroids to relieve impingement on the nerves- but these can make you very speedy, extraordinarily hungry, and a bit cuckoo ka joob! but it's temporary). These can resolve quickly in days or a few weeks, but if symptoms persist and don't resolve with the more conservative treatment, then surgery may be needed to relieve what is causing the impingement on the nerve.

That said, I am all for acupuncture as an option for treatment of said condition, just find a good one. Acupuncture is 3000+ years old, and there is a reason it has been around for so long, and I swear by it weekly for my various aches and ailments (years of running around in heels has done a number on me!)...it is worth a try too, and carries little risk. Anna, it would be worth a try for your arm/hand too.

Nursey.. you are a doll... loving this topic!
(and Yiseeree I do have health ins...there is no way I would have a kid an not have it...but thanks for the heads up)

Anna Nicole-- let me know how your ortho-peedist is. I'm in the market for one myself, oh my aching bones.

Let's please re-name this topic: Motherboards Geriatric Ward.

The advice makes a lot of sense. I had the MRI (open) before the EMG, which determined "no herniated disc, mild narrowing of where the nerves come out of the spinal column" = aging!
No wrinkles, but other difficulties!
I have been on celebrex for over a month. Waiting for the neurologist to "return from vacation" next week. Now I will be able to understand what he will tell me.
You are right about the doctors on the UES, they seem to be Best. My friend in NJ finally got her problem solved up here after doctoring in NJ for over a year. She claims she will only trust/use NYC doctors.
The suggestion of accupuncture is great.

MM, I thoroughly agree! But do you might remember my birthday party, Jonathan the 23 YO "kid" is still calling me for a date! I think I will go!

You work LAD, take the 23 year old out for a good time! Delish. But let me know what happens with the neurologist.

For those of us who ache and pain, acupuncture is great. I love it, and it works for so many good things. And I love her- she is a Chinese physician but licensed in NY state as an acupuncturist, so she knows what she is doing. And I love the autographed pics on the wall- especially the Judy Collins one- and she takes insurance (good for you Anna)- but she really helps, if anyone is interested.

But for a total nurse fetish- and for me it was art imitating life- I had friends over last night to watch Night Nurse which aired on TMC Thurs AM. This 1931 pre-censorship Hollywood picture staring Barbara Stanwyck & Joan Blondell as two night nurses in New York City. Clark Gable plays the bad guy, and he is just too hot. The women work on a case and stumble into bootleggers, sick children, drunk mothers, and rough-n-tumble chauffeurs. Chock full of camp zingers- "that's right, sister." Barbara Stanwyck was savvy when she was a young actress; she stripped down to her bra and slip at least 6 times in the first 20 minutes! And the L Word aint got nothing on this movie's moments. I everyone calls each other sister, and Clark Gable smacks them all up- talk about daddys.

to call the neurologist, dating a student makes me feel much better!

Ok Nurse... here's a question for you...
I have this theory that as life has become more complex and sometimes more 'easier' that people have more neurosis...i don't ever remember when I was growing up ... knowing ANYONE who was Lactose intollerant... of people who had 'panic attacks'... or people who had so many sinus,allergy etc problems... I tend to think that this is allot of psychosomatic...I often wonder if you took these neurotic people to live in a hut in Africa where they just had to SURVIVE if they would still have all these 'issues'...
Thoughts - nursey? or anyone?

Hello darling Anna Nicole. The issues of health and healing and how they relate to each ones particular belief system and everything that they put into their bodies
( all five bodies; physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and etherial). We are what we "eat" they say.

However more precisely to your ponderence, are people today suffering from more types of illnesses and maladies than perhaps they were thirty years ago? We'd have to look at the enviorment and the elements to examine how they may have changed over that period of time. Worse air quality, worse eatting habits, worse attitudes towards life and others, substance abuse; too many contributing factors to mention in this short forum. But, I'm sure you get my drift doll.

As the caterpiller said to Alice " No matter where you go, there you are."

I wish I could agree with you but I don't... Growing up in the Industrial North of England the air polution was terrible (put it this way when I did my immigration here they INSISTED I have a chest x-ray as I was from Liverpool!!!). The food was even worse...only ever knew vegetable came from a can! Life attitudes where that familys worked in coal mines or factories where the health conditions and mental health conditiones were even worse...there was no such thing as vitamins or even preventative dentistry when I grew up (and this was just mid 60's)... but nobody seemed to be neurotic with all these 'silly' maladies... so i sort of disagree dear cherub Bobby...

I think we are saying the same thing Anna. Regardless of what you ate or the air you breathed, you turned out just fine. I said it is a combination of things, mental, emotional, physical etc.. obviously you had a very positive and healthy attitude and outlook on life, regardless of what you ate or breathed...Some people have a terrible outlook and attitude and maybe they are just neurotic and that causes all their problems. So I agree with your first post but there are always exceptions to every ruke don't ya think hon?

I think, Anna, that public medical information was lacking even as little as 30 years ago. And medical terms differed. I did know one child when I was growing up who was "allergic" to cow's milk. And it was a very mysterious condition. Had to have goat's milk shipped in special from New Jersey. Now, they have done studies, released reports and thought up cutesy names. Little Johnny's mother reads the symptoms in a magazine and announces that her pride and joy is "lactose intolerant." Or has ADD. Or takes the IRT.
Interesting that the INS would specially X-ray Liverpudlians. Did this country ever do the same for the residents of Lackawannna or Love Canal?
Ah, the 60's. Can we ever forget the gorgeous sunsets the air pollution provided? Or, swimming in the Harlem River (yes, unbelievably we did,) those odd streams of day-glo green and orange that ran down its length? Not to mention those funny long cylindrical things floating by which we called Hudson River Whitefish-- Yuck!

Let's not forget the psychedelic sunsets that were a result of above the ground nuclear testing, before that was banned worldwide.

Hattie's right. Another example is that of "spastic colon" or "nervous bowel" which today we know now is Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which is biologic and neurologic entity, not one of the "head" which is what women (4:1 greater incidence) were told up until recently. Far greater understanding exists today on so many levels thanks to leaping advancements in medical research & technology.

Today's current maladies are part an advancement of understanding of health and illness. The strange paradox is that the more we know, the more we understand what we DON'T know. Part of many of the maladies are from contemporary living (bad diets, pollution, no exercise, exposures to god knows what in the water, air, soil, food, etc etc etc). Another part is that genetic hand of cards we were dealt with at birth and then those factors interplay with the environment, socialization, and role-modeling (it is BOTH nature & nurture, not one or the other as the pendumlum went back and forth in academic circles for years and finally come to an agreeable middle ground).

For those of us in New York, lucky enough to have insurance thus access to health care, there are so many specialists for diseases and entities we have never even knew existed, and of course for those entities more common too. However, our environment here in this city is a toxic one- rush, go, do, repeat- its a mantra in this city, and one doesn't survive if one doesn't pick up the pace- all the while with constant sensory input of all varieties. We used to be able to balance that out with the sensual pleasures of the city, but those are long gone (note: the final gasp of the Baby Doll Lounge, one the last bastions of old school NYC, one block from my house, which shuttered its doors permanently 2 months ago). Personally, when I am on vacation without the stressors of the day (just modern technology is enough- media input via paper, tv, radio, or online PLUS cellphones, email, pagers, palm pilots, blackberrys, IPODs, etc), I find that lots of my aches and pains sort of melt away. I don't even seem to notice them anymore, until I land and am back in NYC mode- rush, go, do, repeat.

Stress plays such a significant factor in our lives and health, yet modern science has yet to be able to quantify its effects on our health and illness, other than anecdotally.

So Anna, is there an answer to your question? I'm not sure, but there a lot of hypotheses that abound...

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This morning I felt like shit, mentally and physically. I coughed up the cost of a 90 minute Chinese massage (Qi-Gong) and I feel like a new person. It's my drug of choice and I highly reccomend it.

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Shit am with you on that one.... just got home from you fab lil bday party and had to walk home on me 6inch spikes (no wedge platform either) yikess... just need some demented foot fetish to rub my big tooties for an hour... can I get this on Oxford medical?

Anna dear, there should always be a foot fetishist around to rub your tootsies...that should not be hard to find, especially a straight one too!

Miss U, my drug of choice is acupuncture. It works so well for me, and it's based on the same principles as the Qi Gong...moving blocked energy. Amazing how these things last 1000s of years, but contemporary medicine changes gears every 5 to 10 years.