My mother is 79 years old and in the early stages of dementia. Having stopped smoking 14 years ago she has suddenly started again - despite having had a collapsed lung and a cancerous tumour removed from her lung earlier this year. We are very concerned for her health and don't know what to do - has anyone else faced this particular problem?
View 5 RepliesI put myself in rehab for 30 days in 2002. I quit drinking for 11 years. In August of 2013 I guess I got curious and started again. First, I used to drink socially, then weekends, then it just picked up after that. I'm not at the point of blackouts or missing work. I do not drink in the morning. I do not go to the bar rooms. I drink approximately 4-6 beer a day. Each day I say I'm not going to drink but I feel like I need to just to take the edge off. I thought it's time to do something before it does get out of control like it was in 2002. I've been calling about detox but my deductible is over $2500. Is there a safe way that my doctor can help me get through this at home. There is a time coming up soon that I have 6 days off of work.
View 4 RepliesJust curious if anyone has had this problem. I have had my paragaurd IUD for 3 years. Prior to this one I had one for 6 years with no problems whatsoever. Almost a month ago I started my period. It started strange with a clear pinkish watery discharge followed by thick brownish discharge. About 2 weeks later I passed something that was flesh colored and about the size of a dime. I thought it might be a miscarriage so i took a pregnancy test with a negative result. I have been continuously bleeding since then. This has been a total of a month now. I am very scared but unfortunately I can't be seen for another week. Up until now my periods have been every 21 days and lasted for 5-7 like clockwork. Has anyone experienced anything like this? FYI I have been in a monogamous relationship for 2 1/2 years and had STD testing with my last annual a year ago.
View 1 RepliesI've been spotting while on NuvaRing which is odd for me because I've been using this for years with no problems. I went to the doctor in the middle of November to renew my prescription. They gave me a pregnancy test which came out negative. I had sex once in October and haven't since then.
In December my period came on a Wednesday and I forgot to get a new ring to put in to skip my period. I put in the ring the same day my period started, Wednesday, but I'm supposed to put in a new one Sundays. Anywho had a regular period but last week I had slight cramping for a day and some spotting. This week the same thing. The spotting is only lasting one day. What the heck is going on? Just old blood?
I smoked for 37 years from the age of nine. I have tried to quit many times but can say now in hindsight that I never really tried, I just pretended to myself that I was trying. Some times I stopped smoking and had a cigarette less than an hour later but made up an excuse and continued to "try" stopping. I never actually admitted to failing until I was back on my usual 20 or 30 a day.
In January I decided to give it a go again but this time I went to a stop smoking group. This will not work for all people but it did for me so I am happy. Somebody at the group came out with the idea that everyone at the group should get into their heads that the minute you have 1 cigarette then you have failed. I am a naturally competitive person and this really worked in gettting me motivated. I did not want to be the one that failed.
In the group we were given help with products and I chose to use patches and lozenges. I used the patches for 6 weeks and the lozenges for about 12 but do not use either now. There seems to be this perception amongst internet posters that if you use stop smoking products then you didn't do it properly and its far better to stop "cold turkey" Personally I think it's the result that counts not how you get there.
I have now gone almost 8 months without a cigarette and still get the cravings now and again. But I just keep saying to myself "if you have 1 cigarette you have failed".
I am 25 and have been smoking cannabis almost every day for the past 10 years. The last 8 years this has been entirely skunk, and it's normal for me to spend anywhere between £50 and £70 a week on it. I do smoke it with tobacco but have managed to give up cigarettes a year ago.
Despite this I have passed college and got myself a degree - and I now have a well paid respectable job.
However, I have noticed that my memory is pretty lousy and its really affecting my work. I also get chest tightness and pains which is why I really want to give up (as well as the money). I am pretty unmotivated hence I rarely cook meals or exercise. My social skills are also poor and can only strike up a conversation with somebody if I've had a few drinks. When I am stoned, I find it difficult to hold a conversation - simply cos I don't want to - and most evenings consist of staring at the TV all evening not even noticing what I am watching.
2 years ago i split up with my fiance (and baby) as she could no longer put up with my smoking and mood swings (which can be really bad for no apparent reason). (i chose weed over them as I didn't see why I should change - however we were no longer in love so I suppose it was inevitable)
I gave up for about 10 days a few months back - the first 3 days were really hard (lack of sleep, agitation)and I vowed not to go back to it. However, I live in a small town and ALL my friends smoke weed (including my brother who I live with)so was soon back into the swing of things. Almost all my friends and brothers friends do the usual Crack, Coke Pills MDMA Base etc on a regular basis but I've always been able to control my use of these. I'm up to my eyeballs in debt (mainly from drink and drugs) so cannot afford to move to a flat of my own. I feel I can't get away from it despite remembering how much better I felt when i gave up.
I agree there should be more help, but I still don't think its necessarily a bad thing. I know some people who can take it or leave it so why should it be illegal just because some people take it too far. I think a large risk at the moment is highly pollutes "soap bar" and skunk pumped full of chemicals, glass filings (to increase weight), and flavourings. If it were legal to grow for your own use, I'm sure many people would have less of a problem with it.
I've been a smoker for 17 years now. I've tried everything and still can't quit. Any methods anyone can recommend that helped you?
View 1 RepliesI gave up smoking at new year, just over two years ago. My dad died from emphysema when he has 60, and i always said that if i ever got a cough that reminded me of my dad i would quit. It got to the point where i was coughing myself to sleep each night, and i realised this wasn't just a cold that was going away, so i set myself a smoking deadline of new year (this was in the autumn) and did just that. Well 90% of my cough went away virtually overnight, but i was left with a niggly throat clearing thing, which wasn't too much hassle. Felt pretty good, and pleased with myself. So anyway, a couple of weeks ago i was doing a meditation app, and the instruction was to take a deep breath and hold it. It kind of took me by surprise, and the next day my back was hurting. So i made an appointment for the docs and she booked me in for a chest x ray and prescribed me a peak flow meter and some ventolin. 3 times a day i have to do a best of 3 reading, take two puffs of ventolin, then twenty mins later do another best of 3 reading. After three days of doing so i'm feeling constantly breathless, worse than i ever did, i still have that pain in the left side of my back, and i am sure now that indeed i have emphysema like my dad. I feel like crying all the time yet i'm putting a brave face on for everyone. I don't have any kids, and my boyfriend still smokes in the house. I try not to be around it, bit it's only a small house and difficult to avoid. He didn't see the long horrible death my dad had, both his parents are still fit and healthy. My morning peak flow reading is 350 and the other two (noon and night) are roughly 370 with hardly any difference from the ventolin except i think its giving me a dry throat. I guess my question is, has anyone else had COPD from age 40 and still lived a long time? How bearable is it? Because my dad carried on smoking quite far into his (he gave up when he went on oxygen) i'm finding it hard to expect anything different than he got. Also is it possible for the peak flow tests to be making me breathless?
View 32 RepliesHad chest xray done .I have no cough slight out of breath has I have asthma. doctor's have now told me I have mild change if my lung copd.when I asked does this mean I have the decease she said it might just be from the damage from smoking all those years ago.am so worried and stressed. does this mean this is the beginning of a death sentence? not sleeping or eating.
View 35 RepliesI have just been diagnosed with stage 2 copd (emphysema). I have smoked for 48 years. I am 65 and told I have lungs of a 95 year old. I am struggling to stop smoking. If I cannot how fast will my progression be.
View 29 Repliescan anyone tell me which way they found the best, i don't really want to go on patches etc and i've heard bad reports on champix. I,ve tried acupuncture and found i cut down, but we all know what happens, creep back to full smoking again.
View 12 RepliesI'm 15 years old... and i've been smoking since i was 12.. i am quitting, but since yesterday i have had this really bad pain in my throat, it feels like there is a lump of some sort, that won't go away, but then today, i woke up with the same throat pain (but worse) it hurts to breath in, it also hurts my left shoulder blade/ arm when i breath in, my nose, and occasionally my chest.. I am having a really hard time breathing, and i'm really scared. help?
View 1 RepliesFemale, 40 years old. don't drink/smoke. exercises 2-3x a week. No meds. Seldom eat fried foods. No soda/ juice. Triglyceride (WNL) HDL= 66. LDL=133..Cholesterol=205 (>199). Should I be worried?
View 1 RepliesMy father in law has always been an alcoholic. Over the past couple of years, his drinking got out of control and his behavior was increasingly strange. My mother in law left him several times, but returned with his promises to cut back on the booze. Right around this past Christmas, we managed to keep him sober for several days, long enough to see that his behavior problems were not the result of being drunk. He was diagnosed with alcohol induced dementia.
Since then, we've been on a roller coaster of good and bad days, but the bad days are now the norm. He lives with my MIL, who is younger than him and in good health. He does a lot of screaming at her, says he hates her and wants her to die. He says he wants a divorce and wants to move to be near his favorite drinking spot. Usually these fits are preceded by his request to go out for a drink, which she denies.
A few months ago, my FIL figured out he could walk to a somewhat close area of restaurants and liquor stores. He will provoke my MIL until she gets fed up and leaves for a break, then he starts the long walk to get a drink. MIL used to follow him in her car and go into the liquor stores and restaurants ahead of him and ask that he not be served alcohol. This would lead to him calling her and screaming at her. Now she just lets him go but refuses to pick him up and drive him home after he has his drinks. Once, she wasn't home when he arrived from a drinking binge so he took all of her clothes and threw them in the back yard. He tried to dismantle her computer and threw away any food in the house that he saw as "hers." We are very concerned for his safety, obviously, and for MIL's emotional and mental well being.
Lately MIL is at her breaking point. She wants to leave. FIL is very demanding, verbally abusive. We try to give MIL a break by taking FIL shopping, going over for meals, taking the kids to see him, etc. He can't live on his own because he can't manage his meds (yesterday he took two days of his blood pressure, antipsychotic, and antianxiety meds because he kicked MIL out of the house and she wasn't there to help him). He does OK cooking for himself but can't pay bills, no longer can drive, needs help shopping, and is just starting to have issues with managing his own hygiene. His short term memory is bad. He will call each of us in the family over and over again, especially when he's been drinking. He seems to want to have MIL around to entertain him and drive him places, but then drives her away so he can attempt to drink. He has fallen more than once -- one time, he fell while walking home from the liquor store and a passing driver called an ambulance.
FIL is not bad enough to qualify for any services, even home care. He flat out refuses to cooperate with any sort of caregiver or adult day care. He thinks the doctors are wrong about the dementia and insists he can take care of himself. Every attempt at getting help for him has been a dead end, from social services to Alz. support groups. MIL is working on getting POA and conservatorship so she can control his access to money. She is thinking of getting FIL his own small place (which he wants), managing his finances, and giving him a small allowance that we all know he will quickly spend on booze (he averages $30 a day on "lunch" when he is alone and walks to restaurants). We feel like we can't control him and have no options and just have to wait for him to decline further or land himself in the hospital. MIL will have to go back to work, at least part time, to be able to afford to support him as well as have her own place.
Does anyone who's been through this have any ideas on options for us? FIL can't live with any of us because we have kids, jobs, etc. and aren't around to monitor him. I also can't have him behaving and talking the way he does around my kids -- it's bad enough what they see and hear when we visit. My in laws' income is limited to social security (less than 2500/mo total), plus my MIL has about $60,000 in a retirement fund. They don't own their home.
I am a 61 years old male alcoholic and my memory is very bad. Is this normal?
View 1 RepliesMy husband has been taking lipitor for about 10 years. About a year & a half ago he started showing signs of what I thought was dementia until I researched it online. I couldn't believe my eyes....he was a poster boy for the side effects of lipitor! I contacted our doctor about it but he wouldn't hear of him trying to quit taking it. I know we don't have to take the meds that doctors prescribe but they're supposed to be the experts & have our best interests at heart but I'm so worried that my husband will get worse.
View 4 RepliesI'm 48 and have always been forgetful. In the last year it's gotten worse. Strange things have been happening like:
** I'm folding laundry, I hold up a shirt to fold it and I go blank, I can't remember what it is, how to fold it.
** I'm telling someone how to spell the word " letter" and say L-E-T as in cat and they say "what?" and I repeat it "T as in cat"
** My toothbrush is grey, my husband's green. I get both toothbrushes out, run water on them and put toothpaste on them. Five minutes later, I can't remember which one is mine, so I wait for my husband to brush his teeth so I know which one is mine.
I've got many more examples...the scariest of which is:
Driving at 5am on an access road, felt like the car turned sidewise, everything went black, when I could see, I realized I was trying to negotiate a curve and I didn't know where I was.
My MRI was looked at by the radiologist and a neurologist. The only thing out of the ordinary was: A few subcortical T2 hyperintensities in both hemispheres-more on the right. Several flair punctate hyperintensities in the occipital lobes bilaterally unchanged from previous exam (2006)
Mild or early age-related microvascular ischemic changes mostly likely account for the few subcortical T2 hyperintensities observed.
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My neurologist wants me to have neuropsychological testing done. He says that the MRI does not explain the things that are happening. "something is going on and we can't just attribute it to getter older"
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I have a continual tremor..sometimes even in my head (I take lithium..probably a side effect). Had a 6 month experience of some kind of neuropathy in my left arm last year. Just recently developed numbness, tingling, and burning in my right hand and now it's in the left hand too. I have headaches most every day..some are very short. I'm also on a lot of medications.
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My question, if the MRI isn't showing anything what could the testing show besides memory loss/approaching dementia?
My memory, both long term and short term, is shot. I cannot remember names, stories, facts, and many things that were easily retrievable only a few months ago.
Basically, from June until recently, I had major sleep problems. My primary doctor was reluctant to prescribe any kind of sleep medication. Also, I had poor sleep hygiene, and continued to smoke cigarettes and eat an unhealthy diet. Ultimately, I did not sleep for about two months. At most, I would get 2 hours per night.
At the same time, out of desperation, I started to abuse zzzquil. I would take 2x to 2.5x the recommended dose. All things considered, I am a large guy, at about 250 pounds. Still, in the beginning, that dose would afford me 6 hours of sleep. A couple months later - none.
If I was not taking zzzquil I would try melatonin with no results. If not melatonin, I would drink high quantities of alcohol (whiskey, straight up).
I had to quit my job recently, which was an easy one, as I could not focus upon any kind of work. I cannot remember numbers and figures for minutes after I have seen them. Even writing this post is very difficult.
At this point, I pace around my parent's house, chewing ice cubes, driving them crazy, mumbling to myself about how much I suck at life. At one point I was a smart guy - now I feel like a 95 year old.
My parents, my friends, people in AA, my general practitioners, everyone, say that I can make a comeback and that this damage is reversible. I thought that brain damage was irreversible? I cannot afford nor even get a referral to see a neurologist.
Before this summer, I was a chronic alcoholic and marijuana abuser, even for a time while on antidepressants, and have been incredibly irresponsible. My life is a current agony. What should I do? Should I believe that my parents and those around me are correct, should I give up as I am too broke to afford treatment? I am clueless, feeling hopeless, stupid....
Or should I start taking Prozac - as two/four gps stated that this is stemming from depression?
I was on citalopram for a few days but I started getting nose bleeds so I just started 150mgs of trazodone yesterday and boy did I feel like shite! all I wanted to do was sleep so I slept all day even when I finally woke up I had no energy
View 6 RepliesStarted MTX couple of weeks ago. How long do these headaches last?
View 4 RepliesI am 34 years old and about 4 years ago I started getting precum every time I got sexually excited. The more excited I get the more that is produced. It is a clear sticky substance that has no smell and is slippery when rubbed. At first I thought I might have caught an STD but after three trips to the GU clinic and every test returning negative I have ruled that out.
My question is is this normal to just start producing precum at the age of 30 and is there anything I can do to stop or reduce the amount being produced. Every time I get the slightest but sexually aroused (and I get aroused really easily) I produce it and it is embarrassing to the point that I am avoiding physical contact with my girlfriend to stop it from occurring.
Any help with this would be most appreciated as it has been driving me mad for the last 4 years.