My great-grandmother Gree and her daughter Gertrude were both devout Christian Scientists. Each lived into her mid-90s without ever seeing a doctor. They never took any kind of medication, nor did they touch alcohol. Or tobacco. They would go to dentists, but whatever procedures took place were done without anaesthetics.
We, the enlightened generations, thought they were benighted. My mother thought they were stubbornly crazy. I saw them as products of the 19th century: they grew up during a time when going to a doctor was likely to do more harm than not. And even today, sometimes I reflect that about 90 percent of what ails you will either go away on its own or kill you, and no amount of doctoring is going to change that. It’s the 10 percent that keeps me visiting docs whenever some ailment comes calling.
So I’ve been taking omeprazole for the GERD forever and a day. Young Dr. Kildare, before he exited the nearby practice where I met him, had told me to take vast quantities of it for 8 weeks, and then if the symptoms abated, to titer off the stuff. He gave me a prescription for about a half-billion milligrams per horse pill.
Backstory: one thing you should know is that if a drug (OTC or prescription) has some rare, bizarre side effect that afflicts .001% of the population, I’m the .001%. It never fails.
That notwithstanding, the bellyache tried my patience and so I followed his instructions. Yea verily, it worked. So I was slowly easing the dosage down and looking forward to stopping it.
Now out of the blue I get this weird edema around the left eye. The eyelid itches, and I think it’s a mosquito bite. Or I do, until a day or so later I discover a big, ugly swelling in the old-lady bag under the eye. It looks like a blister, the kind of thing you get from hiking in new boots.
Naturally I discover this in the wee hours of the morning, which is when I normally wake up.
Naturally I have recourse to the Hypochondriac’s Treasure Chest that is the Internet. And what should I learn but that omeprazole can cause facial edema. If any such thing should arise, we’re told, you should “seek medical care immediately.”
Along about 7 a.m., I call over to my doctor’s office at the Mayo, where I hope to be referred by phone to the internist on call. The phone lady refuses to put me through and tells me to go to the ER.
As usual, the last thing I want to do is go to an ER. But I’m kinda worried that this could be the start of a more serious allergic reaction. So I drive over to the Urgent Care place just up the street.
Naturally, it’s closed.
So I drive up to the Mayo’s ER, where I kill most of the morning.
The doc who sees me is an old buzzard, well past retirement age. (I learned from my old doc, who retired from the Mayo, that the Mayo often hires its retirees on a p/t basis for the ER. Hm.) He orders a blood test and goes off. Eventually he comes back into the room, and he says it’s an infection. He says he could tell this from the blood test.
I think, without comment, “That’s a little odd.”
But he insists the redness (where I’ve been scratching at the itch) and the fact that it’s not bilateral means it’s an infection. I say, “But there’s no conjunctivitis, there’s no discharge, there’s no fever, there’s no sign that this is an eye infection.” He insists it’s an infection and puts me on Keflex.
Forthwith, this product causes my tongue and lips to turn bright red and swell up.
I call and get another Rx for a different antibiotic, one that the Treasure Chest says is likely to cause a roaring case of C. difficile. But I want to be rid of the blister on my face and I’m worried that it IS an eye infection, so I start taking this stuff.
The more I think about it, though, the more I think…hmmmmmm….
Time to see a doctor who has a preternatural gift for common sense. Young Dr. Kildare is one of the two (count’em, 2) doctors I’ve met in 71 years on this earth who possess such a gift.
So I weaseled my way into YDK’s new office — fortunately, he doesn’t have many patients yet. I just got back from his precincts.
He took one long look at it and said, “That’s not an infection.”
I said, “What about the blood test?”
He said, “You can’t tell a person has an eye infection from a blood test! The most it can tell you is that maybe there’s an inflammation somewhere. Maybe not, too.
“THAT is not an eye infection. I can tell it’s not an eye infection because I’ve been to medical school.”
Hee HEEEE!
He thinks it’s an allergic reaction and recommends getting off the omeprazole (which I’d already done). His cure: Benadryl and ice packs. Come back in one week.
Can you believe that? Raving incompetence at the Mayo Clinic. That is really unusual.
Jeez. Never a dull moment.
Images
Crucifix: CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=439493
Caduceus: By Rama and Eliot Lash – Drawing by Rama. Vectorized with Inkscape by Eliot Lash., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=662346