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
Go Bless YDK… YDK sounds very much like my Doc…who is not young and doesn’t look like Dr. Kildare. BUT he has an abundance of common sense which seems to be in short supply in the medical profession. I love this guy…the DW … not so much… and left his practice some time ago. Her Doc…a female and bit more “genteel”….is a “quack” in IMHO. And never misses an opportunity to use her prescription pad, many times with dismal results. And for this …. I am not a fan. My guy on the other hand is very hands-on and common-sense and the prescription pad is the last resort. He even shares my concern of the lasting effects of OTC drugs when used or abused. I have a nagging knee injury from a car accident and it gives me a fit when I am physical or on my feet a lot. He diagnosed the pain as a result of a Baker’s Cyst behind my knee. He explained what it is and the options. One of which is to “drain” the cyst which he says offers some temporary relief but often does more harm than good. His advice….ice….ibuprofen….elevating the leg….perhaps some exercises to strengthen the muscles around the knee and losing a bit of weight wouldn’t hurt. My guy sounds like your guy….
That sounds painful.
Personally, my preference is to start with the most conservative treatment possible (well…in the absence of a life-threatening condition, of course). Don’t know if that’s common sense or if the Christian Science is in the genes!
Interesting. Of course now you have to see whether the ice packs and Benadryl work.
Yup. And of course, the question is whether the Mayo doc was right, and if he was, what will be the (possibly untoward) effect of knocking off the course of antibiotics he put me on.
This morning the swelling seems somewhat reduced — it certainly isn’t any worse, and it seems to be going down a little. There’s NOTHING in there that looks like conjunctivitis: the lining of both eyes looks identical. There’s no pain. There’s no discharge. There’s no sensation of heat or warmth. It’s just hard to believe this is an infection, in the absence of all the typical infection markers.
Just wanted to add that the same Christian Science gene runs in my family also. My mother’s aunt, who actually raised her, was a CS practitioner. I don’t know how that works exactly as I never knew her well. She was also a well known actress in her day, Emma Dunn. She lived to be in her 90s and I rather wish I had known her better as she seemed to have had an interesting life.
It would be so interesting to pop back in time and get to know a few of our more interesting ancestors, wouldn’t it?
Yes — how interesting, indeed!
Isn’t it amazing that so many of those folks lived to a ripe old age? Maybe it’s only that we don’t notice the nuts that fell off the tree before they reached full maturity, though…
I’m sure the teetotalling, the abstention from alcohol, and the otherwise quite “straight” lifestyle contributes to the longevity of those who don’t have dire illnesses in their genetic make-up.
My grandmother, who was raised by the CS great-grandmother and whose elder sister was the CS great-aunt, died in her early 40s of uterine cancer (so we’re told). She was quite the flapper — which from what can tell means she catted around a lot. So it’s possible that what was called “uterine” cancer in the 1930s may have been cervical cancer brought on by HPV. Whatever: she bore with it until she could no longer stand the discomfort and then went to a doctor. He told her — undoubtedly out of spite, so unlikely does the claim seem — that if he’d seen her three months earlier he could have saved her life.
She died so horribly that my mother, who took care of her at the end of her life, spent the rest of her life dreading cancer. And my mother died so horribly of her cancer that I have quietly made arrangements to circumvent that fate, and will avail myself of them if and when the diagnosis comes down.
Interestingly, my grandmother’s ex-husband (my mother’s father) died within six months of her, from Hodgkins Disease, which in those days was quite a rarity. He was not Christian Scientist, though…he was just a hound, far as I can tell.