valium would have been nice
2010-Feb-26, Friday 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mellowtiggerI did not know that valium-sedated electromyography appointments were a possibility. I certainly would have requested that option that if I had known it was available. Needles, electricity, and pain are none of them my friends, so I knew that today would be a difficult experience.
I finished my EMG testing this morning. It was painful and nerve wrecking, in both senses of that phrase. The doctor said that zhey collected the needed data, but zhey still needed to run it through other programs in order to produce analyses for sending on to my neurologist. I'll check later about getting copies of that information for my own records. I didn't take the time to ask this morning. I just wanted out of there. I noticed while exiting that I left a patch of sweat on the paper that covered the exam table, even though the room was cold on this Minnesota winter morning.
The good news, though, is that my body cooperated and developed a twitch over my right shin bone during today's exam. Zhey said that it would be impossible for me to intentionally produce such a motion even if I tried. (Yay, confirmation!) Zhey also said that it is possible to develop symptoms such as mine even at my current levels of B12, so I guess that diagnosis remains a possibility. (That news is semi-troubling. B12 is an "essential" vitamin because lack of it can kill.)
EMG testing involved two phases. 1) First was the nerve-wrecking muscular phase. It involved sticking electrode patches onto my body at two locations and then zhey would send electrical signals through the muscle to make it twitch. It was intense and unpleasant, and it made my whole body nervous, tense, and jumpy. 2) Afterwards was the painful nerve phase. For this step, zhey stuck tiny needles into my body to measure the electrical signals in my motor neurons both in a resting state and while actively pushing against zheir own resistive force. Some of it was perfectly fine, but some of it was painful. We're talking needles in nerves, here. That kind of pain.
Valium would have been good, but I also wanted to just "plow through" the exam today so I could be ready to visit the neurologist in two more weeks. If there's ever another EMG test, at least now I enough enough to ask for the sedated version of it. I'm still feeling jumpy and panicked, an hour later. Next time, I'll make arrangements for transportation to/from the clinic, and then I'll take their drugs.
I finished my EMG testing this morning. It was painful and nerve wrecking, in both senses of that phrase. The doctor said that zhey collected the needed data, but zhey still needed to run it through other programs in order to produce analyses for sending on to my neurologist. I'll check later about getting copies of that information for my own records. I didn't take the time to ask this morning. I just wanted out of there. I noticed while exiting that I left a patch of sweat on the paper that covered the exam table, even though the room was cold on this Minnesota winter morning.
The good news, though, is that my body cooperated and developed a twitch over my right shin bone during today's exam. Zhey said that it would be impossible for me to intentionally produce such a motion even if I tried. (Yay, confirmation!) Zhey also said that it is possible to develop symptoms such as mine even at my current levels of B12, so I guess that diagnosis remains a possibility. (That news is semi-troubling. B12 is an "essential" vitamin because lack of it can kill.)
EMG testing involved two phases. 1) First was the nerve-wrecking muscular phase. It involved sticking electrode patches onto my body at two locations and then zhey would send electrical signals through the muscle to make it twitch. It was intense and unpleasant, and it made my whole body nervous, tense, and jumpy. 2) Afterwards was the painful nerve phase. For this step, zhey stuck tiny needles into my body to measure the electrical signals in my motor neurons both in a resting state and while actively pushing against zheir own resistive force. Some of it was perfectly fine, but some of it was painful. We're talking needles in nerves, here. That kind of pain.
Valium would have been good, but I also wanted to just "plow through" the exam today so I could be ready to visit the neurologist in two more weeks. If there's ever another EMG test, at least now I enough enough to ask for the sedated version of it. I'm still feeling jumpy and panicked, an hour later. Next time, I'll make arrangements for transportation to/from the clinic, and then I'll take their drugs.
no subject
Date: 2010-Feb-26, Friday 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-Feb-26, Friday 05:59 pm (UTC)Anyway, she gave me a bottle of B12 supplement that she didn't like (I'm always looking to "live better through chemistry"). They were 5000 mcg sub-lingual pills. I would pop one at night right before I went to sleep. They did have a noticeable positive effect on me, though the details may be TMI.
I've run out of them, unfortunately, and I can't find a proper replacement. I tried a non sub-lingual as a sublingual, and that seemed to work/dissolve okay, except that it was only 500 mcg, and didn't seem to do much.
Point being: IME, 5000 mcg sub-lingual tablets are the way to go to boost your B12. (The one's Katherine gave me were Meijer brand--they don't have Meijer's in LA, but they might in your part of the frozen north.)
EDIT:
PS: When I was being prepped for knee surgery, my blood pressure was so high that there was talk of canceling the surgery. I explained that I just really didn't like IVs, and that was making me anxious, and therefore pumping up my BP. So, they gave me a valium. My BP went down and everything went hunky-dory after that.
Point being: I think you can get an anti-anxiety med for just about any medical procedure. You just have to ask.