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I've been awake since before 5am this morning, so by 5.35am I admitted defeat and got up 😒 Sadly for me I am much more of a night owl than an early riser, so methinks I may need a little nap this afternoon 😴 At least I've got the Christmas puddings steaming earlier that I would otherwise have done, I guess!
Probably what has contributed to my interrupted snoozing is that my toe is yet again painful with another flare-up of gout, albeit (like previously) not as severe as that very first attack. Luckily (?) for me, after a follow-up appointment with my GP to discuss the blood tests I had a couple of weeks back, I have just started another course of Colchicine. She is a new-to-the-practice GP and is young (to my aged eyes, anyway LOL), keen, and very thorough! She went through all the "numbers" associated with the blood tests, which quite frankly I cannot now remember in detail, the upshot of which is some good news and some not-so-good news.
On the plus side I am not anaemic, don't have any infections, and have now just dropped back out of the prediabetes zone. She was happy with my last blood pressure reading ~ 136/80 ~ and that my "chronic kidney disease" is maintaining a level that is satisfactory. Now this was the very first time that my kidney issues have been referred to as CKD and it came as a little bit of a shock to hear those words to be honest. However she said that it is often associated with getting older and simply needs to be monitored, and to continue with the medications I am taking to help with the high blood pressure. With regards to the latter, whilst I am to continue with the Ramipril, she has taken me off Indapamide and prescribed Dapagliflozin instead.
Not so good are the uric acid levels, which are very high. To treat this my GP has prescribed a lower dose of Colchicine which I am to take for 28 days to "zap" the uric acid, for want of better terminology! She has also prescribed Febuxostat, which I think I will be taking long-term providing I don't get any unpleasant side-effects. It's very much a juggling game with medications, isn't it? What's good for one problem doesn't always play nicely with meds for other conditions, and she had to double-check a number of the options that are available.
Which just leaves the issue of my leaky left leg 😲 Perhaps I should explain 😉
I woke up the Saturday-before-last to a damp patch in the bed ~ nope I hadn't peed myself, it was much further down the bed and my left leg was decidedly wet. As you can imagine, this was pretty unnerving especially as it continued to leak for much of the day. However I looked up the symptoms and whilst it obviously wasn't ideal, I didn't feel that I needed to seek urgent treatment. I put a dressing on the area where it seemed to be leaking from but this was soon soaked through. I had a brainwave, though, and bandaged a bladder leak pad to said leg which soaked up the leakage very impressively! At the risk of TMI, whilst I don't actually have a big issue with a weak bladder, at my age I'd rather be safe than sorry and usually slap on a pad when I go out 😏 Thankfully the leaking petered out as the day wore on and it went on my list of things to raise with the GP when I saw her last week.
I did notice that a small area of skin had broken on my lower leg; quite possibly I'd unthinkingly scratched it when my leg was feeling particularly itchy, as I've had Lichen planus for a number of years. I duly showed my legs to my GP and explained about the leaky left leg. She has prescribed a different, milder, steroid cream (Eumovate) to the one I've been using since I was first diagnosed (Dermovate), which is a very much more potent one. I am to use the new cream once a day for two weeks to treat the flare-up of itchiness, then gradually wean it off to occasional use. I also regularly use a very good emollient cream, Epaderm, which helps with the dry skin on my legs.
So there we are, my lovelies, even more tales of health woes ~ basically I'm just falling to pieces 😏 I have to go back for another round of blood tests in a couple of weeks, and hopefully things will start to look a tad brighter soon!
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