I've been ill.

This business with my sinus infection and the really bad allergy problems that I've had has been a rather large problem. I had over two months of intense allergy stuff and finally got that under control, but the sinus infection never really went away over a period of months. From mid-March until recently, it was never really gone and about 6 weeks ago it migrated into my lower jaw, where it really started to cause problems. It was like having several toothaches at the same time and it kept me up for many nights. It was impossible to sleep, because once my head tipped to one side, the pressure on the nerves in my jaw caused intense sharp pain. So, I sat up in bed, sometimes for two or three nights in a row and read, sometimes finishing a novel during the night. And then I would go into work.

This happened to me about nine years ago and I knew what antibiotic worked last time; I went through three and a half weeks of pain that time before an ENT prescribed the right thing. I told my allergist about it, but he had other ideas. So, first it was a short term course, then it was another kind of antibiotic and then a second try at that one and then a third one. All of them failed and especially the last one; so I ended up in the ER and told the doctor there that I needed doxycycline! She prescribed it to me and I it did the trick. If my doctor here had just given me that right away, I would have been fine for my vacation! It's a really cheap old tetracycline drug; 10 days worth costs $3.84. The drugs that didn't work, plus the cost of my ER visit was about $1800.

Now this allergist is rated as one of the best doctors in the city... his picture is on the cover of a recent Las Vegas Life magazine! Under his care, my allergy symptoms improved, but my over all health got worse. And for a really long time, like three months. And as it got worse, he did less. When I mentioned the pain, which was really bad, there was no real response; "Oh, it will get worse before it gets better" was the response that I got when I called his office from the Cape. My brother's wife said, "No. That's crap, I am taking you to the ER."

It's good to have family in the medicine business...




durlx