Getting answers

It’s been awhile, though it seems like yesterday that I threw that 300. I’ve bowled awful ever since, but hopefully that turns around soon. Outside of bowling, this year has not started off how I’d hoped. 

Something had been giving me some stomach issues, similar to when I eat dairy, but when I avoided anything with lactose in it. I had a feeling I knew what it was, but wanted to find out for sure. I completely cut out all gluten in my diet for a few weeks (along with dairy) and I can’t remember feeling that great in a very long time. Non-Celiac gluten intolerance. At least now I know and can make choices as I do with dairy, as we all know I won’t be completely giving up beer or bread any time soon. I learned a lot, though, and I can’t believe how many things have wheat in them! I also found quite a few alternatives that didn’t taste horrible, but I don’t think I could ever give up the real things. But at least I now know what was causing those issues.

In the middle of this gluten-free diet, I woke up one Wednesday and my right shoulder was a little sore. I figured I had just slept wrong or something, as we hadn’t even bowled in over a month due to the holidays. Over the next few days, however, the pain increased significantly and by the time Saturday came around, I couldn’t even lift my arm high enough to feed myself with the right hand. So, I spent a large portion of the morning at Urgent Care on Sunday, being told it’s tendonitis and getting a shot of cortisone in my shoulder and being referred to physical therapy, which I will start in a few weeks. It’s feeling better, but I’ll at least start the PT as it does flare up often, though the pain is nowhere near as bad as before the shot.

I’ve had some other health issues that I finally spoke to my primary care physician about at the end of 2022. The first round of bloodwork confirmed what I had already expected, and that was a low testosterone level. Explains a lot of the issues, including the depression, weight gain, and a few other very depressing issues. So, they wanted to do another round of bloodwork with additional tests to check a few other things. I’ve had far too many bad experiences with IV’s and I ended up pushing this off until after the start of the new year. The results came back with my prolactin levels very elevated, though my thyroid and other labs were all within range. I started looking up what might cause low levels of testosterone in men combined with high levels of prolactin, and one thing seemed to always come up: pituitary adenoma (tumor). As such, I wasn’t very surprised to see the note from my PCP saying they wanted me to get an MRI to check my pituitary. I went and got the MRI, which was not my favorite thing in the world, especially since they wanted to do it both with and without contrast, so more IVs! It only took a few days to see the results that I was expecting. It’s definitely a tumor on my pituitary. The notes also stated the scan shows a cyst in my sinuses, but we are going to ignore that one for now. So, they are referring me to endocrinology for next steps, but they can’t get me in until mid-July. I freaking hate waiting, but I appreciate knowing. At least I know what might be causing all of these symptoms, but I hate having to wait to find out what they can do about it. Until then, I’ll continue to take these antidepressants, go to PT for my shoulder, and try not to think about it.