Thursday, November 10, 2005

take an aspirin and call me

One of the great things about talking to doctors all the time for work is you can sneak in questions about your own health. Like, yesterday I was talking to an expert on obstructive sleep apnea. And he said you have these little wake-ups all night long, but they're so short, you don't necessarily know they're happening, you just wake up feeling unrested. And a while later I was like, so, is there anything else that can cause that? And he said, well, there's this thing called periodic limb movements, and people who do it don't know they're doing it. And I was like, huh, what causes that? And he said, in a lot of people it's kidney failure or neurological problems, but it also happens with a fair number of people who have nothing apparently wrong, and it may be related to low levels of iron.

Aha! I am obsessed with my anemia. Which appears to have cleared up, thanks to the twin wonders of pharmaceuticals and beef.

Mmmmm...beef.

6 comments:

towwas said...

Actually, the moral of this story is that I need to find someone to sleep in my bed with me, so they can tell me whether I flail when I sleep. Must get on that....

Stacey Pelika said...

I read one of your articles today while waiting to pick my new prescription for...Ambien (hooray!). It was the one about skin - I enjoyed it, but it made me somewhat paranoid. (In fact, the thing about lupus was something I've been through - they tested me for that before deciding it was rosacea...)

I wanted to stand up in the waiting room and say "Hey folks, I know the person who wrote this article - this one right here in [your publication]!"

And I must admit to having the exact same thought as your comment while viewing a story on sleep apnea on then news last night.

J.Po said...

Yay for Ambien! Booooo for sleep apnea and lupus!

towwas said...

I know! The doctors kept being like, the bed partner notices the symptoms, the bed partner notices the symptoms, blah blah blah, and finally I was like, sooooo, what if you *don't* have a bed partner? The one I asked recommended a tape recorder, but that only works for sleep apnea, not so much for flailing. It might tell me if I talk in my sleep, though, and if so, in what language.

towwas said...

P.S. I think you should have stood up & said that. That would've been cool. I never see anyone reading my publication, but I have seen people on the subway reading one of my freelance pieces. The sad thing was, it was probably the funniest thing I've ever written, and neither person I saw even cracked a smile. I was like, damn. I suck.

towwas said...

Whoa, night terrors, that's dramatic! I didn't ask him anything else about the neurological problems, because, uh, I don't have any that I know of. I was much more interested in the anemia.