The Boob Update

You'll have to bear with me as I hack this out on one of those neon pink silicon keyboards. The power output to my laptop finally died out and we've had to throw the hard drive into an older laptop with a broken screen. Not the ideal way to operate, but at least we're operating.

So, I saw the breast surgeon who was one of the wankiest doctors I've seen. I rated him as #3 in the rude stakes. Unable to operate his own ultrasound machine, he also yelled at me for covering up before he thought necessary and then spent the last 10 minutes of our 30 minute appointment online googling for a drug contraindication I told him about when he suggested I take evening primrose oil for the breast pain

He was also 1 hour and 20 minutes late to the appointment with no apologies.

Evening Primrose Oil is somewhat effective in combating cyclical breast pain, however it has reportedly had no effect in non-cyclical breast pain. It is also contraindicated with one of the drugs I take.

And for this privilege, he charged us $175. I wish there was a rebuttal process for when you see a doctor who provides you with nothing and verbally assaults you.

Basically he said that there was nothing pathological in the boob (which we knew from the ultrasound the previous week) and said that I was a rare oddity in that I only have 2 milk ducts in my left boob.

When I spoke with my MIL about this it occurred to me that my daughter never settled on the right boob and preferred the left, probably because it had a slower flow and the right would have been so different in milk flow and quantity.

So, I really do feel like a superwoman having breastfed, mostly 1 sided, for 21 months from a boob with only 2 milk ducts.

What we learned, other than you should always listen to that predictive voice inside, is that there is nothing structurally wrong with the breast, no filled ducts, no lump, bumps or bruises, nothing wrong at all. Just pain. His sage advice was: Suck it up and deal.

Yes, because you're just a silly, silly woman complaining about some pain. Suck it up and deal. Can you imagine a doctor stating that to a president or prime minister? No, of course not. But because you're just a woman, well, suck it up and deal.

Would you pay for someone to tell you that? To your face? Me either, and yet I have to. Because he's a doctor and I was given a 'service'. I don't agree with the outcome of the service, but I will pay it. And tell everyone I know not to go to him.

Aside from the breast issue, anxiety is at an all time high here. Soph hasn't been sleeping much which has such an impact on her moods. She was prescribed a sedative, basically an anti-nausea med, but it really was helping. However, it was only helping at the adult dose, no where near as effective at the 6 year old dose. So, we only got a couple nights of sleep into her.

Last night she was acting very quiet, unable to make eye contact and lying face down on the floor, her really autistic behaviours. I tried to guess what had happened and hit upon something with her teacher.

I made quite a few jokes of the outlandish nature, like her teacher had decided teddy bears were evil and was creating a petition to outlaw teddies in NZ. That sort of just seriously random and outlandish statements to unarm her. She laughed quite a lot and in the end said that she was really scared to tell me what happened in case I was mad at her.

I asked if it involve Hamish, a really bad kid at school who she had a run-in with earlier this year. She said no, I could breathe again.

She said that she was trying to log in on the computer and she got her login wrong. Instead of SP2869 or whatever, she only typed in SP2 and her password. The computer was locking up after 3 attempts and the teacher came over to help. Some sort of disciplinary verbal exchange took place in which the teacher corrected Soph and Soph yelled at her and rolled her eyes.

Now, this sort of thing always happens at home. We call it the sassiness and we are working on correcting and replacing the behaviour, but in a child who is tired, not eating, anxious to begin with, it's hard to contain. I believe Soph was told it wasn't ok to yell at the teacher and roll her eyes and Soph felt truly awful about it.

She told me it was repeating in her head over and over and it just wouldn't stop. I tried to explain some things I've been taught to overcome ruminating thoughts, but of course, she didn't want any of it.

I made her write an apology card to her teacher and I hope the teacher sees this child is actually struggling and won't keep repeating the oft quoted, there's nothing wrong with this child; she's an angel.

We've had a referral to the child, youth, adolescent mental health care team (CAMS) and they're posting off a letter. We will likely receive it next week and I ring in to book. I don't know why it has to be this way, but it does.

Hopefully they'll be able to help us medicate this anxiety and get her into some sort of child therapy for her anxiety issues because anything I suggest to her gets shot down.

She's at a playdate today so I'm getting lots of doing nothing done. I've tidied up some recyclables that needed to be washed and sorted. Going through some old kids clothes to get onto an auction site. Some extra cash for xmas would be lovely.

Spring is here and so is the pollen. The pollen aggravates my sinuses and my myalgia is quite bad in my calves and arms. I'm just not sleeping well at all and I spend the entire day exhausted.

Thinking of investing in some herbs to trial.

Currently taking magnesium, calcium and spirulina for energy. It's better than it has been, but I'm not superwoman and that annoys me I hate life taking a back seat to fatigue and exhaustion.

Hoping he's no Boob

It's boob day.

I'm not feeling too flash today and feel really pessimistic and melancholic about it all.

I've met so many specialists who direct all conversation, don't listen, preach and then take your money, leaving you feeling alone, unheard and pretty pissed off. And I'm getting that vibe today. I don't know why.

The left boob has been so sore and that worries me. I can't sleep on it and whenever I roll it squishes and wakes me up.

I ended up taking the seroquel on night 2. I had begun to get the shakes and that buzzing noise in my head had returned. I told Matt it sucked that I feel so chained and addicted to it, but, as he pointed out, it's a med I take for a purpose.

So, I suppose I really do need to work with a knowledgeable Pdoc and find some way of keeping mental peace without upsetting the boob.

As we get closer to Breast Cancer Awareness month (October), I am seeing so much more in print and on tv about 'being aware' of symptoms, seeing your doctor, etc and it make me feel all the more that I'm going to be dismissed and shown the door.

I never should have seen the female doc. I should have gone straight to my normal GP and just gotten over the conservative side.

I found something called Myofascial Pain Syndrome that often has breast pain and inflammation. I'm going to try to ask the breast surgeon about it but I'm so used to being dismissed, I doubt i'm going to get far.

So, for now we wait.

Funky Boobs

When you have funky genes, it makes sense that everything else about you is funky. Funky gallbladder, funky knees, funky sense of humour. And to that, I can add funky boobs.

Earlier this year, Soph (and Matt) were diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. It's hard to say whether you're actually 'diagnosed' with Autism or whether the light has finally shown through and you come to know who you really are.

We switched schools when the first was not adequate for Sophie's needs and it was a really stressful time because we hadn't yet received the AS diagnosis for her. All we knew was that she was struggling with tremendous anxiety and having a difficult time with everything. She was basically shutting down in class: no talking, no eye contact, crying, etc.

It was thrown back to us that we were doing something wrong. We kept saying that it must be the teacher (who was quite a grouchy, yelling teacher) and in the end we all decided to move on.

Interviewing at other schools is hard because you're viewed as either someone who's been trodden on or someone who's going to trod on you to get own our way.

Not pleasant!

I was really struggling to get some sleep, up at night with Sophie screaming in her sleep. Up at night with nightmares. I asked my GP for something, ANYTHING, to help me sleep. I'm already on Seroquel 300mg at night for insomnia. He said, go ahead, take 2 on nights you're feeling quite stressed.

It really does nothing more to help you sleep, I found. It does, however, make you more zombified. Not really worth it. And for those of you looking to see if doubling your dose will help you sleep, it doesn't actually. Try some valerian tablets along with your seroquel dose.

Or get up. Seriously, the zombie nature of the drug is so difficult to tolerate, and if you're taking pain killers, please be careful doubling your dose and taking any sort of codeine or narcotic.

In May I started getting twinges in my left breast. I don't really get tender breasts before a period, so if I do feel something, it gets my attention. It was like a sharp stab and it was dull and came and went.

However, as time went on, the breast was getting bigger, angrier with that stabbing sensation but there was never a red mark or a lump or even anything coming out.

Finally, this past cycle, it was getting to the point of severe pain and a yellow goo coming out by itself. I didn't really freak out because I knew whatever it was, it was going to get handled with care and swiftly.

I saw a GP, not my own because he's a man and I don't feel comfy with a man handling the gear, and she seemed ok. She didn't think it was an increase in estrogen or prolactin. She was more concerned about the lump she expected to find.

I hadn't found anything. Matt hadn't found anything. She assured me she was quite good at finding them. And then, she didn't find anything. Nothing at all.

That's when she started getting worried. She mentioned that the pain radiated upwards and into the underarm and it could be a thyroid thing or nothing but it needed to be seen. So, 2 days later I was in the ultrasound room with the older woman trying to get my boob to lactate whatever this goo was.

She couldn't get anything out. She couldn't find any lumps, calcium or pea sized blocks in the ducts. And, she said shaking her head, the pain isn't in the dense tissue as you'd expect with Fibrocystic Breast problems, it's all in the light tissue.

The radiologist came in and said that given my age, they didn't think a mammogram was wise because of the dose of radiation I'd need to get a good look. All my thoughts on whether to get a thyroid guard were directed to that fact that we NEED them if the dose of radiation is high enough to dissuade a radiographer from a mammogram. It could be the age and density of my breasts, but it did make me worried I hadn't bought a thyroid guard.

When she came in to print off the scans, she told me to go home and do some digging with my prescription medication because she does occasionally see this in HRT patients. The extra estrogen, she said.

So, we came home, happy that there is obviously nothing pathological with the breast but shaking our heads in wonder. There is nothing wrong and yet the breast is leaking goo and it hurts! Hurts!!

I started icing it instead of putting heat to it and that seems to help. I tried cabbage on several occasions but it did nothing. Perhaps hot cabbage leafs might have given more relief. It's not really something I'm willing to try just yet. The idea alone sort of icks me out.

I started the steroid because it makes everything else funky, might as well go there. Nope. Nothing. Steroids aren't really indicated in boob disorders at all, except in the treatment of abscess or acute mastitis to help the swelling.

I went to the Omeprazole and got lots of links to breast leakage and breast growth with other gastro drugs like Domperidone. I was given Dom in 02 post gastroscopy to deal with quite bad vomiting from 'stiff' digestion as the old man said. It brought in full milk. That's when I started getting a bit pissed that the female GP didn't even order a single blood test.

So I looked into Seroquel, the drug I LEAST expected to cause breast problems. In high doses, and we're talking the high dose schizophrenia doses, 1600mg a day, there is quite a common report on breast inflammation, breast leakage and discharge. But I take 300mg and have never been on a higher dose. I couldn't find anything about breast discharge at 300mg. That's when I went to the crazymeds forum and asked. At 300mg, the drug begins to impair estrogen receptors and increases in prolactin have been noticed.

So, if I had been at 600mg for a few weeks, that might have been enough to trigger the breasts to begin to fill, then I jumped off, leaving the breasts in a hormone flux.

It seems the only solution to the problem is either to get a script for a drug that turns off the prolactin centre and take the 2 together for the rest of your life, or you wean.

I didn't want to wean. I spent about 48 hours in a funk of 'what will my life be like' post-Seroquel. Then I had a horrible day with the pain on Sunday and thought, nope, I'm getting off. So I read all Monday on how to wean.

The general practice is 50mg a month while titrating up with another drug.

50mg a month means 6 months of possible breast pain. And a lot of pain killers.

The most closely related drug also causes prolactin issues, and I don't want to do that. Plus, I thought, it will take MONTHS to get in to see a psych doctor. I will ring and make a GP appt and I will just go down 100mg and see how that feels in the boob.

Night 1: Not a lot of sleep but some. Lots of waking up in active tremor. Headache. Nausea. Runny Poo.

Thoughts of OH G-d HOW AM I GOING TO DO THIS!?

Better with hot tea.

The boob is absolutely no better, but I imagine until we get the anti-prolactin drug into my system it's just going to keep hurting.

I don't recall what colostrum was like, but that must be what the goo is, though it much denser and more like thick pus. I can't make it come out, it just comes when ready. It has no odour and it isn't stretchy like mucus. There is no blood.

I'm hoping the breast surgeon has a clue and gets me that drug. Breast pain while weaning is sort of a double edged sword.

Off for more hot liquid to stave off the nausea.