How are your medical visits going?

[petra]

Are you still on 100% teletherapy? Any non-essential procedures you've managed recently?

Comments

[petra]

All my doctors' visits are scheduled remotely till further notice, which is fine when it comes to therapy and a little weird when it's pain management.

[dine]

there are several things I need to talk to my doctor about, but I've been procrastinating contact. I've also been avoiding getting fairly routine labwork done - I just can't manage it. probably would be easier if my clinic hadn't been closed at the start of the pandemic, so I have to drive to another town to an open lab. and I've no idea where my doc is based now. I keep hoping they'll unconsolidate soonish, I think it'd be easier to go to my familiar clinic a few blocks away

so, I'm failing at handling medical issues

[petra]

Aw, that sounds complex and frustrating. I'm sorry things are piling up on you like that.

[mific]

I could do a normal GP visit now we're at Level 1, but I tend to avoid doctors if I can. My last visit was to an emergency clinic when my knee was really bad - just before our lockdown.

[petra]

I hope it's a relief to know you can get to a GP if you need one.

[mific]

Yes, things are almost back to normal here. We’re very lucky.

[fairestcat]

We're slowly starting to open up for non-emergency in-person stuff, and I am extremely excited to have an appointment booked with an endodontist for Friday morning.

I have a sporadically recurring infection underneath an old root canal, and I had an appointment to get it dealt with at the end of March. And then a week before my appointment, the entire province shut down.

It's not been giving me a lot of pain lately, but it's unpleasant and for obvious reasons I want it gone.

[fairestcat]

My health clinic isn't open again yet though, and I've started to really notice the effects of missing three months worth of B12 injections, which aren't exactly possible over the phone.

[fred_mouse]

Have not had to have much in the way of medical visits; have had flu vax and a covid test. Am shopping for a new chiropractor after mine retired at the beginning of the year. I put that aside after I first thought about it in March, and am just getting back to it. Also starting to think about therapeutic massage, given the long time between chiro treatments probably means that parts of my back are too cranky for the chiro treatment to be as effective as I might like (my last chiro did great soft tissue work to loosen my back up and was the most successful at never giving me a migraine; I don't trust someone I've never worked with before to be able to achieve that level of subtlety).

[petra]

I hear you on the difficulty of finding the right balance between therapeutic massage and outright chiropracty. I hope you are successful in your quest sooner rather than later.

I had a covid test too. Brain probing is good fun, huh?

[fred_mouse]

I think the brain probe part of the covid test was less bad than the throat swab. Partner was unable to hold still for the nurse to do the throat swab, and had to do that themself as well as the two nose swabs.

[petra]

Interesting that there are different protocols -- mine only required one nose swab and no throat stuff, for which I am grateful.

[fred_mouse]

I suspect that we have very paranoid testing staff, because with minimal cases and no community transmission, the outcome of missing a case is enormous.

[petra]

That would make sense.

[caiusmajor]

Everything has been telemed for me except my allergy shots, which I've had 2 of since the shutdown. I've gone as infrequently as possible, which is every 6 weeks in the current situation, and the office I usually go to has been shut down so I've had to go one further away -- which has a MUCH larger waiting room, thankfully.

The main other thing for me is going to the pharmacy which I'm not always good at organizing well enough to go rarely -- although at least I got a prescription for pseudoephedrine, which saves a lot of hassle with the daily / monthly limitations.

[petra]

Having an RX for Sudafed makes sense in the current environment but still sounds weird to me. I'm glad it's simplifying your life.

[caiusmajor]

Sadly, it doesn't make my insurance cover it, but it is MUCH nicer to be able to pick up a whole month's worth at once.

[petra]

Ugh, having to go back multiple times sucks enough under normal circumstances.

[jadelennox]

I've had three real PT visits and one today to the pain specialist. My telehealth visit so worried my PT that she got permission to have regular visits -- I guess "I might have to go on STD, but I'll be okay" freaks out the rehab hospital people. 😂

But today I saw my pain specialist for reals in the partially reopened office, so it wasn't just me in the dark in an empty office. Very exciting.

now 🤞🏼 for the migrain botox appointment....

[petra]

I don't know what STD is in this context.

Crossing everything for the Botox!