I started nagging Bill about getting his cholesterol checked earlier this year. Eventually I just made an appointment for him and poor guy had to do the 12 hour fasting thing before he went. To make it worse, I thought when the nurse said 'No food or drink' she meant not even water; turns out by 'drink' she mean alcohol...I don't really speak English yet.
A few days before his appointment, however, he was having particular trouble with his fingers being very white and very cold, to the point of being painful, so he made himself an appointment to look into what could be done. As it happened, that doctor appointment was in the morning on the day when we both had dentist appointments around noon.
As we got into the car, I remarked that I felt we were beginning to resemble my Grandma and Grandpa, whom I remember filled in a good part of their day's routine with appointments, tablet schedules, eye drops, etc. I think they were supposed to be Christian Science but obviously theirs was a variation on the mainstream of that church. Bill said he'd been thinking along similar lines about our day's activities, though he never met my Grandparents.
I'm happy to report that Bill's chipped tooth is now beautifully repaired, the dentist declared my teeth to be very clean (me being the very dutiful flosser that I am) and Bill's cholesterol -- and all the other blood work they ran at the same time -- came out just fine. He now has a prescription for his Raynaud's. It turns this is a rheumatory rather than a circulatory matter, which was news to both of us. The prescription, unfortunately, requires that he give up grapefruit, which is rather sad. It's not that he ate it all the time or loved it that much, it's more the principle of being denied that option. In the back of my mind is the thought that all this is the beginning of a new chapter for both of us.
The good news is that the medication appears to help his running, particularly at the very beginning of a run when his heart rate used to go quite high before settling down. I'm guessing he thinks that's a pretty fair trade for grapefruit.
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3 comments:
Glad to hear you are both doing well. I had never heard that grapefruit causing problems in fingers.
My guess is, your grandparents were never such keen runners as you two now are, and hence, even if you need a bit of minor maintenance, you should enjoy good health for many more years!
grapefruit does not cause the Reynauld's,it reacts with the medication causing headaches and lymphodema
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