Men's Health

About half-way through the treatment. No adverse reactions so far. About an hour left, I think.

Ksee’s dad brought me and she’s coming to pick me up when she finishes work.

The nurses have already given me my meds to take home (anti-sickness and steroids). I’ve ordered a thermometer which will arrive tomorrow.

No problems. Looking forward to getting all this over with and getting back to normal.
 
A brief update on how it’s going.

No serious side-effects so far from the chemo. It’s been three days and I was informed by my consultant that I’d start to feel worse around now.

I’m a bit dizzy. Felt a bit cold earlier and checked my temperature, which was a tad low at 36.4. My abdomen is a bit tender. I’m finding it hard to get to sleep at night. Bit of a headache yesterday. I can cope with these things.

My main concern is my arm where I was given the chemo. I told the nurses multiple times at the hospital that it was stinging, but they were happy that there was no chemo escaping from the vein, the pressure in the drip was correct.

The injection site, back of my hand, and going up the top of my forearm are still stinging now. I called the 24hr team at the hospital for advice because I just wanted to know if this was normal or common. I can’t get a straight answer out of them though. They’re so conditioned to be alert to infections in chemo patients (due to lowered immune system) that that’s all they want to check and so they’ve asked me to go into hospital tomorrow for examination. I’ve told two nurses on the phone that there’s no hotness, redness, swelling etc., I just want to know if what I’m experiencing is common, but I’m struggling to find anything about it online either because all results just tend towards either infection or peripheral neuropathy and as far as I’m concerned it’s neither of those.

Ksee’s taking me in the morning for a 10:15 appointment. It quite a trek, to a bigger city with a lot of traffic and it feels like a bit of a waste of time. I expect they’ll just tell me it’s a reaction and that there’s no way of telling how long it will last. I just want to rule out serious or ongoing damage to the area. I heard the main nurse telling another patient that they can’t give chemo high up the arm because if any escapes from the vein, there’s a lot of sensitive tissues and it could lead to amputation. So I just want to rule out anything potentially serious.
 
I heard the main nurse telling another patient that they can’t give chemo high up the arm because if any escapes from the vein, there’s a lot of sensitive tissues and it could lead to amputation. So I just want to rule out anything potentially serious.

Sounds like a good idea to be inconvenienced if it means making sure nothing gets amputated.
 
The injection site, back of my hand, and going up the top of my forearm are still stinging now. I called the 24hr team at the hospital for advice because I just wanted to know if this was normal or common. I can’t get a straight answer out of them though. They’re so conditioned to be alert to infections in chemo patients (due to lowered immune system) that that’s all they want to check and so they’ve asked me to go into hospital tomorrow for examination. I’ve told two nurses on the phone that there’s no hotness, redness, swelling etc., I just want to know if what I’m experiencing is common, but I’m struggling to find anything about it online either because all results just tend towards either infection or peripheral neuropathy and as far as I’m concerned it’s neither of those.
I had a small operation a few years back and I was put into general anaesthesia. They´ve put a needle in my hand, etc, and the nurse, for a good measure, slapped my hand so that she can batter show my vanes to the pupil. I thought I will scream or faint or both from the feeling, as I´m generally afraid of injections and all of that. And what she did was really painful as the vanes were already really showing but she kept slamming on them.

I felt that needle for weeks in my hand. It hurt on touch, but also, from psychological point, even touching that spot sometimes made me dizzy and nauseous. So I´m not sure if my experience is helpful or not, but yes, you are not alone in feeling.

What you had was even stronger stuff going trough your vain, and from my point of view, no wonder your hand and arm are still stinging. But, yes, keep observing it and I hope it will all go away soon.
:hug:
 
Hello,
I found something that might be of interest while reading a book: Dr. Morton Walker - Bald No More
Don't mind the title lol
This chapter mentions a patient with testicular cancer who healed his cancer with the help of a fermented soy drink named "Haelan 951". I looked it up and they are still in business.

Other members specializing in health might be interested in looking this product up and comment their thoughts.
Hope you are doing well :)

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Had a bit of a scare recently and wanted to share it here because I learned something I didn't know. But I thought I could do it in the larger context of Men's Health and we could have a thread about issues that more specifically affect men.
Hope everything is going as hoped for and you're out of the woods with this issue, T.C. :hug2:

As this thread concerned larger context of Men's Health, the following seems to fit in almost perfectly here.
It's not exclusively about men's health, but as found out in conversations with basically strangers over the last several months, mostly females though as they seemed much more open to talk/share about such things and express sort of compassion at least in words, fairly common or at least not so rare condition that almost exclusively males have been facing is grown-in hair on their behinds (haven't heard of any female who had such an issue). So, sort of a subtitle for this post could adequately be:

Mess on the ass or Also Men's Health, sort of​

Apologies for somewhat straight and direct first part of the above expression, but it seemed that's the most suitable wording for what my smart-ass had done to his mooning device. Few things to share to our "stronger" part of the Forum members:
  • if there's a pimple/acne on or below the place where the Sun doesn't shine, rather leave it alone than touch something which you probably won't properly see what you're doing and likely make a mess out of it, especially if there's not somebody around who might take care of the likely messy results of your actions basically on the moment's notice;
  • if you still go with messing with it and do make a mess at the end, for whatever reasons, like I did some 4-5 months ago, take into account that the messy thing most likely won't go away or heal or subside completely without opening it up and dealing professionally with the initial cause, meaning surgery to remove the most likely grown-in hair, no matter what you do in between and how much the situation might appear to be taking care of itself (pain and swelling almost completely gone for example).
Bottom line, even if no messing has been intentionally done, a grown-in hair on or below hairy men's behinds is quite a mess to deal with once it happened, as that hair stubbornly with all likelihood won't peep its head to see the light of the day again on its own. Even when you think that everything's going fine, pain's gone and swelling of or around the affected area's almost non-existent anymore, or especially then, it might unpleasantly surprise you by popping up just like that, over the night for example, and the first thing that goes through the mind when taking a toilet in the morning's, "oh sh*t, again, it's still there, just when I thought it might really go away". When that happens two or three times since the whole situation started, well, it seems that no matter how hairy it might have seemed and how much going under the knife has been wanted to be avoided, seeing a surgeon appears to be a right action to be undertaken.

Except if I missed something and there's some other remedy for the issue of most likely grow-in hair just below the left bottock I've been dealing with last several months. If so and you know about it, please, trow it this way, I'm eager to try it, as the swelling this time, since few days ago and being almost forgotten, is much bigger than anytime before and the pain is such that daily commute turns driving a car, even as shortly as 10-15 minutes, into an excruciating ordeal. Luckily for me, or maybe not, because otherwise I might have taken the surgery route before, the necessary or obligatory part of my job can be done standing up, when I almost forget about or dissociate the pain (obviously not a very good way to deal with it). Sitting down, even with a soft pillow underneath the ass, to put it mildly, is a rather uncomfortable position to be in currently.
Thanks.
 
Hope everything is going as hoped for and you're out of the woods with this issue, T.C. :hug2:

Thank you. The chemo side-effects were very unpleasant and lasted much longer than expected. Now, I feel pretty much back to normal and I will be having regular tests at the hospital for the next two years.

Except if I missed something and there's some other remedy for the issue of most likely grow-in hair just below the left bottock I've been dealing with last several months. If so and you know about it, please, trow it this way, I'm eager to try it, as the swelling this time, since few days ago and being almost forgotten, is much bigger than anytime before and the pain is such that daily commute turns driving a car, even as shortly as 10-15 minutes, into an excruciating ordeal.

Actually yes, I do know a remedy for this. But before I say anything else, I have to say that this pilonidal cyst that you’re dealing with is no joke, and it can actually lead to sepsis and death. I would advise anyone with this problem to get it sorted at the hospital.

But since you asked, I’ll tell you what I did. But again, just bearing in mind how serious this condition can be, I want to reiterate that I don’t recommend the below as a treatment protocol to other people. It’s just what I did.

My pilonidal cyst would flare up every two to three months. I had a foam ring that used to sit on and it would at least help a little.

My self-discovered treatment method was to nuke the hell out of it with 15% Lugols iodine. I would get two or three cotton wool pads stacked together and drop about six drops of lugols onto the top one. Then I would use surgical tape and tape the stack of pads, iodine to the skin, to the infected area. The reason why I would stack pads was because when I first started trying the iodine, it absorbed into my jeans and ruined them.

When you apply the pads the pain will be almost unbearable. It feels like you are holding a flame to the area, the burn is so bad. The pain lasts for around 15 minutes.

I would do this once in the morning and once at night. It would reduce the swelling within 48hrs. After a few days the swelling would be gone and the area would scab over with a thick layer of dry skin. After another day or two the area would become very itchy. This was the sign that the skin was ready to come off.

When you scratch off the thick dry skin, there is a new patch of smooth, pink skin underneath which is quite sensitive.

I may be misremembering the time frames for the above processes but I think I’m near enough. When I used to do this, it was just from the wish to treat the symptoms. I’d had my pilonidal cyst for about two years so I never had any thought that this method would cure it.

But then, one day, it just never came back. I’ve been free of it for seven years now.
 
Thank you. The chemo side-effects were very unpleasant and lasted much longer than expected. Now, I feel pretty much back to normal and I will be having regular tests at the hospital for the next two years.
Good to know, glad to hear that, thanks for the update. :hug2:

But since you asked, I’ll tell you what I did.
Thank you.
Although written in intentionally "funny" wording, I wasn't joking about the condition, which could be a cyst similar to what you had to deal with.

I went to the doctor about a month, month and a half, after screwing up with the initial acne when the infected area opened up and pus mixed with bloody fluid started to flow out from it. Got antibiotics for oral ingestion and some antibiotic oilment to put on the swelling, which also helped for hemorrhoids. Incidentally, the next day my sinuses flared up so the antibiotics dealt with that too at that time, as the swelling went down rather quickly and the 'open wound' closed up after a week or so. Then it again opened up with pus flowing out after about a month and some longer distance driving irritating the area. With the oilment it closed up after about a week and since then everything looked as the thing was about to subside and heal naturally on its own.

And then about a week ago, together with sinuses again flaring up one morning, it just got swollen up more than anytime before, while the little of the oilment that was left this time managed only to 'release' a bit of the pus in the swelled area.

Looking to see the doctor again today after work and get from her new referral for the surgery. As there are waiting lists, in the meantime will look to try your remedy, using Iosol as that's what I have, or maybe some other iodine solution that the doctor might write prescription for.

Thank you again for sharing your experience. :flowers:
 
I have to say that this pilonidal cyst that you’re dealing with is no joke, and it can actually lead to sepsis and death. I would advise anyone with this problem to get it sorted at the hospital.
After a bit of research and having the abscess checked and surgically treated today at the hospital, together with what they wrote about the condition, with high probability it might be stated that it isn't a pilonidal cyst. But thank you again for sharing your experience with treating the cyst, it helped me become more aware of some things and conditions as well as learn something I didn't know about before. It was probably my bad and unclear expression style that made you be so certain that I have been facing the same cyst issue as you did.

Which brings me back to that "intentionally funny wording" first post of mine; the intention was to make fun of myself for creating a problem or an issue to myself, and hopefully in such a way give heads up to others. At the end, it didn't turn out as wanted, although the end result with your great help is probably even more beneficial to others (it certainly was to me) than initially planned. Thanks a lot for chiming in. :flowers:

It seems, with a rather significant likelihood, that a bruise and hematoma I created when stubbornly squeezing that initial acne, which was not ready to be treated in that manner at all at that time, I was unconsciously taking an "easier" route out of dealing with emotionally "heavier" confronting the person close to me in the then near future, sort of making a strong and valid excuse to speak instead of me rather than saying "No" directly. I'll let it soak a bit more and then elaborate in more details what comes out of this possible realization in dedicated thread in the Swamp.
 
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