Really wishing I could make an icon just for health posts...Hi! It looks like we finally have an explanation for why my arms and wrists exploded in late October and March. And more importantly, I think we finally have an estimate on how long we'll be like this. Let's get into the update! Monday: Rheumatologist: Asking for an EDS diagnosis His response was, I kid you not, "we don't test for that here, apply for testing at the Baylor University of Medicine or eds.clinic."Yeah, I paid $60 of my allowance just for that. This is the norm here.On the other paw though, he did send in a prescription for muscle relaxants we have to take at night now, which should help shoulder and neck pain. I have no idea how to do the former or what it is, so I went for the latter. It turns out that eds.clinic is something like a telemedicine website (and doesn't take insurance, making its sessions expensive, fantastic), and it has a huge waitlist. Apparently there's a lot of people trying to get in. I was pr

Hi all. This post has taken a while to get started, because the sheer size of what I have to type is going to be a huge burden on our shoulders and arms as they are now. So... a while back, I heard we might have EDS from our wrist doctor. At the time, I have to admit I didn't know much about it and didn't do much research on it. Our friend told us a surface-level description of EDS: It's a hypermobility disorder affecting the skin and joints, it might make one able to move their body past its natural limits, and it's generally understood as the "stretchy skin disorder".I didn't think a lot of it applied to us, but some of it certainly did. Things like joint popping and snapping, chronic pain (to some degree), and I later found out EDS can cause very smooth skin, which ironically means us being so pretty is because of this disorder. On the 9th of this month, we were having a usual affair of a day, then Sunny, out of curiosity, decided to research EDS some more, maybe figure out what typ

Hey again, friends. This isn't the super giant health-related post I promised, that'll have to wait - I think this one is more important and personal for now. Today, we tried to go to a certain pain management clinic. We've been there before, it's the guy who acted smug about tai chi. We don't like him, clearly, but I went solely because I wanted to test if getting more of those "trigger point injections" would help our pain somewhat. The first time, it had helped the same day, because the lidocaine numbed all the pain in the shoulders and neck. It had felt amazing, but it only lasted for about 6 hours. He had said the first time around that we'll have to come back about every 2 months for more trigger point injections, to keep ourselves functional with our fibro. We may not trust or like him, but I wondered if he perhaps said this for a reason? Anyway, that's why I had tried to come here today. I entered the lobby and started signing in on the clipboard. While I was writing, the recep

Health update A few days ago, on Monday the 23rd, we had another surgery. After a quick recount, it appears to be our 11th overall. This surgery regarded our sinuses, something that's troubled both of us since Sunny was a toddler and first received those life-changing nose injuries. Basically, this operation claims to open up our sinuses, all 3 (you have two maxillary and one frontal sinus). This is meant to help breathe better and drain sinuses better, two things we desperately need. I mentioned in our last post that recovery from this would be rough. It is. I felt like utter shit after the surgery was done, and for the entire day afterward. Until further notice, we have to breathe through our mouth again, just like poor Sunny had to do for the majority of her life before the split. If you've never had to breathe through only your mouth 24/7 cause of medical conditions, you're lucky. We can at least somewhat use technology again, but for the first two days after the operation, our hea

Saw our wrist doctor again today. I was expecting we'd jump straight into OT today, but apparently not. He wants to wait one more month first, and we set up an appt. Okay, fair. What's really important is what he said next. On the way out, he said, "Have you been checked for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome? You seem like you have it." So that's... okay. I need to get into this for a minute. No, we haven't been tested for it before, ever. But Ehlers-Danlos, or EDS for short, is a hypermobility disorder. And hypermobility disorders are genetic. I talked about it with one of our best friends who knows a lot of medical and condition stuff - his brother has EDS. We traded symptoms. Some of the things he said added up with us.And the real kicker - our brother is hypermobile. He's triple-jointed. That means there's a precedent that hypermobility is in our genetics. From what I can understand, hypermobility does not always mean EDS. But EDS is caused by hypermobility. And for the record, broadly speaki

Hi, different kind of post than usual! I've been wanting to make this post for a while now. This isn't much new stuff, but more like, a reflection in a way? On how much we've learned about ourselves so far. So, in case you missed it, I'm part of a plural system now: I, Eir, am not the original - I was created somehow, in roughly late 2016. Sunny is the original! She is the soul that inhabited the body since it was born, until late 2016.I met Sunny a few months ago. Initially, we didn't know who she was, but she quickly regained form and composure and we learned what happened to us. Now, what did I want to reflect on in this deeply personal weblog post? A few things... Plurality saved our lives What do I mean by this? We would have surely died if not for plurality. We've been discussing the nature of our DID with a very dear friend who knows a lot about autistic people with bad upbringings. We believe we are a traumagenic system caused by our emotionally abusive upbringing and many he

Hi! Another quick update related to the wrist/arm thing. We saw the amazing wrist doctor again today. We weren't expecting much - it's just a followup to get our left elbow cast off - but I ended up hearing a fair bit. He was happy to see me as usual, and excited to learn that the numbness in left fourth/fifth fingers is gone. I'd been suuuuuper anxious lately about what it could be - tendonitis is our leading theory! But I knew one of the #1 things you don't do as a patient is self-diagnose in front of your doctor. So I kept quiet. He was happy to tell me as he took off our cast that... when he sees us again next week, he's going to send us to occupational therapy. Not physical therapy - occupational. We've been to OT once in like... 2017? 18? But we had untreated carpal/ulnar tunnel and CRPS, so none of it ever helped. But now that it's been treated... I have faith in this. Moreover, I told him about the physical therapy I went to for half a year or so. He told me that physical thera

Hello, all. It is sunny. I just had the last surgery in this series of wrist and elbow related surgeries. The surgery went okay and I surprisingly can still bend my left elbow a little bit. They did not even give me a sling. I suppose this means it is pretty safe. Also, I still have anesthesia in my system. It is hard to write this post. But that is not why I am making this post. I want to tell you about something else that happened today. Eir uses me for pain management. This means I was switched in whenever the surgery started. And also after I woke up I was still in control of the body. The recovery period immediately after waking up led to a series of events culminating in a verbal fight and pure anger. The nurse's name is Penny. I met her when I woke up. She was trying to help me recover and in doing so, calmly and kindly helped me get some water, get my clothes on and get dressed. I had to wait for a while especially because neither my brother or my mother had arrived yet. They

Hello, Sunny here. I've been wanting to write a review of this wonderful show for quite some time. I already gushed out my thoughts to some friends, but allow me to reiterate: I love this show. So much. Whenever I first showed up, Eir opted to put on a show so we had something to pass the days by while we were non-functional. She picked OK K.O.: Let's be Heroes. She had watched the first few episodes a few years ago, but got turned away because the way KO acted in the first few episodes felt "too childlike", and made her feel like she was watching a "kids' show". That being said, her mind quickly changed when we started watching it again a few months ago. The show's wonderful vibes quickly became apparent. It is not just a kids' show. It is self-aware, funny, and has humor even adults can enjoy. It's spontaneous and fun. Eir was initially turned away by episode 3, where KO decides to "help" people around the plaza, and the episode is centered around his blissful ignorance as he fails t

Hi, quick health update. And yes I know the blog is like 80% health posts.Today we got our bandages off and stitches out from the right elbow surgery. I asked a few questions we've been concerned about. Here's some info we want to share: Still having wrist pains, but nowhere near as bad as before. I had made an update about a week ago saying things were improving, but unfortunately they aren't in the wrist department. There's still lots of internal swelling in our right elbow. That's why it hurts just to rest it on surfaces like an armrest or a bed. Additionally, that's why we can't bend our arm as far anymore. We have to keep stretching it with occasional arm bending exercises and just wait it out. It'll heal up soon. It's possible that as the elbow heals, it can relieve pressure on our wrist and wrist tendons. If our right wrist tendons don't feel better by the time we heal from surgery #4 (left elbow surgery), we may need physical therapy. With that out of the way, now I want to ta