Monday, July 25, 2011

One Month Later and Things Going Well

Well I am very cautiously optimistic.  We are 1 month into the DR. G. massive anti-yeast crusade, and last night we had 100% pain free sex for the first time in almost 11+ years.  My wife only had minor pain the next day, but she classified it as very minor.  So all the hormone creams (now down to once a day), off of birth control, PT, stretching, diet modification, and anti-yeast seem to be freeing us from debilitating issues.

My wife has also noticed that she is able to sit for long periods without pain, and her lower back isn't hurting any more.

While I am ecstatic with the current state of things I'm working very hard to not be frustrated with the system and all the Dr's it took to get her to this point.  I think back to just a few months ago when things were taking a little longer with Dr. G than we were wanting and we went for the second opinion.  If we would have went with what the Dr at the U of M had said we would have reset all her progress and never have gotten to where we are today.  I'm also very pissed off at how much money we spent on those Dr's before we got to one who could cure her.

But enough with the negative and focus on where we are, first time of pain free sex in 11 years.

4 comments:

Mrs. H in Costa Rica 2023 said...

Can you tell me more about the anti-yeast part???

Husband said...

Sure. Basically what Dr G told her is that she seems to always have a very mild yeast infection (along with the other issues outlined in my blog). The infection was causing her tissue to remain irritated which would then cause pain an not allow her other issues to fully heal. He said that this is actually rather common and is usually caused by yeast in the GI tract, which normal yeast treatments don't cure. If you don't get rid of it from your GI tract the infection will keep coming back.

So he put her on a modified diet, stay away from simple sugars and stuff like that. My wife is following the diet listed at http://www.yeastconnection.com/pdf/GroceryList.pdf It pretty much takes out all the fun foods :-( but it seems to be working along with the meds, which I will outline next. My understanding is that after the yeast is gone your diet can get a little less strict but you pretty much need to stay away from high sugar stuff like candy, and high sugar fruits, etc... for the long haul.

Now for the meds,.. She was put on Fluconazole which I think is the generic of diflucan (sp?) taking 1 tablet every three days for nine days and then 1 tablet every week for three months. For those of you familiar with this med for normal yeast infections you take one pill and you are done... Then in addition to the Fluconazole he also put her on Nystatin 500,000 Unit. Which she takes 3 times a day for three months.

So to recap her total treatment was being taken off of all hormonal birthcontrol, applying Estradiol cream twice a day for almost a year, now down to once a day, Valium suppositories once a day (vaginally if it doesn't irritate your tissue if it does switch to back door), a very mild antidepressant (I think it was 10-30mg), PT, stretching, diet change, and yeast treatment. Seems like a lot but that is only a fraction of what she has done over the years and this is what is working.

Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions.

Mrs. H in Costa Rica 2023 said...

thanks for the info!

I have another question. How are you guys dealing with the insane medical bills? I have health insurance but they don't cover the dr that I go to because he bills through a hospital :( but I have to go to him because he is in the area. We're looking at a lot of money that we owe the hospital billing section and on top of the pain in my girl parts I'm stressing out big time about money :( I would love your thoughts

Husband said...

Gallo Pinto2,

The financial burden is really a huge issue. We have been lucky that most of the treatments we have had were through doctors that our insurance paid for. On the down side not one of them was worth even a penny. Years and years of trying to find a solution and not one of them could offer any benefit, yet they were happy to charge us huge dollars. For instance the doc we went to before Dr. G, was giving my wife PN nerve block shots that ended up costing our insurance around $25,000 over 1.5 years. Luckily we only paid a small fraction of that. What is key to point out is that my wife has been dealing with this for over 11 years now. Which the first 10 years of that were all wasted time and money.

Then a year ago we found Dr. G, who is the first doctor that has helped to reduce the pain my wife has. The down side is that he doesn’t take insurance, you can file his bill to your insurance but that doesn’t always result in a positive outcome. I think we submitted around $3,000 worth of bills and they paid out $2.35, yes that is two dollars!!! We are fighting it but who knows how well that will go.

Dr. G is also half the country away from us so every trip involves an airline ticket and his normal Dr fee, which usually runs us about $1,000 total (airline and Doc fee) give or take a little. I don’t know if your insurance is one that has a flex spending account or a HSA but those save you some as that money is pretax. In our case Dr G thought he would have my wife cured in 6-9 months, but her case turned out to be more complex and has taken about a year and a half. We are getting close but just not there yet. To give you an idea she has only been to see Dr G 4 times in 1.5 years. So if you look at the cost benefit we have spent ~$4,500 on trips, Doc visits, and medications over the last 1.5 years to go from a pain level of 9-10 down to 3-4 and now a few times of 0. To be fair my wife has also been going to physical therapy under Dr G’s orders but that is covered by her insurance as it is local to us and with an insurance approved PT.

My advice is that if you are paying out of pocket make sure you are 100% confident in the abilities of your doc. If he/she cannot tell you they have treated and cured many others with your exact issue then you shouldn’t be going to them, as the bills will add up fast and put you into financial trouble. I don’t know what area of the country you are in but I know there are several experts on the east coast, west coast, Chicago, possibly Mayo in MN.

I don’t know if this is what you are looking for or not but I would try and find a doc that your insurance covers or go to one of the top experts in the field like Dr G. Some of which may take insurance. As it is very clear that not all doctors are equal, yet all will charge you for their time.