Re: to: S. and disability

[Guest guest]

As you saw in my past email, I've had CP officially since 1986.

I don't have a significant other or any children, so it's just me,

though my mom is my caregiver and she comes over every other weekend or

if I'm in the hospital to help me take care of things. As it is, the

house isn't always as clean as it should be. Once my mom retires, she'll

be moving in wiith me fulltime. I rent her house and she stays at a

trailer which is closer to her work. She tried commuting for a while an

it was just too hard on her, so she got a trailer closer to work.

The only way I manage on disability is because I have SSDI AND long-term

disability insurance from the company I last worked at. With both, I

make about 60-70% of what I was making before I went on disability. I

also don't have to pay for my medical insurance as part of my long-term

disability was that my company would pay my medical up until this coming

August and then I'm eligible for 18 months of Cobra (I'll also have

medicare by July 1st of this year), so I don't currently have to pay for

much of my medical bills (Just prescriptions at this time). Without

these two things, I don't think I'd have made it on just SSDI alone.

Because my long term disabiility insurance was paid with after tax

money, I don't have to pay payroll taxes on it like I do with the SSDI.

The CP could be part of the weight loss, but it might not be all of it.

I don't know as I don't have a lot of gynocolgoical issues myself,

though I have some. I no longer have a period (I'm only 35) caused by

anemia and malnutrition according to my OB/gyn. They can't start it back

up with birth control pills because it can cause acute attacks of

pancreatitis. When I first had CP problems, it was only acute attacks

and I was fine the rest of the time. I only began having every day pain

in 2000. I average 1 acute attack a year with smaller flares throughout

the year. I'm always hospitalized for the acute attacks even though my

enzymes no longer elevate. I know of one other person who was diagnosed

with CP from the fat in her stool. She's not on this board though or

she'd have posted to you. I don't know about your other levels such as

potassium showing up with malabsorption. I have only mild malabsorption,

though my potassium levels are low because I'm on diuretics, so I can't

answer that. Your doctor should be able to tell you this.

Some people have weight loss and some have weight gain. I'm one of those

who has weight gain most of the time, though some of this is due to the

fact that I have hypothyroidism, which causes weight gain no matter how

little you eat, so I'm overweight. I'm in the process of trying to get

my thyroid levels normalized so that I can actually drop some of this

weight. I was losing weight when I was still working, but my thyroid was

working at that time.

Yes, this illness can be very confusing, especially as it manifests

differently in every person, so it's hard for doctors to diagnose

properly as no one really has a textbook case of chronic pancreatitis.

That's also why there is not much of a " gold stantdard " test for this.

Currently, the ERCP is considered the best diagnostic measure, but

certainly not the only method of disgnosing it. Some people can only be

diagnosed on the symptoms they are having.

Kimber

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Kimber

Vallejo, CA

hominid2@...

Note: All advice given is personal opinion, not equal to that of a licensed

physician or health care professional.