To Laurie: Re: - edema / weight gain

[Guest guest]

Hi Laurie, thanks for replying with your usual very concise thought

process and answers to my problems. I truly do appreciate that.

Anyway, I'm trying to use the diuretic as prescribed and going

steadily down as prescribed with the Neurontin. The pain doc's

thought of " why now? " with respect to the Neurontin is interesting

though. I tend to agree...but maybe it's just the Neurontin in

addition to the other drugs that I'm on. I've been on Neurontin for

panic/anxiety problems for about 8 yrs or so now and I've never had

an edema problem. So, yes why now? Like I said though the only

thing I can come up with is the Neurontin in combination with so

many other drugs.

I'm not seeing a huge difference in my feet/ankles/calves after 5

days of this but they don't feel as stretched or like they're going

to just explode. So, maybe it's doing something. It's weird though

it's better in my right ankle/leg/foot than it is on the left. I

remember my PCP saying something about the fact that there would be

more to be concerned with if one limb was more swollen than the

other but I didn't press him at the time as to why that would be.

At any rate I'm having an echo cardiogram tomorrow as ordered by the

PCP so he's doing his job and trying to rule out any heart

involvement since I come from a background on the paternal side (all

men though - my father, grandfather, great-grandfather) of early

deaths due to heart failure. The one good thing I have in that

respect is that I'm a woman but at some point I think that women

sort of catch up with men in that heart problems are more of a

concern. In the 50s maybe? Not sure on that one....but I'm 47 and

my Dad, his Dad and his Dad before him all died in their late 30s of

heart failure so I'm probably just about to enter the age when heart

disease in women sort of catches up percentage-wise with men.

I agree with you about surgery..I wouldn't be too keen on doing it

now either (as in exploratory, etc.) because I'm half convinced that

the surgeon that performed the lap chole may have done something

like " nick " the pancreas when he was in there. He apparently has a

lawsuit (malpractice) going on right now wherein he cut something he

shouldn't have while performing surgery on this guy and the guy

practically bled to death on the table. So that doesn't give me a

warm fuzzy if you know what I mean. But, then I guess there is the

whole post cholecystectomy syndrome to consider. And there does

seem to be an inordinate amount of women that have panc problems

post lap chole don't you think?

Well, thanks for writing and I'll let you all know how the echo

cardiogram goes tomorrow.