Monday, September 20, 2004
It’s a tumor!
Why is it that, during the years and years that I actually had health insurance, I could cruise along without contracting much more than the common cold, yet, mere days after I decide to discontinue my temporary health insurance (since the health insurance for my new job will kick in next month and I really didn’t have the money to pay the premium), I’m suddenly dying? OK, perhaps dying is a bit dramatic. But I have had a pretty persistent headache for the past 48 hours or so. Yesterday it was at its worst—every 10 seconds or so, I had the not-so-pleasant feeling like someone was driving a nail into my head. Today the feeling has subsided somewhat, and now it just feels like someone’s turning a screw into my head, which is not exactly pleasant either, but at least it just makes me want to cry, rather than cry and scream obscenities.
As my lack of health insurance has prevented me from going to an actual doctor, I’ve tried to diagnose myself, using what limited medical knowledge I’ve managed to pick up from watching ER. Here were some of my guesses:
1. Ear infection. (Based on the fact that the pain originated in my ear. However, I abandoned this diagnosis once the pain moved from inside the ear to the area just above it.)
2. Temporary headache caused by change in pressure due to the hurricane. (This was actually Kristen’s diagnosis, but it’s my favorite because it’s the least scary and most easily fixable without medical intervention.)
3. Brain tumor. (I can be a bit of a hypochondriac, which probably means I shouldn’t be diagnosing myself at home.)
4. TMJ. (This diagnosis was actually not drawn from ER, but rather from the episode of Sex and the City where Miranda had TMJ and had to get braces.)
I decided to corroborate my theories with Internet research this morning, and it seems that I do most likely have TMJ. However, the only symptom I seem to have is the headache—no jaw soreness, no popping sound, etc. But still, it seems to make some sense—on SATC, Miranda had TMJ because she was a tongue thruster, which I was when I was younger; perhaps the habit has returned. On second thought, though, maybe Sex and the City is not the best place to turn with medical problems—after all, if Miranda really were a tongue thruster, she wouldn’t have to wear braces, she would have to wear a “rake,” which is a contraption that has four spikes that sit behind your front teeth to prevent you from pushing your tongue up against them when you swallow. And as far as I know, that only corrects the alignment of your teeth. And anyway, none of the Web sites I found mentioned braces as a remedy for TMJ. So it’s obvious that the braces were only being used as a plot device, which really doesn’t help me a whole lot in this particular situation.
Why is it that, during the years and years that I actually had health insurance, I could cruise along without contracting much more than the common cold, yet, mere days after I decide to discontinue my temporary health insurance (since the health insurance for my new job will kick in next month and I really didn’t have the money to pay the premium), I’m suddenly dying? OK, perhaps dying is a bit dramatic. But I have had a pretty persistent headache for the past 48 hours or so. Yesterday it was at its worst—every 10 seconds or so, I had the not-so-pleasant feeling like someone was driving a nail into my head. Today the feeling has subsided somewhat, and now it just feels like someone’s turning a screw into my head, which is not exactly pleasant either, but at least it just makes me want to cry, rather than cry and scream obscenities.
As my lack of health insurance has prevented me from going to an actual doctor, I’ve tried to diagnose myself, using what limited medical knowledge I’ve managed to pick up from watching ER. Here were some of my guesses:
1. Ear infection. (Based on the fact that the pain originated in my ear. However, I abandoned this diagnosis once the pain moved from inside the ear to the area just above it.)
2. Temporary headache caused by change in pressure due to the hurricane. (This was actually Kristen’s diagnosis, but it’s my favorite because it’s the least scary and most easily fixable without medical intervention.)
3. Brain tumor. (I can be a bit of a hypochondriac, which probably means I shouldn’t be diagnosing myself at home.)
4. TMJ. (This diagnosis was actually not drawn from ER, but rather from the episode of Sex and the City where Miranda had TMJ and had to get braces.)
I decided to corroborate my theories with Internet research this morning, and it seems that I do most likely have TMJ. However, the only symptom I seem to have is the headache—no jaw soreness, no popping sound, etc. But still, it seems to make some sense—on SATC, Miranda had TMJ because she was a tongue thruster, which I was when I was younger; perhaps the habit has returned. On second thought, though, maybe Sex and the City is not the best place to turn with medical problems—after all, if Miranda really were a tongue thruster, she wouldn’t have to wear braces, she would have to wear a “rake,” which is a contraption that has four spikes that sit behind your front teeth to prevent you from pushing your tongue up against them when you swallow. And as far as I know, that only corrects the alignment of your teeth. And anyway, none of the Web sites I found mentioned braces as a remedy for TMJ. So it’s obvious that the braces were only being used as a plot device, which really doesn’t help me a whole lot in this particular situation.
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