Health, food and braces...oh my!

I'll start with food since that came first.

Well around here I love beans and rice. Dan just tolerates it and Susan won't touch it. When I make it she will usually eat some thing else in that fridge. Pffft...teens, I know, right.

So having made a ham last week I flipped through some cookbooks and found this recipe in my Fix It and Forget It Lightly....

Pinto Beans and Ham

1lb dried beans
5 1/2 cups water
1/4 lb cooked ham
1 clove of garlic
1 TB chili powder
1tsp salt
1tsp black pepper
1/4tsp oregano
1/4tsp cumin

Soak your beans over night and add them to the slow cooker and add every thing else and cook until done. It's a slow cooker so I'm sure you know what to do with everything.

This was delicious. I made rice for it and I had mine with Franks Red Hot on it and some salsa. Dan had his with cheese on top. He loved it as well. I would make it spicier next time but mmmmm mmmmm good! I will make this again for sure. In fact I'm thinking I may make it tomorrow. Here is a picture of it after I had added my hot sauce and salsa.



Moving on to my health update.

I've been seeing a lot of new doctors lately. First I went to my internist, who is also my family doctor. I wanted to talk about my back pain and see what I could do about it and she said there was nothing to be done about the bulging disks I had which I assumed was the cause of my back pain and maybe the nerve pain but the MRI report said no nerve is being touched. So she referred me to a pain clinic and that was that.

So now while waiting for the pain clinic to call with an appointment I had an appointment with an allergist to check for food allergies. I was poked with 120 different things because he wanted to check for environmental allergies as well and do you know what I turned out to be allergic to?

Can you guess?

I'll wait......

NOTHING!!! I was allergic to nothing! Can you believe it. He told me to go ahead and add back the soy, dairy, and onion and see if I can tolerate it and that they were probably just irritating my stomach. He was very quick to say it does not mean I can eat gluten and why this test was different from the celiac testing and it did not mean I did not have celiac disease. All of this I already know but was glad to hear a doctor who knew about celiac diease and knew information about. I don't know about other celiacs but I go into a new doctor just figuring they know nothing about it and thinking I'll have to explain it. I always look for that look too. You all know that look, when you mention celiac disease and they try to look like they know all about it but you can tell they've never heard of it and then they probably are running to their office to look it up LOL!

So anyways as I got home from the allergist looking forward to telling Dan that I am allergic to nothing and the pain clinic called with my appointment. Truthfully I had forgotten about it and they had an appoint for two days later so I snapped it up.

So Friday I went to my appointment and I had no clue how they worked as I have never been to a pain clinic before. First I got taken to a conference room and talked to 2 psychologists. They said they were there to determine how they may be able to help me and after going over every thing with them and things about my life they determined I was psychologically healthy and there was nothing they could do to help me except teach me relaxation techniques which I told them I would do. On my way home I decided to cancel that appointment because to be honest with you, I would never do it. You are supposed to listen to a cd and do these mental exercises they teach you and I am too lazy. I would never do it so I need to cancel that appointment today. Hey, I can be honest about myself, besides, I'd rather do some sewing or scrap booking and I find that very relaxing.

So then I saw the PA He asked a lot of questions ans pressed on some very painful spots on my body and I would not let him press to much on my coller bone area and neck because those are always very painful spots and he determined that my internist was correct, I have fibromylagia. He said all the nerve pain and back pain and burning and numbness nd the pain everywhere else was all from the fibro. He was pleased I already had all the tests they do to rule every thing else out. So he increased my neurontin med and scheduled me for lidocaine infusions. He also wants to have me get a tens unit which I have not scheduled yet. The last two days I have had a lot of pain all over my body and a lot of trouble walking due to the nerve pain. So the neurontin increase may not be enough.

Whenever I increase the neurontin med I always get either insomnia or very tired and this time it was very tired. We were doing a yard sale this weekend and the increase in my med caught up with me Sunday and I fell asleep while sitting out for the sale. I woke up to find 50 cents sitting on my book! LOL I can not believe I did not hear them!

This past week Susan got her braces off! She looks older now, I kind of miss them although she would never like me saying that LOL. She is finding her retainers painful so is wearing them for a bit, then taking them out for a bit and doing that until she gets used to them. Here are a few pictures.



And here's a close up.



And this is just her being goofy while I was trying to get a close up picture.



And just for a cute picture at the end of my post.



This is Miss Kitty. Isn't she getting big! It's amazing how fast these guys grow. It's almost time to get her spayed.

Well, time to go feed my goats. They have been sick since we got back from fair and finally they are getting better.

Bye!