Been awhile - I've been bad

mls351w said:

nutz
Sorry to hear about the nutz issues.
At least soccerfreak keeps his in a can.
I think the thing that saved mine is the fact that they were in my wife's purse during treatment. In fact they have been there since our daughter was born circa 1986. My bitter half said something about me not needing them anymore??

arndog64 said:

What a intersting
What a intersting discussion. LOL!! Like Sweets, I will leave the nut comments alone.

sweetblood22 said:

Lol
Well, the only ones I see these days are in the container of my Ben & Jerry's Pistachio Pistachio.

Bigfuzzydoug said:

Glad that I can be the butt of all your jokes
Here I am suffering with nuts like raisins. I reach out to my CSN pals for some help and advice and all I get is... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Sorry. Dosed off there for a moment.

I've already decided to do the testosterone pellet injections "Testo-pels". I fell asleep on the floor last nigth at 6:30 while folding laundry. That pretty much finalized the decision for me. Now that I'm in remission and done with the "horrors" of the treatment, I really want some kind of "normal" life.

Of course my wife told my kids about it and my 6-yr-old son comes up to me and asks, "pellets?" he ran off, came back and asked, "they're going to put pellets in your balls?" and he held out a handful of his pet hamster's food pellets. That had the family rolling on the floor laughing for a good hour!

I guess I could change my screen name to "Radiatiated Pistachio". While I may have nutz like raisins, I still have big brass balls. How's THAT for a mental image? ;-p

Skiffin16 said:

Prunes....
Are you sure it's raisins.....and not at least prunes.

Hope the Testo-Pels work out for you.....

With all of those rads, we know you're thick skinned and can handle alittle teasing....

Best,
John

Bigfuzzydoug said:

I can't say enough how GREAT chiro has been for me.
Not saying it's for everyone, but for me it's been amazing! My chiro is trained in neurologic as well as being a trained and licensed physical therapist as well. No metal hammer thing, just skeletal and soft-tissue massage work by hand. My adjustments usually go like this...

1. Neck massage on the back to clear out any lymphatic fluid build up or swelling and drain the fluid. Some skeletal work but mostly to maintain the range of movement. There's one "cracking" maneuver that scares the crap outta ya with the sound, but it works. A lot of thumb pressing down on spots on the back of the neck to push fluid down.

2. A chest and shoulder stretch where he goes behind and pulls my arms back.

3. Wrist massage. Sounds strange, but it's kind of like reflexology. Apparently the wrist and throat have some kind of connection. My yoga teacher says the same thing. I certainly feel like my wrists are sore and hurt and when he;s done, they feel better.

4. A quick spinal check and alignment check (the traditional chiro stuff). Usually I don't need anything and this is quick.

5. Lie on my back, his elbows behind me and a stretch where he pushes my head forward. At first I couldn't take it much and it would actually block my airway. Now, it's no big deal at all,

6. The good stuff - I lie on my back and does this soft-tissue work where he drives his thumbs into the tendons under my jaw and moves my head. He presses his thumbs into the "thick" fibrosis parts and slowly works down, moves my head and tries to break up the scar tissue. Since my nerve endings are all fried, I don't feel a thing. At first he was a bit worried because we wouldn't know if he was going too deep and possibly hurting me, but we both kept soldiering on week after week.

Sometimes you could actually feel a muscle or tendon know pop and release. Sometimes when he gets a down into a thick mass of radiated fibrotic tissue and pushes just right, it's like it pops and melts. You can actually hear it! It's pretty gross. But what before felt like a thick lump of skin like on the bottom of your heel, all of a sudden feels like a neck again.

Now that he's got a lot of it breaking up, I can feel it again and there are time I tell him to stop or hold back because he's actually reaching my trachea or something that hurts. This is a good thing. It means the skin "thickening" is breaking up and going back to something more normal. Now only in the very front above my Adam's Apple is a 2-inch section that feels "thick". Everything else feels like normal neck skin. (Except for the fact that I never have to shave my neck again.)

At my last ENT visit he asked me what was up with my neck. "In 20 years I've never seen a post 8-week radiation treatment patient have such good looking skin and tissue. Your range of motion is totally normal and you have hardly any lymphedema or fibrosis at all. What have you been doing?!"

My Radiation Oncologist and regular Oncologist just looked at me like it was magic. They never even thought to suggest any kind of post-treatment care.

All I know is that for me, it's working. So I'll keep going twice a week for as long as it takes. My insurance covers 20 chiro-coded visits and 80 physical/occupational therapy visits and my guy can bill for either, so I'm covered for two visits a year. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but for me, the results speak for themselves. I can send a picture to prove it to.

Hope this helps.

connieprice1 said:

Hamster pellets
Bob, Their could be something in those hamster pellets. Our hamster used to eat those pellets and jump on his wheel to burn off energy. You might be on to something there! Lol, Homer