Letter from Doctor

[TB Roye]

Received a letter from my Doctor yesterday.



Dear Thomas:

Good news! The MRI of your brain is normal.

Sincerely, K. K. Ishihara M.D.

So now in spite of what my family and friends think it is official I am normal. Going to frame it a hang it on wall by front door.

Seriously I am having some issues walking in fact I fell one night while walking with my wife, for no reason, I kind of wandering as i walk and my wife says I walk like an old man so my Dr is running some test to rule out things. Did an MRI of my back the other day and it is normal for a person of my age. Tomorrow I see and Physical Therapist Specialist to have my Gait evaluated as I seem to pull to the right while walking. I have feeling there is nerve damage in my right leg that is causing it. At 72 the idea of falling and breaking something is very real. At least now I can carry on as normal and drive my wife and family crazy and blame it on them.

Tom

[Cochese]

Did they look at your ear specifically in the MRI?

[TB Roye]

They were looking for neurological problems as it isn't balance it is more a weakness in my right leg. I will Email my Doctor and ask that question though thanks. To me it's more like an instability than balance or vertigo. I can be walking a long and just go to the right or wander from a little but more to the right. When I fell it was on a straight, level sidewalk with no cracks or uplifting, perfectly safe, just took a step and down i went, wasn't injured and we finished the walk with no problem haven't fallen since. Before I had my Abdominal Aneurysm repaired 4 years ago I couldn't walk because of pain in legs (PAD) while they were inserting the stents to repair Aneurysm they had to repair the arteries in my legs especially the right one. after surgery there was no more pain and I was able to walk but with the wandering not to the extent i have now. I didn't even think about it until I fell that got my attention.

Tom

[atgcpaul]

My FIL is living with us while he gets treated for cancer. He's 79 and my wife has to constantly prod him to eat. He was suffering from wobbly legs and occasionally his legs would buckle under him. He never lost consciousness or felt woozy, just lost all the power in his legs. He had a mineral deficiency-maybe potassium?- that supplementing his diet with bananas and multivitamins seems to have taken care of it.

[gsmittle]

Tom,

First, good news that your brain is normal!

I have been having some of the same issues as you, except on the left side. I'm quite strongly left-handed, so this was a little bit scary.

MRI showed what looked like a herniated disc in my neck. Last week I had surgery to take care of the herniated disc, and the doc says when he got in there I had a massive bone spur pushing my spinal chord to the side and trapping some nerve roots. There was some bruising of the spinal chord, too.

I'm not a big fan of spinal surgery even though I've had four of them, but this one sure helped.

Keep us posted and stay strong.

g.

[phrog]

Received a letter from my Doctor yesterday.



Dear Thomas:

Good news! The MRI of your brain is normal.

Sincerely, K. K. Ishihara M.D.


Tom

Perhaps, you should run for public office. After all, how many candidates can claim they have medical evidence proving they have a normal brain.

[58Hawken]

Let me offer a couple of ideas. Certainly the possibility of a ruptured disc has to be considered. Other causes of nerve malfunction also need to be considered. These can be assessed with a little bit of torture known as an EMG/NCV (electromyography with nerve conduction velocities). All they gotta do is shock you a few times, the poke needles into your muscles. I have also seen someone who had trouble with getting weak and falling due to a weak heart. Their exertion would overtax the amount of blood flow the heart could manage, so their brain found itself with inadequate flow and the lights went almost out completely. A neat little near-fainting spell. Just a few ideas from someone who deals with such things at their day job. Hope that helps get you back to the important things in life, like making sawdust and hugging family!