Gout? MOHS Surgery

 Gout? Mohs Surgery

  Vacation was great. We had sunny warm weather. We did some small hiking and sat at the beach a bit-don't worry I wore a hat, zinc sunblock, and a rashgaurd. My ankle wasn't too bad. I wore the brace I was given and it seemed to help a lot. My ankle does feel a bit better but still hurts a bit.

That brings us to today, I saw the ankle doctor I had wanted to see in the first place, unfortunately he had been booked three weeks out. I'm glad I went to the other ankle doctor before vacation and got that brace though. This doctor wanted another set of x-rays done. I guess that's my fault. I should have brought the x-rays that were taken at the last doctor's office. The x-rays did not show any fractures or breaks but he did see a white spot on the ankle and when he pressed that area, it did hurt. He wasn't sure what it was and he said he's never seen anything like it before. There were also some darker spots on the bones and he said that's most likely due to the prednisone eating my bones. He examined my ankle and foot as well as my healthy ankle and foot. He said, in his opinion, it was mostly likely gout, that you didn't need to be in excruciating pain to have gout and he would know as he's had gout many times. I also told him I had kidney disease and elevated Uric acid levels after he mentioned that I might have gout. I had suspected it could be gout which is why I mentioned it to the last doctor. So, he said I should get in touch with my lung transplant doctor and ask if I could do 10mgs of prednisone instead of the usual 5mg as that is the treatment for gout. I would take that for 7 days. If the pain goes away, great. If it's mostly better but still there, ask for another 7 days of 10mg prednisone. If it's not getting better at all, we will need to do an MRI. He said it also looked like it could have been a bug bite, but I don't recall any bites or it looking like a bug bit me.

    Yesterday I got the skin cancer removed from my ear. I had to come at 7:30 am because somehow even though I called the office to cancel the appointment that was set for the Monday before I left for vacation, AND I made an appointment for 9:30, none of these changes were recorded in the files. I got a call confirming my Monday before vacation appointment and I hit the proper number to cancel. Then, a few days later I got a call asking if I would like to reschedule. So I had no choice but to go at 7:30am or wait another week. My ear was already quite sore and I didn't want to wait. I get it, humans make mistakes. No one is perfect. But, 7:30 was a bit early for me. My mom accompanied me in case I would be in great pain afterwards like the situation with my eyelid, though just from the biopsy alone, I felt this wasn't going to hurt as much, even though the bump was quite big. I felt two insertions of the lidocaine needle. It stung a bit but was nowhere near the pain of the eyelid injection. I'm not sure if there was only two injections or if i just didn't feel anything after that. I didn't feel him cut the lump off, though I could sense a sawing like motion was happening on my ear. I waited in the waiting room for an hour. When I was called back, they said they needed another layer taken off. I was bummed. Again with the lidocaine shots, though I felt absolutely nothing this time. He cut deeper, I could sense a feeling of cutting into the cartilage a little but no pain. We waited an hour and a half an then we were told the borders were clean. YAY! I was sooo tired. So, the doctor proceeded to sew up the ear with stitches and then we were on our way. A few hours later I had a little pain in my ear that lasted the rest of the day but by the next morning my ear did not hurt at all. I made it the whole day without any pain. It only hurts if I accidentally touch it. Right now it's covered in a bandage. I will take the bandage off tomorrow and put cream and a band-aide over it.

 

 

(updated, I took the bandage off)

 

    I also went to CVS and picked up a cream for under my eye as I have been having a dry flaky patch of skin there for years and I get it frozen every time I see the dermatologist. I had two biopsies done there and they both came back precancerous. I asked the MOHS surgeon if there was something more I could do and he suggested a cream that I had to be super careful putting on as it would be very bad to get in my eyes. I also picked up doxycycline to ensure no infections set in with the ear surgery. This means I also need to take oral Vancomycin to prevent C. Diff as I have a history of C. diff.