Just stuff

[catsittingstill]

 Yesterday I finally got started on the taxes (and am about half done, I think.)  This had built up in my head into a big deal, but turned out to be only a modest deal once I actually brought myself to begin.  I used one of the free online tax filing companies last year and once I figured out how to log in, found that they had retained a lot of the info I typed in--which meant I didn't have to re-enter it and saved me a lot of time.  I still have to do the final figures for last year on CD sales--I'm going to take a loss on that, but the question is how big a loss--and aside from that I'm pretty much done.

I also arranged a few details for a couple of trips--going to stay with my friend Professor Pete on the way too and from FKO, so that will be like a few extra hours of convention--yay!  And got my practicing and exercising in.

I also crawled under the house and traced the HVAC vents down there.  My recording booth is going to need to be tied into the HVAC system, since it will be in the garage, which experiences fairly major temperature swings, and it will be very well insulated and nearly airtight.  It turns out there is a vent in the corner of the living room that comes up through the wall, and it looks like if I graft another vent onto it and bring it up one joist over, I can get it in the wall of the bathroom next to the garage without having to mess with the concrete slab the garage, and bathroom, and rumpus room sit on.  So it looks like, with appropriate skilled help, this can be done without breaking into any walls except the one in the bathroom next to the garage.  Since that room is already unlovely, my standards for the level of final finish are modest there, and if that bathroom is out of service for a week or two, no one will miss it.

I'm noticing that come mid-afternoon my tummy starts hurting.  And it hurts unless I have eaten recently pretty much right up to bedtime, which is why I've been eating so much in the evenings.  I need to figure out what is making it hurt and stop that at the source, because eating every ten minutes is not a viable long-term strategy.

Comments

[doomspark]

WRT stomach pains: sharp pain, dull ache, something else? Constant or comes and goes? Is it centralized or does it seem to favor one side or the other? Any other gastro-intestinal symptoms?

Does drinking water instead of eating alleviate the symptoms?

I've had a certain amount of experience with a recalcitrant GI tract, so hopefully I can help you pin this down.

[catsittingstill]

Hmm. Sharp pain but not particularly painful, In the middle left-to-right, but high up near my ribs, comes and goes. When I'm not remembering that I just ate and thus it can't be hunger, I tend to mistake it for that--hence the tendency to eat.

I'll try drinking water instead the next time I notice it, and see if that helps.

I'm thinking it may be a combination of my anti-inflammatory, which can cause stomach upset if I recall, and drinking diet mtn dew in the mornings (not that drinking it other times would be better--but I drink it for the caffeine.) I'm going to switch back to tea and see if that helps.

[randwolf]

The description sounds like stomach pain. If you're routinely taking an anti-inflammatory, that's probably the source. The caffeine in the Mountain Dew would aggravate it.

Perhaps discuss this with the doctor who prescribed the anti-inflammatory?

[catsittingstill]

Yes. I have gone on acetominophen instead but it's not doing as good a job. I'm going to try to get along with it for a week and see how it goes before I call the doctor, but I suspect we'll be trying other anti-inflammatories to see what will 1) work 2) not cause stomach pain or other problems 3) be cheapest.

[doomspark]

Switching off the sodapop would be good. Do you take the anti-inflammatory with food? If so, adding more protein to an earlier meal might also help.

Although I admit it has a huge PITA factor, if you log everything you eat / drink for a few days (along with approximate times), it may help determine what's going on. It's also quite scary (at least it was for me) to see exactly how much sodium I was eating on a daily basis - which is why I have high blood pressure now.

[catsittingstill]

Yes, I had been taking the mobic with food. I didn't make a point of it before but once I started noticing the stomach pain I was more careful about that.

I am going to try switching to acetominophen for a week and see how that goes. Then I will talk to the doctor.