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Thursday 25 March 2010

Interested in joining the AA Sir


Just a funny little story which happened to me the other day with regards to speech problems with ACM. ( or i have suddenly become fluent in another language ).
I was walking through my local shopping centre when a nice young lady stepped in front of me and asked " would you be interested in joining the AA sir " My reply was supposed to be , I am already in it thanks. Instead it came out as Rinitamldyeal. What the hell is all that about. Lol. This can be quite embarrassing at times but i have now become used to it and have to laugh to myself. This poor girl must have thought i was a foreigner.

Craniocervical malformations can cause speech disorders as a result of paralysis, weakness, or incoordination of the speech musculature, with motor and functional disorders that affect phonation, resonance, articulation, and prosody [46].

Speech, swallowing, phonation, and respiration are functions that may be disturbed in people with Chiari syndrome and syringomyelia. They are part of the rehabilitation realm of the speech therapist. In children, in addition to the functional disorders mentioned above, language development and learning may be affected. Speech therapy has two types of intervention: preventive and palliative.

When a deviation from normal function is detected, even if it is mild, the patient and family members must be informed about the difficulties that may occur as the condition progresses. Reinforcement of swallowing, respiration, vocal tension and reading skills is important to preserve such functions. If no rehabilitation is initiated one problem can lead to another. For example, buccofacial motricity disorders can lead not only to swallowing disorders, but also to chewing and phonation abnormalities. Once the lesion is established, speech therapist interventions are palliative, targeting the areas where dysfunction is identified.

Tuesday 23 March 2010

The Pits and the Pendulum


As some of you know, i had Decompression in April 2009. I still have a range of symptoms remaining.I have dizziness and balance issues on a daily basis, most days are bad and some very bad. It is even worse when i change the position of my head. The only way i can describe it is, it feels as though the cerebellum is like a pendulum, it is constantly swinging slowly, i move my head and it causes it to swing even more ( the Pendulum part of the post title ). On the really bad days i get bad fatigue with it also. I still get the occasional headache which causes one of my eyes to droop as well as my mouth. on my very bad days i have to use a stick to aid my balance as walking becomes a problem, My speech becomes very slurred also. The other day i went into my local shop, without my walking stick and was having a very bad day. I could hear the shop owner and a customer saying how disgusted they were that i was drunk so early in the day (little do they know).This has, along with the issues fighting to get the Benefits to listen has given me depression, yet more medication ( hence the pits part of the post title).
I went back to my GP in September to ask him to refer me back to my Neurosurgeon. Come February this year i still had not heard anything. I called the NS secretary and she told me that they had not received a referral letter from my GP ? She also told me that the NS had just had Major surgery himself and would not be returning until June this year and then it would only be for consultation and not surgery. She told me that he would not be offended if i wanted to see someone else. I returned back to my GP and asked why he did not send a referral letter. He said it was most likely the Receptionists fault. I asked him to refer me to the Walton Clinic in Liverpool and he told me it was not that simple ( bureaucratic) was his words, and that he would have to write to my current NS and that he would then have to write to the Walton centre. Of course i took this as gospel, what did i know i am not a doctor. I called the Walton clinic my self to ask if this was true to which they replied no. Off again to my GP and this time i was very blunt with him and instead of asking, i told him to refer me. This worked a treat as i am sure he could tell i was not happy. I have now put a formal complaint in to PALS about the conduct of my GP and i am moving doctors.
The dizziness issues have become an embarrassment to me because people look at me funny thinking i am drunk and along with my slurred speech and difficulty trying to find the right words when talking.
I hope that one day someone will listen and help me get rid of these wretched problems.