I went to the doctor yesterday afternoon to find out what is going on with my butt. For the last few weeks I've been less than happy with what's been happening. Regular readers of this site will know that I'm a champion pooper, and "proud":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001363/ of it. Lately, well... let's just say they've been less than the beautiful works of art that I've been used to. Plus, I've been feeling all sorts of full and gassy, with tons of burping and farting to go along with it. That part has actually been fun, because Kim can't complain about it... "But honey, I've got A Condition." Yesterday I went to a new physician that came recommended from "April":http://apadventures.net, because they do lots of "alternative" medicine as well as the regular M.D. stuff; things like acupuncture, sports massage, herbal therapies, etc. While I didn't get to meet with April's doctor, I did see Sunny, the nurse practicioner. She was completely awesome. She had recently moved from Seattle, where she even moonlighted as a piercer at night because so many of her patients were coming in with infected piercings that she decided to start doing them herself. She's also very anti-drug (except when necessary), which is refreshing, especially in this age of antibiotic over-prescription and resistant bugs. She was a model for living well... she has a 27-year old son, and she didn't look like she could be much older than 40 herself.

We talked about possible factors in my feeling, well, poopy. One of the things we discusses was my recent home shopping, which in a hot market like Tucson is a very stressful situation. "Hey, here's a decent house. Would you like to put money on it right NOW NOW NOW?!?!?" Um, sorry if I can't make a snap decision for the most amount of money I'll ever spend on anything. Damn me for being such a comparison shopper. Sunny is also in the midst of home-buying, and felt my pain. She was unsure based on the initial exam what was going on... could be "IBS":http://www.aboutibs.org/, could be "_H Pylori_":http://www.cdc.gov/ulcer/md.htm. I'm going to a testing lab later this week to get all sorts of bloodwork done, which will show if I've got an infection going on or not. If it is _H Pylori_ I'll actually need to take an antibiotics cycle, no way around that. I'm sort of hoping that's it, because then I can just get it treated and be done. If it's IBS, then treatment path is not as clear.

Oh, I'm also getting other baseline stuff done, checking cholesterol, etc. About time I started checking those things on a yearly basis. My followup appointment with Sunny to discuss my labs is in about 2 weeks. I'll keep ya posted.