Dr. Naked

CC BY-SA 3.0 From Wikimedia Commons User Mimooh

Thanks to the new insurance laws I (like many others) no longer have to deal with my previous, expensive, shitty, doctor. I got signed up with a new primary care provider, and I’m in love. His name is some Hungarian thing that I won’t say here, but I like to think of him as Dr. Naked, because of something he said. No, I don’t remember what it was he said, but it made me think “Dr. Naked, got it.”

This guy is old as dirt, but is four kinds of an athlete. He skis, hikes, does martial arts, and something else that I can’t remember. Anyway, dude is in his 70s and is pretty buff. I had a blast chilling with him for a while. I was there for intake, so we talked about ALL the things.

I have an interesting array of chronic physical maladies that I mostly ignore because the mental health stuff is so much more important.  Dr. Naked was having none of that. He wanted to address everything. He set me up with a reference to a specialist for one of my concerns (I’m going to undergo a minor surgery in the relatively near future), and we tackled the rest together.

He talked to me a lot about the physical/mental synergy people need to function well. We talked in depth about my medication, and how I can back up my meds with a minor amount of exercise and creative outlets. We talked about the discoloration in my legs, and he pronounced me “young-old” which I think transfers to “You fucked yourself up at a young age.” Basically, I’m 26, with varicose veins. Bleh.

He gave me a very thorough physical, including a session of pain recognition-type-stuff. Basically, he poked my back and said “does this hurt?” Then he left his finger there, and poked another spot. “Does this hurt?” We did this until he had inspected every inch of my spine, and then we talked about ways for me to deal with my chronic back pain. Basically, it was all exercise and diet, but the changes he suggested were small. He walked me through a handful of exercises, and even did them with me, which was awesome. Basically, he wants me to start the McKenzie Method, but just the basics.. My back can’t do most of the simple stuff yet. He also suggested some supplements, after a LOT of questions about my diet.

We talked about my nocturnal breathing problems, and we decided to wait to do a sleep test until I had lost some more weight. Mostly because my breathing trouble has reduced like crazy over the last year (complimenting my 50 lb weight loss. During all this, he checked out my nose and throat and said the inside of my nose looked like a Strawberry Shortcake barricade. We talked about the allergies I have, and when they act up. On top of the fact that I’m allergic to everything here, he thinks I’m sensitive to the smog that comes north from Phoenix, and east from California. So I start a new treatment for that. Yay…

Finally, I left with a list of exercises to do, vitamins to take, labs to attend, and a list of movies that I “must see” in my lifetime. They are all about famous creative crazies, like “Amadeus“, which is about Mozart, and “A Beautiful Mind.” So my last prescription was Amazon Prime. Score.