Reference to My Blog of May 8, 2013

It has been longer than I thought, but finally the person I blogged about in this blog has received her notification letter and had her appointment with the VA. She apologized for not returning my email sooner, but she had her appointment almost immediately after receiving her notification letter. She needed to coordinate with her endocrinologist and her VA doctor to get the correct amount of each insulin and was happy that her doctor worked so well with the VA.


In addition to her insulin, she received a flu shot and was advised to have a Vitamin B12 shot because she was deficient. They suggested that she should have the endocrinologist check her in a month and give a second shot if needed. She said she had read one of my blogs about Vitamin B12, but could not find it. She remembered that it listed some of the sources of Vitamin B12. I sent her the URL and in the return email said she could eat some of them, but did not like liver, kidney, sardines, salmon, and was lactose intolerant.


I said that she should talk to the endocrinologist about taking Vitamin B12 supplement and she said she would. Then she talked about her VA benefits and thanked me for pushing her to get the paperwork in. She said what I knew about the help of the Veteran Affairs officer and that made everything go very smoothly. Then she thanked me again and wished she had contacted me earlier as this would have helped with the oral medications as well.


She said she had been to her doctor and he had a copy of the VA test results now. She commented that she was surprised that he had advised her to take a daily multivitamin after looking at that page. The next question I had correctly anticipated as it was about statins. She did include the results of her lipid panel and they were within range, but near the high side. She did ask if she could avoid statins as she had been reading some of my blogs and other sources and had discouraged the doctor this time.


I sent her several URLs about them and the troubles women seem to have with them. I would only say that my thoughts were similar to the articles and that she did need to have a good talk with her doctor if the lipid panel showed an increase at her next appointment. I told her that only her doctor that knew her history was qualified to advise her. She did say that she had asked because she knew I would give her something to read and said they had answered many of her questions.


We will be staying in contact, but I doubt I will blog about her situation unless she raises some issues that should be blogged about.