Took my ageing bones and muscles and cartilage to the doctor....

[oursin]

Have been having trouble of late (on top of the usual ongoing ouchie bits for which I already do an assortment of physio exercises accumulated over the years) with my right shoulder and my left hip, and made an appointment to see A GP (there are a plethora at the practice I go to and I thought I would take one who was available at a suitable time of day without too long a lapse of time).

And converted the standard phone appointment to a face to face one with relatively little trouble, and went in this afternoon.

The GP was v young, but this may be me ('la, you no longer have a pot of leeches on your desk, how medical science has advanced since my youth'), but v good. Advised contacting the Musculo-Skeletal (physio) self-referral people re the shoulder, and gave me a referral for X-ray of (both) hips.

(In fact The Old Trouble with right hip was kicking up last night moan whinge, so this is probably prudent.)

It turns out that the X-ray service is drop-in, so I can be about that, but the link to the MSK service is timing out, groan.

Anyway dashing (???) about doing more medical stuff may be a bit on hold as partner also needs to go to see GP fairly expeditiously about an ear thing.

***

In other news, a chapter has come back for urgent attention to copy edits (SIGH) just I am in the process of moving towards publication of the latest episode in the Interminable Saga.

Comments

[ranunculus]

Wait! If he is a really hip young doctor he probably DOES have a pot of leeches on his desk. Apparently modern science has found that, indeed, they may be the very best answer to some issues.

[oursin]

Nah - a GP would either say, you have to get that done at a pharmacy, or provide a referral letter for the hirudotherapy department at one of the local hospitals*. Because GPs are allocated a set amount of time per patient and applying a leech and waiting until it dropped off might upset the entire schedule - 'get on with it yer little so and so'.

*Or outsourced (appropropriately we mutter) altogether to a private company, which is alas becoming rather a thing in the NHS for certain services.

[ranunculus]

**L**
They definitely outsource the leeches...

[pameladean]

As has been remarked repeatedly but I still want to remark, Ageing is not for the faint of heart.

Having recently had to see a man about my knee, or really more precisely about all the things I put out of true favoring the knee when it was bad, though it is now innocent and lamblike and very WHO, ME? about it all, I send muuuuch sympathy, especially about interrupted sleep; and hopes that exercise etc. will set you up to be in a better place.

[oursin]

Thanks! The MSK site turned out to be only temporarily incommunicado, but it looks as though one has to make the preliminary approach by phone, boo hiss. However, it does look as though they have a clinic right next to my GP practice, well within walking distance.