Ken's Neurological and Sleep Study Bills

Hi! My name is Ken, or as many of you know me, Krazy Ken. This is the internet, so I'll provide the short version of the story before the long version.

TL;DR

Since January, I've been dealing with arm pain and the inability to achieve quality sleep, so I went to physical therapy, had an EMG (Electromyography) test, and a sleep study to test for sleep apnea. Insurance helped a lot and I paid off many of the bills, but I'm still on the hook for about $4,300. Any help is greatly appreciated!

The Long Version

Back in January, I noticed lots of burning and tingling in my elbows, lower arms and knuckles. Around the same time, I found it very difficult to sleep. I didn't think the issues were connected (I still don't, today) but they both happened at the same time and made life a little more challenging.

Before I continue, I will say I am not facing a life-threatening problem, so if you want to save your hard-earned money for other causes, that's totally okay by me! Anyway…

The issues persisted to such a degree where it was hard to stay awake and work on video productions (I'd love to release episodes slightly more frequently, but it's been challenging as of late). At the same time, whenever I had the energy, it was difficult to use a computer to edit videos because of the constant arm pain. Simply pressing keys or scrolling on a mouse caused pain, so I finally decided to see some doctors for an EMG and a sleep study—especially because I have a family history of sleep apnea.

(An EMG is an Electromyography. A doctor attaches sensors to your arms and zaps you with electric shocks to measure responsiveness. It's not painful, but not comfortable either).

I saw multiple doctors, a PA (physician assistant) and a therapy specialist. Over the next several months, I made much progress!

THE GOOD NEWS: My sleep study and EMG came back with negative results for sleep apnea and neural damage.

THE SLIGHTLY-LESS GOOD NEWS: That means we still don't know what EXACTLY is causing the problems. So what do I do?

I'll keep an extra close eye on myself to see if I discover anything, and I'll have occasional future medical visits to see if we can pinpoint the cause(s) of these two issues, but in the meantime I'm continuing physical therapy at home and I'm trying multiple sleeping methods to improve my energy.

Progress has been good! I'd say the arm pain/tingling issue is 90% solved, and the sleep is at 60%. I'm in a much better place than I was at the beginning of the year.

So now that's where I need your help. All of these visits were expensive. Insurance helped and I paid off a lot, but I'm still on the hook for about $4,300. Your donations are greatly appreciated because they can help me focus on what I like doing best: Making entertaining and informative tech videos!

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I'm very grateful for my viewers and everyone who has supported me through the 16 years I've creating content—primarily on YouTube. I hope for many more!

Have a great day.

Ken

Q&A

How badly do you need the money?

I'd say somewhat badly? I do have emergency savings, but the less I have to dig into that, the better. I figured GoFundMe can help me soften the blow.

Aren't you a super-rich YouTuber? Why do you need money?

Boy, I wish! Maybe one day! I'm still growing, but I only left my day job about one and a half years ago. That means I don't have a big corporation giving me benefits! I'm on my own. So while YouTube (and related revenue streams) do generate more money than I made at my day job, my personal expenses also increased significantly, especially in the area of health insurance and self-employment taxes.