This is probably the best that I have felt in a LONG ass time. Physical symptoms are backing off, I feel more alive than dead, and I got some answers I was looking for!
Dr. O, the allergy specialist, got me in to see him right away. Apparently I’m allergic to like…everything in the world. He mentioned that someone should put me in a plastic bubble for the remainder of my life. That is something I hear often. First things first, I’m allergic to practically everything outside. Trees, pollen, mold, certain types of grass. I can’t remember all of it. Oak especially and elm (we have a giant oak tree in our front yard and the rest of the house is surrounded by elm trees. Go figure), all mold, dust, pollen, ragweed, ect. He said the allergies were severe enough that I am symptomatic, year round, at all times. Big fat bummer. So now I’m supposed to take all these crazy precautions. Like showering and washing my hair after being outdoors, changing clothes, trying not to touch anything out there, and so on. Sounds like a major pain in the ass…perhaps I should confine myself to my room for the rest of my life. In addition to the “avoidance therapy” I am now on 3 new medications. Allegra, Flonase, and a new steroid inhaler. Gee, I’m really glad… because I was beginning to feel like I wasn’t on enough medications. But whatever, we’ll see what changes happen! I am also allergic to cats and dog dander. I knew about the cats…that’s just too bad about the dogs. Addie and Annabel ain’t going anywhere. Perhaps if I bathe them every week then it would get better. Hmm, I tested positive for all the fruits and vegetables he tested for. Also have severe allergies to all tree nuts; pistachio, walnuts, hazelnuts, and others. And finally, I am also allergic to wheat and soy! I don’t even know how to begin phasing those out of my diet. I’ll just have to be very careful from now on. So that is what I’m allergic to. I don’t know if treating this is going to help my overall pain and inflammation but it certainly can’t hurt. Dr. O and I talked about allergy shots but I’m not that into it. It is a really big commitment and can cause all sorts of side effects. So I’m just going to stick with the avoidance therapy and new medications and see how that works out. I had no idea I was allergic to so much stuff. Apparently it is an overreaction from my immune system. The body isn’t supposed to react to these things but MINE freaks out and tries to fight it all off. As far as I can understand. That is kind of weird…my immune system sucks and is a big giant failure. Now it is going into overdrive for no real reason? Ridiculous. Anyway, those are the answers! It will be a change. I will take the test results to Dr. S and see what he has to say about it. I don’t know if this is enough to explain my constant misery or not. Unfortunately Dr. S doesn’t have any appointments available until October 15th, so I am going to have to wait for my answers.
Saw Dr. C on Friday. It probably wasn’t all that necessary but I wanted to check in and the appointment was already scheduled. Why was it not totally necessary to see Dr. C? Because everything appears to be backing off and going back to normal. I think anyway…I suppose it is possible that I was feeling SO unbelievably bad for those 2 or 3 days that when there was an improvement, it felt huge to me. But I think that I feel better than I have in like the last month! My skin and body aches have been reduced by a good amount. I haven’t thrown up in almost 2 days and I haven’t really felt nauseous either. The headaches are manageable for now and my blood pressure is where it is supposed to be. The dark purple bruises that were on my hands and feet have faded almost completely away. I’m sleeping and eating a lot more than I have been as of late and finally gained a few pounds. That is good…I don’t want to keep putting weight on but I was really creeped out that I was losing so much weight no matter how much I ate. My hair is still falling out a lot but I hope that the relief of so much pain will lower my anxiety and it will stop eventually. I still have some cuts on my scalp but they are healing and gone all together in some places. Been having random brain zaps and electric shocks for the past few weeks but they are not consistent enough to really bother me. Fever is down. And my eye is healing up! The little bump looks kind of like a little BB or something but nothing like the giant marble that it had been. It also doesn’t hurt nearly as much. I guess the antibiotics finally started kicking in! About time, I’ve been on them for 6 days. Stupid immune system. Dr. C gave me some antibiotic ointment to put on it IF things stop moving along. So all in all….very good! Things are not gone completely but they have dramatically improved in the last 4 or 5 days, which is all that I hoped for. I’m feeling so much better that I even thought about stepping down (in dosage strength) on my Oxy. But when I mentioned it to Dr. C I realized that I might be being a little hasty. I don’t know how long this relief will last and I don’t want to step down to 15mg, only to have everything go insane again. It doesn’t look good when the dosage of such a strong medication is changed too frequently and if all the pain came back, I don’t know that I could just go back up to 20mg again. So we kept it where it is and will see how it goes.
Dr. C sent in for my pain meds yesterday and I was able to pick them up this morning! So now I’m lounging around, watching Back to the Future and enjoying the feeling of comfort. It had been quite a while since I was privy to that. There is only one new thing going on and it’s, hopefully, very temporary. My heart and chest hurts. There is this sharp, cramping, shooting pain towards the left of my heart. I am thinking that it is something like a small stitch…I’ve had things like that before. It used to scare the crap out of me and send me flying to the ER but I’m much more relaxed about it now. BUT If I’m being totally honest, that scares me as well. That I’m taking it in stride and neglecting to get it checked out. One of my biggest fears is that I’m going to blow something off that turns out to be a very big deal. God knows that it has happened before. Like the kidney thing…my back ached for days and after I finally decided to get it checked out, it turned out that I had a kidney stone blocking my ureter, a wicked kidney infection, and my kidney was failing. Surgery and 4 days in the hospital over that one. Things like that are where the fear comes from. That somebody is missing something. And it will just keep going and going until it’s too late. Bleh, I don’t know. Living this constant Dr. House episode has screwed me up a bit and I can never tell the right way to respond. Guess it’s just something that I’ll have to keep working on.
My dream is to have some health problems figured out, get some physical and emotional relief (that lasts longer than a week), and get a job. And it looks like I might be on my way!
Update: *sigh* I guess I spoke too soon. About an hour ago my head started hurting, I got nauseous, and my fever came back. Not too terribly high, just 100.6 degrees. Still…I wish I could catch a break. Maybe a good nights sleep will help me fight this stuff off.