Apparently, my having autoimmune conditions and fair skin makes me very susceptible to all sorts of allergies. I am STILL really reactive!!!! He said it’s hard because the autoimmune disease can make things hang on longer. Any stress will make it worse, so it keeps feeding itself. It may take two more weeks for the redness and rash to go away. He said my back still has urticaria (fancy word for hives). You would think after almost 2 weeks my immune system would just give it a rest for Pete's sake! At least I don’t itch terribly, just your run of the mill occasional itch.
Dr, Allergy Specialist is ordering major blood tests for me. I have no idea how many vials of blood they're going to have to fill for all this. He said, “Oh, you ought to be loads of fun to treat” with a hint of irony. He's not giving up this armload of blood! I can't go give it up to the vampires for another 10 days because he wants the steroids out of my system.
Angioedema/Urticaria Panel
Quantitative C1Q, C4
ANA
ESR
Recurrent Infection Screen
IgG, IgA, IgM, IgE
14 panel pneumoccal IgG antibody titer
CGH50
C-ANCA, P-ANCA (anti-proteinase-3, anti myeloperoxidase)
Food RAST Testing
Food panel for: Histamine, almond, apple, banana, barley, string bean, beef, brazil nut, cantaloupe, carrot, cashew, celery, chicken, clam, codfish, corn,c rab, egg yok, egg white, hazelnut, lobster, milk, oat, orange, pea, peach, peanut, pork, potato, rice, rye, salmon, shrimp, soy, strawberry, tomato, tuna, walnut, wheat & yeast
Nut panel: RAST to almond, Brazil nut, cashew, chocolate, coconut, hazelnut, peanut, pine nut, pistachio, sesame seed and walnut
Shellfish/Fish panel: codfish/white fish, crab, flounder, halibut, lobster, oyster/mussel, salmon, scallop, shrimp, trout and tuna
RAST for Environmental Allergies:
Midwest Allergen Panel
Other Labs:
CBC W
I like the fact that he took everything I said very seriously. My issues with sesame seeds, cleaning pumpkins and getting a rash, all of those actually ARE problems. J It’s funny – because of my mother, I always feel “foolish” – you know, like I might be making a mountain out of a mole hill. You'd think I'd have learned by now ... every single time I've ever finally brought up something to the doctor, it's always turned out to be textbook-something-real. (Graves' Disease - waited until I was having temporary paralysis, resting heart rate of astronomical proportions, panic attacks, major hair loss, etc; gallbladder - waiting until I developed severe jaundice, etc).
Also, the steroids that I stopped taking are what are making me have night sweats and feel on-edge. He said it will go away. I can’t go get those blood tests until the 24th because I have to have all of that out of my system. He asked the kids, 'Wow, your mom is never this edgy and jump, is she?" Of course they said, "No" and his experience with me on Rhianna's past appointments always showcase calm, cool, collected me. Not today - I was hot flashing like crazy, yet he said my skin was cold & clammy, I was tapping away with my toes. jitter-central.
He gave me a prescription for Allegra that he really wants me to take to get chill my system. Pepcid instead of Tagamet, he said it causes less mental stuff. He also gave me a week of samples of a stronger antihistamine to take at night, Xyzl. If I like it, they’ll mail me a mail-order prescription for my pharmacy company and then give me more samples to tide me over. I dread taking new things. (Gee, I wonder why?!) Part of me thinks, yeah, I should take something tonight like he wants me to...the other part of me says, "You're getting by without stuff, just soldier on through this." Worse comes to worse, I can just take some Benadryl - although after a few days, that starts giving me nervousness and all.
I also have Bactroban that I have to put in my nostrils twice a day for 14 days, to kill any MRSA colony that I might be harboring. I then have to wash with Dove BAR soap, not body wash. Any little nicks or anything I get shaving or spots of eczema, I have to put Bactroban on them right away. He said that if I get MRSA again and am ever hospitalized for it, he’ll be taking care of me – and he can even give me the Bactrim in diluted quantities with other stuff so that I don’t have to fear not having any antibiotics left to me. He'd just had some big discussion about MRSA with a colleague, so I benefited from that with a long discourse.
He is not fond of Armour Thyroid (which I can't stop singing the praises of) – he thinks that maybe I should do Synthroid and Cytomel. It’s the whole desiccated pig/cow thyroid thing that bothers him. We shall see. I have to go back to him the first week of January to go over my labs and make a plan of action from what we find.
~o~
Yesterday I managed 45 minutes on the stationary bike and a 31 minute body-weight workout. It felt great and I was glad to do it. Unfortunately, the doctor told me today that he doesn't want me working out "hard" yet. I can workout but I can't give it all I've got or anything. It tends to be a problem with the angioedema/uticaria. What a pain this whole thing is turning out to be!
