What?!? Sick, again?

Yes. Sick again. In spite of all my efforts to take care of myself, the constant attention to activity and exertion levels, the vigilance,  I still ended up in a flare-up. In retrospect, I hadn't been eating very well. I was going out a lot to eat because it was convenient, drinking more often than I had in a long time. Eating sugar. Maybe not even resting as much as I *could*, although I believe I was resting as much as I needed. I hadn't had flare ups of CFS symptoms, except for short term crashes that I recover from in a few days in nearly two years. And I didn't get the symptoms, the horrible, challenging symptoms I got this time in about three years. I thought I was home free, but now I'm thinking again.

The hives are back. DUM, dum, DUUUUMMM!

heh.

So I was ill after my trip to Sedona. I believed that I'd somehow accidentally ingested gluten and that I was having a reaction. Then about two weeks later, eating relatively normally but not going out as much since I'd just spent money on the trip, I had some Thai food. By a few hours later I could feel the hives starting to break out. They were bad enough that I was alarmed, remembering the three horrible hive attacks I'd had over about a two year period. They got a little better a few days later, and then blossomed again. They kept getting worse and worse. By three weeks I'd had enough. I was freaking out, scared, panicked, and feeling defeated.

I called my NMD in Arizona who's been my doc for six years. She agreed with my theory of leaky gut syndrome post gluten attack and that it was probably causing my immune system to over react. She prescribed a regimen to heal the leaky gut and to hopefully reduce the symptoms. In the past I went on prednisone to control the symptoms, and high doses too, but I still have after effects from the side effects of the last round of prednisone. Edema, adipose relocation, adrenal fatigue, and about 40 pounds that won't budge. I chose to try and weather this inflammatory experience without immune suppression.

Here is a picture of how they looked when they were pretty bad, but not necessarily at their worst. About 40% of the surface area of my entire body was covered in flowery hives just like this.

The red outlines indicate the outer limits of the hives and only look like this after antihistamines to reduce the swelling and hydrocortisone cream to help the itch that made me bonkers.

Every morning I'd wake up and spend about 20 minutes scratching which seemed to burn out the little mast cells and keep them from pumping out more histamine.

They got worse with work and other activities as well as with certain foods. So I put myself on the safest diet I could, and for three weeks now I've been on an anti-inflammatory fruit and greens smoothie diet. There are a few add in I'm beginning to integrate one item at a time so I can determine if I'm reacting to it. I've found a couple things my system doesn't like in the process, but for the most part the diet, along with the treatment from my doc, has helped a LOT. How else would I make it through three weeks on a damn smoothie diet?!?

So this second pic is what they look like more now after a day of work. Smaller, more red, and bumpy. I start the morning with them on my torso and then the morning ones fade away. By afternoon they are starting to come up again and they appear more on my forearms, hands, lower legs, and feet. before they'd last about three days, now 1/2 to one day. And they're not as itchy. Last week after a couple days rest I was nearly hive free. Then one day back at work and I'm all worked up again.

At one point recently there was so much swelling around my ankles because of the hives that not only was standing and walking painful, my skin was covered in bright purple splotchy marks from broken blood vessels. It took them days to fade away. :-/ I didn't get a picture. I think I wanted to forget.

BTW, it's been nearly six weeks that I've had hives. Every day. At least they're not so much on my face anymore. When they're on my lips and eyelids is the worst....second only to a sensation of swelling in the throat. That pretty much sucks.

Obviously I'm having terrible inflammation and keeping it down is key. I haven't been very far from my blender in three weeks and I haven't figured out travel quite yet. I'm going to be pretty restricted in my diet for some time and I'll need to make it work somehow.

There's another symptom which I'm not really comfortable putting out there quite yet, but I'm beginning to suspect colitis, or inflammation of the colon/gut.

I'm tired for now. I do intend to make another post more specifically about my anti inflammatory diet but that'll have to wait. Maybe tomorrow.

Has it been a long time...again?!?!

I'm looking back and my last post was in January, and that even though I decided I'd post more often, that I wanted to get back to it again, I haven't. But there's been a lot going on, and not going on, that has kept me busy. Especially the last six weeks or so. 

At the end of January I took a trip to Arizona (where I used to live) with my current partner, Vick. We spent four days in Phoenix attending Southwest Leather Conference southwestleather.org After that we took about a week and visited Sedona as well as Jerome, AZ and the Grand Canyon. Here's just a couple of pics from that trip.  

Vick and I after the contest at SWLC Phoenix, AZ

Caduceus Wine Cellar

Jerome, AZ

Amitabha Stupa, Sedona, AZ

Sedona, AZ

The official Grand Canyon Shot

The largest crystal skull I've ever seen!!!

Bell Rock Sedona, AZ One of my favorite places in the world

So during the time in Sedona....wow, just remembering the trip I could make several blog posts about it. About SWLC and the Dance of Souls too. It was amazing. I really stepped into my own. I grew. I handled responsibilities like I'd been trained to do it. And I have been, for years. And that was my chance to show it. :-)

Anyway, during Sedona I got sick. And by sick I mean a little CFS flare up, but lousy gut symptoms that I've usually associated with Celiac Disease. For days I had trouble. I can back from my trip exhausted and sad, even though it was a good time. 

I think I had to fill that in as a part of the past in order to bring things current. I got sick...and I'm still trying to get better more than two months later. Next post.