Dramas (and a whole load of thank yous)

It's ranting time again, this time about myself not about anyone else. I've had a dramatic couple of weeks with my health. At one point I was convinced I was dying of fibromyalgia (which was interesting, since fibromyalgia isn't a fatal condition) at another I was in hospital having an allergic reaction, and to top it off I had an incredibly classy moment and threw up in the kitchen sink.

All in all, not the best couple of weeks.

As you may have guessed, I was rather sleep deprived when I thought I was dying. I had incredibly bad nausea from my medication so couldn't eat, sleep or at times form a coherant sentence (thanks to all the Warmliners and Writing Group for putting up with me) and the pain was really bad so I was loosing the plot.
I got to the point where I thought taking an entire pack of panadol would be a good idea. I wasn't suicidal, I'd just got to the point where I couldn't make sense of what I was doing. When two panadol didn't make the pain go away I thought maybe the whole pack would (thanks to Kim for talking me out of that one.)

I saw my GP a couple of days later and she and my rheumy nurse were really good. They got me switched to the injection MTX instead of the tablet, which has none of the nausea side effects. Drawing up and injecting myself wasn't anywhere near as hard as I thought it was going to be apart from my hands shaking on the first one. Unfortunately....

I woke up a couple of days after the first injection covered in hives and with my lips swollen to about four times their normal size. I wasn't terribly worried by this at first (in hindsight, I probably should have been) until Healthline told me to go to the hospital immediately and told me that I may stop breathing, so someone else needed to drive me to the hospital (thanks to Dad for the early morning run to A&E.) Fortunately, I didn't stop breathing, and the doctors told me it was unlikely to be the injection 'causing the reaction as it seemed to be a contact allergy. This was a relief for me as I'd noticed my arthritis had improved with the switch. I'd actually even run up the stairs in my house without holding on to the handrail which a few weeks ago would have been impossible (I did, of course, trip and face plant into the stairs, but let's not focus on that part...)

So, for the next week I woke up every morning with hives and looking like I'd been punched repeatedly in the face. I went through a trial and error process, trying to find out what I was allergic to. It seemed to have something to do with sleeping as it only happened when I woke in the morning. Finally, I realised what it must be. My Dad has many allergies and food intollerances. I'd inherited all of them except for his allergy to rubber... until now. Everynight I had a hot water bottle and everynight I was reacting to it. Somehow, the injection must have triggered this allergy. I'm kind of annoyed I now can't have a hot water bottle and that all my clothes with elastic in them are going to have to go, but it's nice to have an answer.

Finally, the throwing up in the sink... Not really sure what 'caused this. It's pretty unusually for me as I don't normally throw up (I'm not exaggerating, I didn't throw up for 14 years before this, even when I had food poisoning in that time.) I think it was just a combination of generally not being very well and some rather gross gluten free bread. Oh, yes, and for the record, it was the waste disposal part of the sink and I did disinfect it afterwards.

I'm hoping this is the end of the health dramas and that the next few weeks will be a lot calmer. Thanks to everyone who supported me through this.

:-) Little Miss Autoimmune