Because I thought I Needed Something New

To borrow a quote from my friend Terese, GOOD GRIEF IN A BUCKET.

My body and it's antics never cease to amaze. Want to see my latest adventure?

So this is my arm and my IV with antibiotics flowing, and my very red and swollen and painful middle finger.

It all started last Sunday, when I woke up to a strange aching in my finger which progressed with amazing rapidity to an unbelievably painful hot swelling. Which left me phoning my clinic's advice nurse at four AM. Ice and elevation and acetaminophen had caused absolutely no observable improvement. 

Who knew that dinky little joint at the end of my finger could cause such pain?

The next morning found me at the clinic, and after a doctors exam, sitting in the nurse treatment center getting IV Rocephin. An X-ray ruled out a bone infection or joint injury, which meant I had a cellulitis, which is an infection in the soft tissues.

Whew, I thought. This has got to get better soon.

Wrong. It turns out that the Rocephin wasn't effective against whatever beastie had taken up residence in the soft tissues in my finger. Over the next 24 hours, the redness and swelling had progressed down the full length of my finger and had sent out pink tendrils down towards my palm.

It never occurred to me to try to document this with a photo. I was too busy gritting my teeth and trying to ignore the increased pressure and pain.

So, on instructions from my doctor, I dutifully presented myself to an ER nurse; who took one look and exclaimed, "Yuk!"

As a nurse myself, I appreciated this brief but accurate medical diagnosis. I wanted to throw myself and kiss his feet in gratitude when he went on, "Would you like something for pain? Must hurt like heck!"

Another IV and a different IV antibiotic followed. Also an exploratory incision by the doc hoping to find a pocket of pus to drain, but no such luck.

It appears that Clindamycin is successful in the battle against this infection.

Yay for modern medicine! And pain pills!

Although I'm making real progress, I haven't completely healed yet. But I will behave myself and keep up the icing and elevation and antibiotics.

We SHALL conquer. 

My goodness. What's in store for me next?!

Surprises and Chronic Autoimmune Urticaria

Last week, as I was floating in my hammock chair I saw something amazing: a perfect spider web that seemed to be suspended mid air.

So beautiful. How on earth did the spider architect anchor it? The connecting silk lines were almost invisible.

What arachnid artistry.

I snapped pictures of it from all angles.

This photo didn't turn out as well.....kindly disregard the hammock hair. 

What a pleasant surprise. I love those kind of surprises.

Then there's the other kind of surprises. I'm not happy with that kind.

Like this one:

Yeah. That's my old lady knee. Notice the strange red rash? Before I slathered hydrocortisone cream on it and took an antihistamine, it was in full-blown puffy hives mode. There were lots of them. On both legs. Accompanied by a vicious itch.

Not fun.

So these hive beauties have been showing up every night for the last few weeks; only to disappear promptly by 9:00 AM. And for the life of me, I just can't figure out why. I have changed nothing in my night time routine. I've used the same unscented laundry detergent for years, my jammies are literally decades old, and the sheets on our bed have been around forever. I use the same body wash, sunscreen, and moisturizers for what seems like forever.

My environment has been the same for a whole year, and I've been eating the same foods too.

So what's causing this very unwelcome and extremely strange change in my skin?

I have no idea.

The only thing that HAS changed is the absence of immune suppressing drugs in my body for the last six weeks. 

Is this related? Could hives be caused by an increase in autoimmune activity? I wondered.

After a bit of Google Scholar reading, the short answer is possibly yes. The long answers can be found here. Here's an excerpt:

Chronic urticaria is hypothesized to occur because of a predilection in the patient to develop reactions to self. Supporting this hypothesis, a strong association has been found between chronic urticaria and additional autoimmune diseases, such as thyroid disease, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjögren’s syndrome, celiac disease and type 1 diabetes, among others. (Bolding mine) Continue reading here. 

It appears that Sjogren's syndrome can possibly cause hives like mine, also known as chronic autoimmune urticaria. Dr. Young Guy and I will be discussing this soon to try to determine the cause of my particular brand of hives.

Good grief. Is there any part of my body that ISN'T affected by autoimmune disease? 

Have you experienced chronic autoimmune urticaria?