On the Danger of Squirrels

After Tuesday's IV infusion (Alpha Lipoic Acid, something-something-choline and L-glutathiane) I had a very full day. From 8am to 1pm, I was dealing with my follow-up with Dr. Alternative with several hours of allowing various medical professionals to play 'find the vein' on my arms. Seriously the whole thing should've taken two hours tops, but my veins manage to drag it out to four, plus travel time.

But I felt good enough that I forced the family to go out for a walk at the local park. We saw two deer, watched them poop, discussed whether one of the ducks was transgendered or not and ran into an overly friendly squirrel.

My relative, who just moved out but came back for a home-cooked meal, went into 'it's an attack rat, and it's going to eaaaaaaat meeeeee' mode. So they ran off, screaming, leaving me and the toddler to calmly keep walking.

Look, I've been in the middle of various rain forests. Almost put my hand right into the coil of a sleeping baby pit viper once. Mist-netted for bats and held them in my hands--without any ER nearby to save me from rabies. I'm not going to scream over a damn squirrel.

(Of course, standing on a fire ant hill with ants swarming my feet and biting me? I totally sing (and dance) the 'get it off me' hokey-pokey at the top of my lungs.)

(When I say swarm, think Hitchcock's The Birds.)

(Not exactly on the same level as a rogue squirrel. FYI.)

So the toddler and I were walking and I was saying soothing things, trying to keep her calm as she'd picked up on everyone's fear. By everyone, I mean my relative who was still freaking out a half mile down the trail. My husband was laughing.

Then, my husband said, "Watch out, it's coming back."

Which triggered the Primal Momma Bear in me. My stomach lurched with the fight or flight response. I was ready to kill something with my bare hands, anything to protect my baby.

I turned around to see the squirrel twenty feet away. If it was coming for us, it was at the speed of a drunk, one-legged pirate who'd misplaced his peg leg.

My husband was being funny.

I mean, my dearly departed husband, because I stabbed him to death with my angry glare after that trick.

Not funny.

So not funny.

It was too late for me to do anything about the attempt to mount a stress response and it ended badly. I can't handle that kind of bullshit. I immediately had generalized back and stomach pain, fatigue, shortness of breath and rumblings of GI trouble.

Damn it.

This all meant I needed to take steroids.

But I didn't want to.

It was only GI rumblings.

Except I didn't want to make things worse either.

Weakness. Shortness of breath. Back and stomach pain.

So I compromised and took 2.5mg which seemed to be a middle road between taking 5mg and taking nothing. Luckily, the IV picked up any slack, buoying me up.

Wednesday started well, but ended with a 10mg stress dose as I hit a wall of fatigue, weakness, flank, stomach and back pain and GI symptoms. It was either take steroids or ruin my parent's 60th birthday party, which I had planned long before I caught bronchitis. Back when I thought I had a shot at normal.

BB (before bronchitis) a concert seemed like a great way to ring in 60.

But there was a lot of smoking and walking. Not so much an issue when I bought the tickets, but today's body can't hack it. I had to ask for a ride to my car like a nursing home resident.

I don't know what to do. I'm shocked that this has gone so poorly. I would never have thought I would need any steroids. I truly thought I was on the way up. I was feeling good and then bam! Hit the wall.

The only comfort I can take is at least it's not the worst adrenal stuff I've had. It could turn around.

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TGIF

Saw the pulmo. Same old, same old. Not quite as dismissive of the edema this time, but not wanting to prescribe meds for it yet, which is fine. I just don't want to bloat to death. Basically, I need to buy a bigger shoe for those days when my feet have swollen past their usual size 9 so I can still exercise. That will be interesting.

Energy continues to be better on 10mg. I don't really 'wake up' until it hits my system. I also still get some residual weakness/fatigue, especially at the end of the day when the steroids have worn off.

However, I baked muffins (pumpkin-cranberry), did the dishes, washed the cabinet faces, wrote an article, played badminton with my hubby and visited my house guest's new apartment.

(Why is it the house guests we like always leave and the ones we can't stand stay forever?)

That's, like, a pretty normal day for me. It was exciting.

My plan with the steroids is 5 days x 10mg, 5 days x 7.5mg, 5 days by 5mg and then alternate days until I don't need it. (More likely I'll ping pong all over the place because it won't be linear.)

I'm not sure why I'm doing so badly. I don't think I suppressed again. I used steroids, but kept the doses very low because:

1) High dose steroids don't control the asthma any better in my experience. By the time I've outpaced the five different meds I have in my arsenal, no amount of steroids is going to be a cure. In fact, the 125mg I got in the ER only lasted a few hours, it's impact had faded by the time I was discharged.

For the record, I go to the ER for the nebulizer treatments. Ones with more meds in it than I have at home, which did not happen. Actually, the ER flubbed too. I saw in my discharge papers that I supposedly got 2 neb treatments 30 minutes apart, which is a lie! I wish that had happened! ER Fail.

2)Not breathing is easier than HPA axis suppression. I have said that before and I was so not kidding. I was/am/always will be desperate to protect myself from suppression.

So 125mg solumedrol was the most I got. I metabolized it very quickly--the steroid withdrawal hit me not even 12 hours later, which I thought was strange. Usually it lasts more than 24 hours before assaulting me with full body muscle cramps.

Going back to my original theory--I didn't stress dose enough and put myself in the hole. That one is fairly plausible. I was stingy with the steroids and suspect this is the price I pay for that. Let's hope my payment plan is enough for the piper.

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10 mg

I felt horrid all weekend. Ended up with that 5mg dose on Sunday and tried to do without the next day. Monday was okay-ish so long as I sat on my ass, which I mostly did. When I perked up a bit at night, I decided to go for a walk.

Ha.

That's rich. Me? Exercise? Only if the sad zombie shuffle counts as aerobic activity. Made it four blocks on weak legs and called it quits.

Tuesday, was worse than Monday. Ostensibly due to my zombie workout. Had a hard time staying awake, my eyes kept closing. My legs were very weak, like a weight was pressing me down, demanding I kneel. I couldn't handle the stairs without stopping to wait for my legs to recover and had to sit a lot. Gait was slow and stumbling. The last time it was this bad was right after the adrenal crisis last year, so it really got my attention.

Breathing was fine. No shortness of breathe. No chest pain or pressure. Any asthma was mild, still reacting to the tomato pepper 'poisoning.'

Since I had an IV appointment with Dr. Alternative, I held off on steroids. Yes, I drove with eyes that would not stay open. I'm going to try not to do that again.

Dr. Alternative was not in the clinic so I threw caution to the wind and took 5mg with the goal of improving my driving. That opened my eyes, but my legs were still very weak. So I did another 5mg and that did the trick.

My theory is I probably underdosed the stress dosing while I was actively ill and I'm in the hole. I need to stress dose for a while to climb back out. I'll be starting with 5mg and see how that goes. The goal is to get me functioning at a level higher than the sentient vegetable I've been of late.

Although we'll see what Dr. Alternative thinks--maybe they have a trick or two up their sleeve.

Oh, how was the Meyer's Cocktail? Yesterday's IV infusion was the first where I've been healthy enough not to have an acute asthma response. It still kind of wiped me out despite the steroids though, which I don't think it's supposed to do. I don't know.

I got a hug from another patient though. I must be scoring high on the pity index. That has not really ever been my life's goal.

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Allergic Asthma?

Yesterday was full of surprises.

My energy was low and it took me a while to figure it out.

I forgot to take my nightly dose of licorice. And my body really cared about that. It missed it like some people miss Bill Clinton's presidency.

By the time I was a slumped lump with the toddler in the church nursery, literally unable to keep my eyes open and trying to figure out where on the floor I could lay down without anyone seeing me, I realized I probably should stress dose.

There was a lot of breakfast and my morning vitamins in my stomach so it seemed like it took forever for 5mg to hit me, but ever so gradually, I could keep my eyes open.

Yes, that was the big battle of my day. Not sprawling across frayed church carpet and staying conscious. I still konked out later, in my bed, at home, without any public drooling, which I count as a win.

It's interesting to note that my am cortisol a few weeks ago was 15. Not too shabby. Quite good in fact. I continue to believe it's an issue of responding to stress--that I don't have the full spectrum of functionality. Which is almost impossible to measure with blood work. I would need an ITT or OMM to even come close to understanding the failures in my HPA axis.

Anyway, from there, I had some salsa. Tomatoes are an iffy food for me these days, sometimes okay, sometimes not. This time not. Or rather, I think the big chunks of pepper were the problem.

The interesting thing, it caused an asthma flare. I began hacking, my throat began to itch (an itch I've known to be asthma in the past) and I got a little flash of heart burn (although, thankfully, no eruption of Mt. Acid).

Okay, so now I want to say I don't think I've had food allergies all along. I think this is a new development. That I had GERD, which is currently controlled with the enzymes, but now allergies are coming up. I've had some sensitivity to peppers off and on since my 20s, but food triggering asthma is completely new, never experienced before.

The reason I back track is I was remembering when GERD started for me and I ate no trigger foods for weeks and weeks and it didn't improve. So the GERD is not as simple as never eating another tomato or pepper.

I think I have new food allergies, which is not great news. It would've been better the way I originally took it, that they'd been there all along. The last thing I need is an even more hyper-sensitive system!

Now what do I do about it? Avoid the offending foods and what? Am I really never going to eat chocolate again? Or tomato bisque? Or cucumber salad? Ever?

I did test some organic cocoa powder in a smoothie. It did not cause heartburn, but I did have some nausea. I want to try it one more time with a smaller dose.

My mind is just boggled by this. I don't want any allergies!

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Chugging Along

More fatigue today than yesterday. I think. I didn't quite wake up until around 3pm yesterday, so it wasn't like I was bursting with energy, but today just seems 'tireder' for whatever reason.

However, I think things are, overall, improved. Possibly because stress dosing doesn't leave me buried in fatigue and a strained system failing to meet demand. I'm staying out of the hole!

Or maybe things are just getting better.

Or maybe it's both.

We'll see what shakes out. Tomorrow I hope to go to Zumba and I will stress dose for that since it will be the first time since October.

Our visiting relative left this morning and the toddler goes back to school today, meaning the holidays are over for us. It was fun. I'm going to miss them (both the holidays and the relative).

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