Low Thyroid and Hives

I Need Patience

Spent the day today taking a relative to a "Parkinson's Clinic".  This is some clinic administrator's idea of how to market adjunct services to an already ill clientele.  If you weren't ill before you got there, you would be ill and exhausted after you escaped.  Got there at 8:00 in the morning and finally left at about 3:00 in the afternoon.  According to my relative a lot of time back in the warren of offices there was spent waiting on the doctor to appear.  They get you captive back in one of the little exam rooms and it becomes almost impossible to leave, and at a certain point you have so much time and effort invested in "sticking" it out to see the doctor you hate to just walk.  The supposed advantage was getting to see a social worker and a physical therapist at the same time as seeing the doctor, except there weren't any physical therapists there. Augggghh!!!

My blood tests have come saying I am not taking enough thyroid hormone (synthroid).  Since I have autoimmune thyroid disease and autoimmune hives, my hives are believed to be linked with thyroid dysfunction.  More circulating thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) can mean more autoimmune activity, which in turns causes more hives....which may be why my hives have doubled since discontinuing the prednisone.  My TSH should be in a range of .5 to 3, and it was an 11 - meaning my pituitary glad is working overtime trying to jump start my thyroid. I am to give try a week on the new dosage and if the hives don't get better, I'm to go back to the immunologist.  Sigh.  I have been on a stable dose for the last two years, I guess my body has decided to go into attack mode again.  Why can't it attack something other than me??

I am itchy and grumpy and all of the seven dwarfs combined tonight.  Sitting in a waiting room was hard on The Legs today and The Belly hasn't been a happy camper for over a week.  I have hives bumped up all over me, my face is redder than normal, and I have the attention span of a gnat.  I actually feel sick enough I don't even want to think about work, and work is my only escape from feeling sick!!  Sigh again.

I am sooooo tired my thoughts are "echoing" in my head, ricocheting around my skull like a superball in a handball court.  I have tiny little red hives all over my forehead, in my hair, on my back, and on my legs.  I have even bigger hives on my stomach and my arms.  The Headache is not happy with me (too much walking I fear) so I am going to take many antihistimines and try to go to sleep.  Maybe I can sleep for years just like Sleeping Beauty.  You really have to be sleep deprived to wish that a witch with a poison apple would drop by for a visit!

No Sleeping Beauty

Insomnia Persists

Prednisone and my allergic reaction are still keeping me from sleep.  I did nap a little yesterday and today, so I think I may have had a total of 8 hours of sleep in the last six days.  I don't think I will even bother to try tonight - I need to be at the airport by 7 am since I have to be hand patted down because of the stimulator and I'm carrying a bucket load of medication including a fair amount of liquid medication and that throws the TSA screening completely out of whack.

I bought a backpack today that I can carry my laptop in if needed.  I have a laptop case on wheels but its just too large for these little planes I have been hopping.  I'm not going to take my ancient laptop with me this time; its very heavy.  It contains some legacy software that won't load on the newest versions of Windows, so the old thing is necessary but it weighs a ton.  I went into work and printed off some materials, gathered up some thumb drives with info, and worked on a couple of more projects that I just didn't have the concentration to finish.  I'll use the backpack this time to carry my medication, my plane pillow, my plane blanket, my reading material, my printed training materials and my chewing gum (my ears pop too much when I fly so I chew gum).

I'm still having swelling in my throat, my lips, my baggy eyes, and a lot of edema in my lower legs.  All that fluid has to go somewhere and gravity dictates where.  It seems to be somewhere my kidneys can't grab it until it gets down to my feet and then it gradually will disappear.  Hoping that flying this week won't aggravate it - in the past I have blown up like a balloon during the flight when still in the process of hiving.  Not sure why - maybe it's the inactivity or just the crowded closeness you can't avoid with nowhere to put your feet up or maybe the pressurized cabin. I'm glad to go see our clients - wish I had been able to go last week but since I had this durn flare of hives it probably was a good thing I didn't.

I guess I will sleep on the plane flights tomorrow if I can, and on the ride to the hotel.  That is a definite advantage of being very very very very very sleepy.  I quit driving for work purposes this summer - the medication levels and the daytime sleepiness were not good combos for driving, nor were my tingley numb legs.  I just don't want to expose the company I work for with any liability for my impaired ability to drive, so I will be chauffered by coworkers all week.  They are all great drivers so I'm happy to ride.  If I wanted to strike out on my own in the evening the hotel is just a couple of blocks from fast food places and Wal-Mart so I could walk there easily.

Haven't packed my bag yet.  Not sure what I am waiting for.  Procrastination is not my friend.  I think my brain is just so tired from not sleeping and being on prednisone overdrive that even making small decisions is hard.  With the swelling still active and the hives and angioedema trying to revive about 18 hours after I take the prednisone I don't think I just stop taking it.  I will be in trouble if I try.  I did buy some liquid benedryl capsules today, as they are a little more quick acting than the tablets.  I'm out of my benedryl/phenergan skin cream so until I get it ordered at the compounding pharmacy I will have to depend on oral dosing.

Let's see - I will be carrying at least 18 medications with me.  There are probably a couple I have forgotten.  Almost all of those medications this time are to manage my hives. Costly problem.  Wishing it would go away puhleeeese. Ah well, enough fooling around - I better decide what outfits I'm going to wear next week and get things done.  No one's going to do it for me.  At least when I leave on a jet plane I know when I will be back again - next Saturday this time!