I spent the morning finishing up the timeline for my story and mocking up the first chapter. I'm on a roll with this one, and happy with the basic premise and the flow so far. I'll definitely be doing quite a bit of fine tuning with this one though.
My second high point of the morning was walking into the living room to find out Gears 3 arrived. Everything looks awesome so far, and I'm looking forward to playing it tonight.
The third great thing was I had my doctors appointment with my new GP. She was awesome. She was attentive, respectful of the fact that I've done my research on Celiac, and best of all she listened, and actually considered it as a possibility, and we talked about it for awhile. Actually talked about it. She's referred me to an allergist, and I hope to be making an appointment soon, even though it means eating gluten for two weeks beforehand. That's going to suck, but I feel like I'm finally making progress. None of my other doctors, or for that matter my friends and family have listened to my theories on possibly being Celiac, or having a gluten allergy/intolerance. I'm so happy that I'm finally making headway.
Showing posts with label celiac. Show all posts
Showing posts with label celiac. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Quick health update.
So, I self-diagnosed, and then had confirmed a possible urinary tract infection that had spread to my kidneys. This is what I assumed was causing all of my symptoms. (Nausea, bloody urine, body aches, fever, chills extreme fatigue which sounds like a horrible sport, ect.) I've been on antibiotics for a few days now, and all of the classic symptoms of UTI have disappeared. The only issue is that the nausea, and fatigue are still there, though the fatigue has gotten better. Granted, I've only been on the antibiotics for 4 days, and have another 6 to go. I'm hoping I can attribute any current nausea and fatigue to the antibiotics. If it's still going on after I finish them then I suppose it's back to the doctor. At least I have insurance now. My body aches are also persisting. I'm hoping I'm just sleeping wrong. In any case I still don't have the energy to leave the house for long, or even be sitting up for that matter. I have a couple hours of it in me at the most and then I'm just drained. I felt bad because I had to call off seeing a movie with my friend yesterday for her birthday. We ended up coming back to my house and watching tangled instead. It wasn't so bad but it was still annoying. I hate the fact that I have to limit so much of what I can do right now. If this keeps up I don't know how I'm ever going to get a job.
On another note, I've managed to not gluten myself accidentally for a week now. It's been nice to not throw up all the time. I'm still hoping that there's an alternate test they can do for celiac that doesn't involve me eating gluten for two weeks.
On another note, I've managed to not gluten myself accidentally for a week now. It's been nice to not throw up all the time. I'm still hoping that there's an alternate test they can do for celiac that doesn't involve me eating gluten for two weeks.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Long day
My long day technically started late last night, or rather I suppose I should say early. I started to get a bit of a migraine around 2 in the morning, and from there it seemed to get worse. I don't know if the extreme nausea was a result of the migraine or due to something else entirely, but I spent most of the night curled up on the floor in the bathroom hoping to throw up and get it over with. I ended up not throwing up as it turns out, and dragged myself back to bed with my boyfriend. I don't think I woke up until 4pm, maybe later. Have you ever woken up completely exhausted? As if you've spent the night running, and your body has turned to jelly? Yeah... I've been having period like cramps periodically, (my period doesn't start at all for the next three weeks,) and a terrible stomach ache. So I attempted to take a bath, and found that the heat was possibly making me even more miserable, and weak.
I eventually slummed my way out of the tub, only to end up on the living room couch where I pretty much stayed the rest of the evening. the one time I did force myself up to eat something I felt winded the entire time, and food caused my stomach to give me sharp pains in protest. My boyfriend actually left work early to come home and make sure I was doing alright, since even the motion of texting felt like a terrible burden. There's nothing quite like laying in one position all day long, feeling like your body has been stuffed with boulders. Ick. And of course I wasn't the least bit tired. I was just sapped of all energy. I was dreadfully bored, and couldn't do a thing about it.
I'm thinking that I must have overdone it yesterday when I went out with my friend. Maybe it was just too much for my system. Too hot, too much excitement, who knows. I'm hoping it doesn't become a regular occurrence that's all. I'd hate for my illness to get any more in the way of life than it already does.
Just in case anyone actually gets around to reading this post here's an interesting view in to life with a chronic illness/ condition.Celiac sucks, lupus sucks worse. My symptoms some day definitely keep me from doing things. In any case, just read it. It's quite informative: Spoon theory
I eventually slummed my way out of the tub, only to end up on the living room couch where I pretty much stayed the rest of the evening. the one time I did force myself up to eat something I felt winded the entire time, and food caused my stomach to give me sharp pains in protest. My boyfriend actually left work early to come home and make sure I was doing alright, since even the motion of texting felt like a terrible burden. There's nothing quite like laying in one position all day long, feeling like your body has been stuffed with boulders. Ick. And of course I wasn't the least bit tired. I was just sapped of all energy. I was dreadfully bored, and couldn't do a thing about it.
I'm thinking that I must have overdone it yesterday when I went out with my friend. Maybe it was just too much for my system. Too hot, too much excitement, who knows. I'm hoping it doesn't become a regular occurrence that's all. I'd hate for my illness to get any more in the way of life than it already does.
Just in case anyone actually gets around to reading this post here's an interesting view in to life with a chronic illness/ condition.Celiac sucks, lupus sucks worse. My symptoms some day definitely keep me from doing things. In any case, just read it. It's quite informative: Spoon theory
Monday, September 12, 2011
My ongoing journey to a gluten free life style.
An unfortunate side effect about the way I was raised was, and though I hate to admit it because I love my parents, obvious neglect of my health. My father had awesome health insurance. The kind that literally pays for everything you could possibly be cursed with, and throws in a free health club membership on top of it. It came in handy when my brother was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Insulin is expensive apparently.
Despite the awesome coverage, between my dads work hours, and mother's psychosis, health issues went largely ignored after the initial doctors visit. My entire life I've had issues with always being sick. Nausea, terrible asthma, eczema, sharp stomach pains, fevers, splitting headaches, indigestion, puking allergies, strep throat. It all sounds like normal kid sick (with a few exceptions,) but when its happening once every two weeks there's probably something wrong.
If it could be solved in one or two doctor visits we were generally good. Strep throat? No problem. Underlying autoimmune issues, not so much. Possibly why my brother had to slip into a ketoacidosis (essentially a diabetic coma in this case) before we knew things were serious. I don't blame my mother. I don't think she was in any emotional state to be addressing such things head on, and we were all missing the signs.My brother has a tendency not to speak up when he's not feeling well.
Back to me though, My stomach issues had been diagnosed as lactose intolerance, IBS, cysts, acid reflux, gas, stress, my imagination, just about everything, but the only diagnoses that went ignored, and probably would have saved me years of suffering was a simple one. A suggestion by my pediatrician to maybe try not eating gluten for a week or two. It didn't happen. one thing led to another, or there was possibly some crisis, and the issue remained unresolved and faded into obscurity as I was repeatedly told by my workplace to suck it up, and do my job.
I'm fairly certain that most of my bosses in the last 4 or 5 years have been convinced I was hypochondriac, or at the very least just trying to get out of work. What was really happening was that I was consuming so much gluten that I can't imagine the state of panic my body was constantly in over it's inability to tolerate it. It would occasionally hit tilt and I'd be in a world of discomfort, sometimes enough to greatly hinder my productivity.Unsurprisingly the B.R.A.T. diet doesn't work so well when you can't process one of the main components.I eventually convinced myself I was a hypochondriac instead of trusting my bodies interpretation of events which in turn led to yet more suffering in sometimes not so complete silence.
I'm certain that my diet over the years has definitely exacerbated the issue. I was essentially raised on processed foods, bread, and noodles. Pretty much exactly the wrong thing. Gourmet pizza, fast food, TV dinners. It's a wonder that I was never obese. Possibly the only thing saving me was the fact that I didn't eat so well most of the time. I managed lots of small meals but was largely put off by most foods, and would only eat small amounts at a time. It's amazing what you realize you lived with when it suddenly becomes a non-issue.
I was a really vanilla kid. I think this also led to the drawn out suffering of my glutened life. I honestly never drank (i had a sip of moms wine cooler once) until I hit 21. Then on my birthday I had a shot of Uuzo. Doesn't really count. Uuzo is gluten free. No, what really pushed the issue over the edge was when I finally decided I wanted to know what getting drunk was like. Up until this point I had never been able to get so much as a buzz off of alchohal. At first I thought that maybe I was just awesome or something, and could hold my liquor, since most of what I drank was hard alchohal, and I never felt a thing. I wanted to know my limits. So I went to my usual tavern, the one where the entire staff knows be by name, and I decided to do it with a group of close friends that I trust to keep me alive and with some semblance of dignity. So the night got underway and I eagerly partook in my fair share of various alcoholic beverages courtesy of whatever my bartender buddy happened to think I would get the most bang for my buck with. 7 or 8 drinks later I was annoyed, sober, and had to pee every five minutes. So the boys got the awesome idea to go for the hard hitter. I don't honestly remember what was in it. I know there was rum involved. I learned several things that night. One of which being that rum does not agree with me, but that aside it took that drink to finally get me a little tipsy, and then my stomach turned, and I decided I was done for the night, and would have to try with shots instead of the watered down stuff. Mixed drinks. Pish. In any case I wasn't able to get drunk, I felt like absolute shit, and I spent the entire night puking up bile. Not one of my best moments. My boyfriend didn't get a ton of sleep either. The poor man is a saint.
We tossed several theories around at the time. Ranging from too much overall liquid, to having mixed alcohols, and even stretching as far as a possible alcohol intolerance. There were wild theories abound. Of course my curiosity got the best of me. And I started looking into why I could have possibly reacted the way I did.
What followed after the experiment, other then a lengthy aversion to alcohol, was a general inability to eat food. The first week it was mostly nausea, and cramps when I ate, but over time it progressively got worse and any illusions that it had just been residual alcohol sick evaporated. It progressed to the point where I was getting regular migraines, throwing up small amounts after every meal, and I was chronically exhausted. I tried reverting to basic, simple foods. I ate a whole lot of bananas, rice, apple sauce, and toast. Simplifying things didn't alleviated my symptoms. At the time I had been exercising consistently every day with no results, and trying to eat healthily. Even though I'd had to severely cut back on my diet, I was exercising around two hours straight every day. Everything from belly dancing, to a small amount of Pilates. This all with absolutely no results.
After a small ocean vacation that involved me throwing up several times on the 3 hour car ride back (we'd had subway. Yum...) I decided I was done pussyfooting around the issue. And since at the time I didn't have health insurance I decided to do as I normally did when I got curious about something, or in this case fed up. I set out searching my symptoms online.I happened upon a plethora of different possibilities. One popped up frequently though, and stood out quite a bit. Gluten intolerance. The symptoms fit well enough, and it couldn't hurt. Plus I sort of remembered being told to try going gluten free once a long time ago. It would be easy enough to test. What could it hurt? Well apparently my self esteem for a couple months, but we'll get to that.
I suggested it to my boyfriend. He agreed it sounded reasonable, and so I tried it. I can't tell you how much better I began to feel only a day or two after I started. It was kind of like someone flipped a switch. Of course it would take awhile for me to completely cleanse my system, so results aren't immediate, but hey I felt pretty damn good. I stayed gluten free for a solid two weeks. (I ate very carefully. I didn't start slipping up until I branched out.)
I was pretty sure I found the culprit. And I'd find out the hard way that I was at least partially right. The problem with ruling out possibilities by yourself, and being on a new diet of any sort is that you have to teach yourself to read labels. And with gluten intolerance you have no choice. You have to read them religiously because no ones required to specifically inform you when they change their ingredients. My first, and worst mistake was as simple as a stick of licorice. A trip to the store, and a little ignorance was all it took. I didn't think that licorice would have wheat in it. Why would I? It's candy. But it does. Oh how it does.
I didn't get two bites in before I realized I was having trouble swallowing, and thank god i'm annoyingly vocal because I so just happened to mention it to my boyfriend.I don't know what cause the alarm bell to go off in his head, whether it be coming from a family of doctors, or just general intuition, but as soon as I mentioned I was having trouble swallowing he was already on his feet. The only thing he said before sweeping out of the room was "benedryl, now"
It kind of took me a moment to realize what he meant and why. I'd never had an anaphylactic reaction that severe in my life, and didn't understand it right away. I had simply mentioned it off hand, without honestly questioning why. The one time skepticism fails me... It didn't register until he returned benedryl in hand that I was having an allergic reaction, and a pretty severe one if how fast my throat was swelling up was any indication. I wasn't ready to panic just yet. Or perhaps I was just deluding myself into thinking it wasn't serious. But as worried as he visibly was, and as fast as my heart was beating I reasoned that we should get in the car and just sort of be on our way to an emergency room, you know, just in case it was actually something to worry about. Maybe that'd help calm him down. Well, we were new enough to the area that we didn't know where the nearest hospital was. We ended up phoning our next door neighbor at 2 in the morning asking where to find a hospital. Good times...
By the time we caught into the car I realized that hey, this was actually kind of serious, and I was just a little freaked out of my mind. Was I ready to die? Well, not really, but I suppose if I had to go it might as well be death by licorice. Then again I was probably getting ahead of myself. Or was I? I made a pact with my boyfriend to left him know if it got worse. As it was we were already speeding, and running red lights and the like. Hey it was cheaper then an ambulance. Because that exactly what I should be concerned about in a life or death situation. At least I was being proactive by getting in the car before I knew it was an emergency. ...right?
By the time we got near the hospital my throat was so swollen my ears were ringing. The benedryl had definitely been the right choice. Since the hospital was 30 minutes away. However it was only slowing down the process, and not stopping it completely. Finally the hospital is in sight and to our dismay we find all the access roads to the emergency room entrance blocked off, and detour signs. Seriously? Construction? Who does construction at a hospital? I realize that it probably needed to be done, and we were just the unlucky bearers of bad timing, but still. What luck huh?
It must have taken us an extra five minutes to find the emergency entrance VIA detour, and scope out parking. At this point even with my hearing severely impaired and a slight wheeze I was still trying to pass of the situation as an overreaction on my part. (I still find myself thinking that way despite having had this situation repeat itself several times since. Denial is powerful stuff.) I suppose my doubts should have been erased when I was stolen away from reception before I could even finish giving the receptionist my information, and immediately whisked onto a cozy hospital stretcher. I'd be getting very comfortable with this stretcher over the next five hours or so.
I was given an injection of benedryl directly into the blood stream. It is amazing how fast it worked. I immediately felt it burning in my throat and I could feel the life flooding back in. I remember making a comment to that effect. The nurse didn't seem terribly amused. She must hear it quite often. I have to say though, I am one of those people that just don't react well to any sort of high. I mean, if I'm simply in the same space as someone smoking weed, I get migraines, and start to lose my vision. Benedryl high has to be the worst feeling I have ever experienced, and I've been through withdrawals. (I feel the need to clarify. Sometimes depression can delude you into thinking you don't need your prescriptions. Stopping cold turkey? Probably not the best idea.) The benedryl is a downer, so of course it made me incredibly drowsy. But there was no way I was sleeping, because every time my body began to relax I got the most excruciating, agitating restless, ants crawling under my skin sensation, and I would have to clench every muscle in my body to force it past. It happened quite frequently. I actually resorted to playing math games on my cell phone, while essentially high, because it took my mind off of the sensation... sort of. I have to mention, math? Not my favorite thing in the world. I'm learning to enjoy parts of it now though.
I've also come to the conclusion that I get way too talkative when I'm high. I'm sure it was amusing to everyone else. After the hospital experience I was prescribed an epipen and told that I should probably avoid wheat until I knew what in specific I was reacting too. Definitely wheat as it turns out. Like I mentioned, it's happened since. Really got to pay more attention. This is about where all the interesting stuff ends, and we wrap up to my current status. Essentially, I am still technically undiagnosed, as I only recently received benefits. But essentially wheat will strangle me to death, and I've noticed that barley and rye, when consumed won't necessarily kill me but I might as well have swallowed broken glass for all the good they do me. I'm hoping I won't have to endure two weeks of hell to have a test done for Celiac, but we'll see. I have been offered moral support so at least I wont be doing it alone. As long as I avoid the wheat I think I'll be okay. Damn wheats out to get me. (A sense of humor about this sort of thing is good... right?)
Despite the awesome coverage, between my dads work hours, and mother's psychosis, health issues went largely ignored after the initial doctors visit. My entire life I've had issues with always being sick. Nausea, terrible asthma, eczema, sharp stomach pains, fevers, splitting headaches, indigestion, puking allergies, strep throat. It all sounds like normal kid sick (with a few exceptions,) but when its happening once every two weeks there's probably something wrong.
If it could be solved in one or two doctor visits we were generally good. Strep throat? No problem. Underlying autoimmune issues, not so much. Possibly why my brother had to slip into a ketoacidosis (essentially a diabetic coma in this case) before we knew things were serious. I don't blame my mother. I don't think she was in any emotional state to be addressing such things head on, and we were all missing the signs.My brother has a tendency not to speak up when he's not feeling well.
Back to me though, My stomach issues had been diagnosed as lactose intolerance, IBS, cysts, acid reflux, gas, stress, my imagination, just about everything, but the only diagnoses that went ignored, and probably would have saved me years of suffering was a simple one. A suggestion by my pediatrician to maybe try not eating gluten for a week or two. It didn't happen. one thing led to another, or there was possibly some crisis, and the issue remained unresolved and faded into obscurity as I was repeatedly told by my workplace to suck it up, and do my job.
I'm fairly certain that most of my bosses in the last 4 or 5 years have been convinced I was hypochondriac, or at the very least just trying to get out of work. What was really happening was that I was consuming so much gluten that I can't imagine the state of panic my body was constantly in over it's inability to tolerate it. It would occasionally hit tilt and I'd be in a world of discomfort, sometimes enough to greatly hinder my productivity.Unsurprisingly the B.R.A.T. diet doesn't work so well when you can't process one of the main components.I eventually convinced myself I was a hypochondriac instead of trusting my bodies interpretation of events which in turn led to yet more suffering in sometimes not so complete silence.
I'm certain that my diet over the years has definitely exacerbated the issue. I was essentially raised on processed foods, bread, and noodles. Pretty much exactly the wrong thing. Gourmet pizza, fast food, TV dinners. It's a wonder that I was never obese. Possibly the only thing saving me was the fact that I didn't eat so well most of the time. I managed lots of small meals but was largely put off by most foods, and would only eat small amounts at a time. It's amazing what you realize you lived with when it suddenly becomes a non-issue.
I was a really vanilla kid. I think this also led to the drawn out suffering of my glutened life. I honestly never drank (i had a sip of moms wine cooler once) until I hit 21. Then on my birthday I had a shot of Uuzo. Doesn't really count. Uuzo is gluten free. No, what really pushed the issue over the edge was when I finally decided I wanted to know what getting drunk was like. Up until this point I had never been able to get so much as a buzz off of alchohal. At first I thought that maybe I was just awesome or something, and could hold my liquor, since most of what I drank was hard alchohal, and I never felt a thing. I wanted to know my limits. So I went to my usual tavern, the one where the entire staff knows be by name, and I decided to do it with a group of close friends that I trust to keep me alive and with some semblance of dignity. So the night got underway and I eagerly partook in my fair share of various alcoholic beverages courtesy of whatever my bartender buddy happened to think I would get the most bang for my buck with. 7 or 8 drinks later I was annoyed, sober, and had to pee every five minutes. So the boys got the awesome idea to go for the hard hitter. I don't honestly remember what was in it. I know there was rum involved. I learned several things that night. One of which being that rum does not agree with me, but that aside it took that drink to finally get me a little tipsy, and then my stomach turned, and I decided I was done for the night, and would have to try with shots instead of the watered down stuff. Mixed drinks. Pish. In any case I wasn't able to get drunk, I felt like absolute shit, and I spent the entire night puking up bile. Not one of my best moments. My boyfriend didn't get a ton of sleep either. The poor man is a saint.
We tossed several theories around at the time. Ranging from too much overall liquid, to having mixed alcohols, and even stretching as far as a possible alcohol intolerance. There were wild theories abound. Of course my curiosity got the best of me. And I started looking into why I could have possibly reacted the way I did.
What followed after the experiment, other then a lengthy aversion to alcohol, was a general inability to eat food. The first week it was mostly nausea, and cramps when I ate, but over time it progressively got worse and any illusions that it had just been residual alcohol sick evaporated. It progressed to the point where I was getting regular migraines, throwing up small amounts after every meal, and I was chronically exhausted. I tried reverting to basic, simple foods. I ate a whole lot of bananas, rice, apple sauce, and toast. Simplifying things didn't alleviated my symptoms. At the time I had been exercising consistently every day with no results, and trying to eat healthily. Even though I'd had to severely cut back on my diet, I was exercising around two hours straight every day. Everything from belly dancing, to a small amount of Pilates. This all with absolutely no results.
After a small ocean vacation that involved me throwing up several times on the 3 hour car ride back (we'd had subway. Yum...) I decided I was done pussyfooting around the issue. And since at the time I didn't have health insurance I decided to do as I normally did when I got curious about something, or in this case fed up. I set out searching my symptoms online.I happened upon a plethora of different possibilities. One popped up frequently though, and stood out quite a bit. Gluten intolerance. The symptoms fit well enough, and it couldn't hurt. Plus I sort of remembered being told to try going gluten free once a long time ago. It would be easy enough to test. What could it hurt? Well apparently my self esteem for a couple months, but we'll get to that.
I suggested it to my boyfriend. He agreed it sounded reasonable, and so I tried it. I can't tell you how much better I began to feel only a day or two after I started. It was kind of like someone flipped a switch. Of course it would take awhile for me to completely cleanse my system, so results aren't immediate, but hey I felt pretty damn good. I stayed gluten free for a solid two weeks. (I ate very carefully. I didn't start slipping up until I branched out.)
I was pretty sure I found the culprit. And I'd find out the hard way that I was at least partially right. The problem with ruling out possibilities by yourself, and being on a new diet of any sort is that you have to teach yourself to read labels. And with gluten intolerance you have no choice. You have to read them religiously because no ones required to specifically inform you when they change their ingredients. My first, and worst mistake was as simple as a stick of licorice. A trip to the store, and a little ignorance was all it took. I didn't think that licorice would have wheat in it. Why would I? It's candy. But it does. Oh how it does.
I didn't get two bites in before I realized I was having trouble swallowing, and thank god i'm annoyingly vocal because I so just happened to mention it to my boyfriend.I don't know what cause the alarm bell to go off in his head, whether it be coming from a family of doctors, or just general intuition, but as soon as I mentioned I was having trouble swallowing he was already on his feet. The only thing he said before sweeping out of the room was "benedryl, now"
It kind of took me a moment to realize what he meant and why. I'd never had an anaphylactic reaction that severe in my life, and didn't understand it right away. I had simply mentioned it off hand, without honestly questioning why. The one time skepticism fails me... It didn't register until he returned benedryl in hand that I was having an allergic reaction, and a pretty severe one if how fast my throat was swelling up was any indication. I wasn't ready to panic just yet. Or perhaps I was just deluding myself into thinking it wasn't serious. But as worried as he visibly was, and as fast as my heart was beating I reasoned that we should get in the car and just sort of be on our way to an emergency room, you know, just in case it was actually something to worry about. Maybe that'd help calm him down. Well, we were new enough to the area that we didn't know where the nearest hospital was. We ended up phoning our next door neighbor at 2 in the morning asking where to find a hospital. Good times...
By the time we caught into the car I realized that hey, this was actually kind of serious, and I was just a little freaked out of my mind. Was I ready to die? Well, not really, but I suppose if I had to go it might as well be death by licorice. Then again I was probably getting ahead of myself. Or was I? I made a pact with my boyfriend to left him know if it got worse. As it was we were already speeding, and running red lights and the like. Hey it was cheaper then an ambulance. Because that exactly what I should be concerned about in a life or death situation. At least I was being proactive by getting in the car before I knew it was an emergency. ...right?
By the time we got near the hospital my throat was so swollen my ears were ringing. The benedryl had definitely been the right choice. Since the hospital was 30 minutes away. However it was only slowing down the process, and not stopping it completely. Finally the hospital is in sight and to our dismay we find all the access roads to the emergency room entrance blocked off, and detour signs. Seriously? Construction? Who does construction at a hospital? I realize that it probably needed to be done, and we were just the unlucky bearers of bad timing, but still. What luck huh?
It must have taken us an extra five minutes to find the emergency entrance VIA detour, and scope out parking. At this point even with my hearing severely impaired and a slight wheeze I was still trying to pass of the situation as an overreaction on my part. (I still find myself thinking that way despite having had this situation repeat itself several times since. Denial is powerful stuff.) I suppose my doubts should have been erased when I was stolen away from reception before I could even finish giving the receptionist my information, and immediately whisked onto a cozy hospital stretcher. I'd be getting very comfortable with this stretcher over the next five hours or so.
I was given an injection of benedryl directly into the blood stream. It is amazing how fast it worked. I immediately felt it burning in my throat and I could feel the life flooding back in. I remember making a comment to that effect. The nurse didn't seem terribly amused. She must hear it quite often. I have to say though, I am one of those people that just don't react well to any sort of high. I mean, if I'm simply in the same space as someone smoking weed, I get migraines, and start to lose my vision. Benedryl high has to be the worst feeling I have ever experienced, and I've been through withdrawals. (I feel the need to clarify. Sometimes depression can delude you into thinking you don't need your prescriptions. Stopping cold turkey? Probably not the best idea.) The benedryl is a downer, so of course it made me incredibly drowsy. But there was no way I was sleeping, because every time my body began to relax I got the most excruciating, agitating restless, ants crawling under my skin sensation, and I would have to clench every muscle in my body to force it past. It happened quite frequently. I actually resorted to playing math games on my cell phone, while essentially high, because it took my mind off of the sensation... sort of. I have to mention, math? Not my favorite thing in the world. I'm learning to enjoy parts of it now though.
I've also come to the conclusion that I get way too talkative when I'm high. I'm sure it was amusing to everyone else. After the hospital experience I was prescribed an epipen and told that I should probably avoid wheat until I knew what in specific I was reacting too. Definitely wheat as it turns out. Like I mentioned, it's happened since. Really got to pay more attention. This is about where all the interesting stuff ends, and we wrap up to my current status. Essentially, I am still technically undiagnosed, as I only recently received benefits. But essentially wheat will strangle me to death, and I've noticed that barley and rye, when consumed won't necessarily kill me but I might as well have swallowed broken glass for all the good they do me. I'm hoping I won't have to endure two weeks of hell to have a test done for Celiac, but we'll see. I have been offered moral support so at least I wont be doing it alone. As long as I avoid the wheat I think I'll be okay. Damn wheats out to get me. (A sense of humor about this sort of thing is good... right?)
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