Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Once again, I apologize for my absence. The irony here is that I’m not feeling up to managing my blog for those with chronic illness… because I’m too busy struggling with my own chronic illness.

The latest update in this saga is a doozy. Yesterday I got hives on my hands. This morning my mom emailed two of my doctors and both of them said to go off of the medication I’ve been on for the past three weeks because they think I’m having an allergic reaction. This medication was supposed to help with my nerve pain, but all it’s done is made things ten times worse.

We’re not quite sure if I am indeed allergic to this, but time will tell. Until then, I’m dealing with even more agony than I thought I could withstand. It’s funny. I keep thinking things can’t get worse, and then they do. I keep wishing I could go back to the way I was back before this yeast overgrowth started, when I dealt with only fibro. Yes, it was pain. Yes, I hated it. But it was ten times better than what I’m going through now.

The symptoms started surfacing about a week or two ago. I started having intense burning sensations, as if my skin was on fire from the inside. It was… to put it bluntly, as close to hell as I’ve ever come. It’s been miserable. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been dealing with what we think is a yeast overgrowth, so we thought the burning sensation was related to that since I’ve already been itching for the past two months. But then yesterday the hives showed up, like tiny little blisters scattered all across my hands. And we knew something wasn’t right.

In addition to that, the rest of my skin has been breaking out progressively over the past few weeks. When I had my friend out here visiting, my skin seemed like was starting to heal, but since then, more hives have popped up all over my body. I’m constantly accidentally scratching off the scabs and simply put, I look like a mess.

I am going to be very, very blunt. I’m pretty sure this is one of the worst things I’ve ever experienced—both the supposed medication allergy and the yeast overgrowth. I once again feel like I’m taking two steps forward, one step back. And just so you know, I’m completely convinced that everyone in hell has yeast overgrowths.

So now the plan is to gradually decrease the medication. Apparently this medication is an anti-seizure medication so they’re concerned that if I cut it out cold-turkey, I may have a seizure.

Great. And I was putting this stuff into my body?

Every pill I take of this, I feel like I’m just adding more poison to what is already a dire situation. I literally am so overwhelmed by my physical state. I feel like it’s consumed me to the point where I’ve had trouble focusing on anything else.

In the meantime, I’m going to try to take an oatmeal bath and try to hang in there until this medication and the yeast both get the heck out of my system. Whenever that is.