Aw, Geez....

Photo from mahalo.com

I guess I'm in this for the long haul. The hives came back with a vengence as soon as I stopped taking the prednisone. And steroids are not good for you at all, so I can't take any more. I've been back to the Doctor twice, more medications have been prescribed, meds that I was already taking were ditched (in case they were causing the reaction) and I've had bad reactions to two of the new ones. One made me violently ill and so dizzy I could hardly stand up and the other put me to sleep for 18 hours straight. I've eliminated any questionable things from my diet and my environment and it makes no difference. One Doctor said he thought I had a milk allergy, so I've eliminated dairy from my diet for the last five days. (That's a hard one. There's dairy in EVERYTHING, even non-dairy creamer!) Right now I've found one antihistamine that will knock the itch down to a tolerable level and the only side effects are some digestive issues (I'll spare you the details) and mild sleepiness, but the rash never goes away compeltely.

Photo by lanikai92 on flickr

I'm acting like a bear -- rubbing my back on door trim -- to get to the places I can't reach!

I'm feeling quite depressed. It could be all the meds I've been taking, or it could be that I'm just disgusted by this whole thing. And reading the internet is not always a good thing because I've found people who have had hives for YEARS with NO relief. We've had some beautiful spring-like days recently that I have not been able to enjoy because I'm too sleepy to go outside. A two-hour nap each day is not an unusual thing. Or, it could be that I'm tired of paying for Doctor visits and for drugs that don't work. (Why won't Walmart give me my money back when I've only taken one pill out of a $58.00 prescription?) These things I've been taking are no more than a shot in the dark to see if we can find something that works and our screwed-up health care system isn't helping.

Well, you probably don't want to hear any more about this, so I'll stop. Good thoughts and prayers are always appreciated and that just might work better than anything the Doctors have to offer! Thanks for letting me rant.