the road ahead
I am supposed to go to Birmingham on Wednesday for a week to see my sister and her family, and my 91 year old mom who is in a nursing home and suffers from dementia. Won't exactly be on the road, but more like on the airplane to Chicago, and then Birmingham. The problem is that I developed this horrible rash with blisters on it last Tuesday, and it's on my left side bum area, which makes it hard to sit. I went to the dermatologist on Friday, and found out it is shingles, which apparently lays dormant in your system once you've had chicken pox. The derm said that stress can weaken your immune system and once that happens, latent things can step forward. Along with the blisters are my swollen lymph nodes which feel like a narble beneath the skin and throb and hurt.
Okay, this is going to be another illness paragraph, and I am writing it to see if anyone understands what may be going on with me because perhaps you have experienced it yourself. For the last six months, my body has been super stressed out as I have been experiencing extreme body heat, and I'm thinking this is what may have brought on the shingles. It's mostly in my upper body, and I get so hot that I don't even take hot baths or showers anymore because it makes me feel even hotter and really sick. I have stopped eating meat because it makes me feel too hot, and I have been consulting a Chinese website that lists warm, cooling and neutral foods, and I am eating a lot of cooling foods like avocados and cucumbers and sesame oil. (Who knew sesame oil was cooling??) If I eat a warming food, I really feel uncomfortable, like there are burners beneath my skin and they are on medium heat. Ok, so this is not menopause because I've been there and done that, and this is more intense that that anyway...
I have been to an allergist, a naturopath, an endocrinologist, my primary care physician, a dermatologist, and no one can figure out what's causing this. Oh, and acupuncture and even it doesn't help. So I guess I am writing this in the hopes that maybe one of you, perhaps, can shed some light on this, albeit cooling light!
Thanks for listening!! I realize this might just also be one of those freaky things that burns itself out and moves on. Keeping my fingers crossed!!!
Hope you are all feeling healthy!!! And big hug!!
the road ahead
I am supposed to go to Birmingham on Wednesday for a week to see my sister and her family, and my 91 year old mom who is in a nursing home and suffers from dementia. Won't exactly be on the road, but more like on the airplane to Chicago, and then Birmingham. The problem is that I developed this horrible rash with blisters on it last Tuesday, and it's on my left side bum area, which makes it hard to sit. I went to the dermatologist on Friday, and found out it is shingles, which apparently lays dormant in your system once you've had chicken pox. The derm said that stress can weaken your immune system and once that happens, latent things can step forward. Along with the blisters are my swollen lymph nodes which feel like a narble beneath the skin and throb and hurt.
Okay, this is going to be another illness paragraph, and I am writing it to see if anyone understands what may be going on with me because perhaps you have experienced it yourself. For the last six months, my body has been super stressed out as I have been experiencing extreme body heat, and I'm thinking this is what may have brought on the shingles. It's mostly in my upper body, and I get so hot that I don't even take hot baths or showers anymore because it makes me feel even hotter and really sick. I have stopped eating meat because it makes me feel too hot, and I have been consulting a Chinese website that lists warm, cooling and neutral foods, and I am eating a lot of cooling foods like avocados and cucumbers and sesame oil. (Who knew sesame oil was cooling??) If I eat a warming food, I really feel uncomfortable, like there are burners beneath my skin and they are on medium heat. Ok, so this is not menopause because I've been there and done that, and this is more intense that that anyway...
I have been to an allergist, a naturopath, an endocrinologist, my primary care physician, a dermatologist, and no one can figure out what's causing this. Oh, and acupuncture and even it doesn't help. So I guess I am writing this in the hopes that maybe one of you, perhaps, can shed some light on this, albeit cooling light!
Thanks for listening!! I realize this might just also be one of those freaky things that burns itself out and moves on. Keeping my fingers crossed!!!
Hope you are all feeling healthy!!! And big hug!!