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Old 12-23-2015, 08:28 AM   #1
Snakeadelic
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Join Date: May 2015
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The Fine Art Of Losing One's Mind

I'm pretty sure just about 97% of y'all who read this are going to be having a happier whatever-holiday-you-celebrate than what I'm getting.

I have developed a severe allergic reaction that started with my blood pressure medication deciding my existing allergies (smoke, artificial scent, neoprene, penicillin, & opiate/opioid painkillers) needed company. Last Sat. started with me waking up to find the left side of my face weirdly swollen. When being up & about did not help it by getting my circulation going, I called a triage nurse line available in my area.

On their advice, off to the ER. Diagnosis: angioedema, which means "sudden-onset tissue swelling due to capillary blood vessels becoming inflamed". They sent me home with advice to get some Benadryl & take it every 6 hours. I did so--I even had the Benadryl already for summer days when my regular allergy meds don't do it.

At noon I called the triage nurses again, because not only was the swelling worse it had crossed the vertical midline of my face by way of my upper lip. Back to ER, this time coming home with a med that, historically, causes necrotic skin lesions in every woman I share mitochondrial DNA with via my maternal grandmother--my mom's 1 brother died childless, so my aunts & their daughters all have that same mito-DNA. If you're not familiar with the term 'necrotic skin lesions' I do NOT recommend looking it up unless you have a strong stomach. My mother has to take the same med every day & would not let me photograph her this summer due to scarring.

When I saw my MD on Monday (required after an ER visit because I am on a pain contract for medication, even tho' pain meds were not used in the ER) we sorted the mess.

Step 1: I can never take an ACE inhibitor for blood pressure again. That's been switched.

Step 2: This is where the trouble starts. My beloved partner of 12 yrs was furious with me last we spoke, because according to his medical experiences (which have been legitimately awful) if you react to a drug and are taken off it, the reaction doesn't recur. 2 triage nurses, 2 ER nurses, the ER physician & my primary MD all disagree. That's the real hell of angioedema. Now that I have had 1 attack another can be precipitated by ANY allergen or by too much stress.

Step 3: The biggest issue is the woman who lives downstairs. Her dryer vent is directly below the only access to my unit & she uses highly allergenic products that she has known for YEARS cause me serious problems--I told her so myself. When I said I had to go upstairs & spend the rest of the afternoon taking Rx anti-vomiting medication because I am badly allergic to her dryer sheets, her exact answer was "It's a dryer BAR, not a SHEET." Then she shut her door in my face & has not spoken to me in the 3+ years it's been since then, nor has she ever used an unscented dryer product. Every manager during our 8-year tenancy in our current unit has asked her to switch to unscented for my safety & she refuses because I am not HER family & so I'm not important. Because of the Fair Housing laws, the MT Board of Housing regs & the rules of the property's Section 42 Tax Credit status, there is exactly ZERO management can do to get her to care about being a lethal danger to me. I got lucky...angioedema's favorite target is the trachea. I will have to have Benadryl with me for the rest of my life to keep my airways from swelling shut if someone wearing Axe products walks too close to me. The only option the owners are allowing the manager to offer is that those of us who have paid their rent on time every month since Oct '07 and have NO complaints in their file will move & they want us to take a unit 100 feet downwind of the complex laundry room! The woman downstairs also has a hobby. For the last 5 years she's been babysitting one of her family; from the age gap I sure's hell hope it's a great-grandkid because baby-dumped's mama is nowhere near 30 yet and the tenant looks like that moment in Fellowship of the Ring when Bilbo goes all shadowy & roaring over giving up the ring. I've been a health care provider for 30 YEARS and I'd swear she is at least 75, so if that's her grandkid she locks in for 6-10 hours a day up to 6 days a week, baby-mama must have been a hell of a late-life surprise! The kid is now school age & has spent more time locked up in a 650-sf apartment than with her actual mom. There is rarely company, & when there is there are no other kids, just adults. She isn't allowed outside, but she can see the playground right across the street. I'm kind of surprised she hasn't taken a lighter to the drapes, really!

Step 4: Last night I found out about the possibility of myself, my primary partner of 12 years & my extra partner of 7 years (everyone knows, nobody has issues with this part) possibly being able to acquire the lease on a duplex. This would eliminate upstairs noise (extra partner lives downstairs in 1 of 4 units in this building & his upstairs neighbor likes to drink, scream f-bombs & slap his bratty toddler around) & having allergenic artificial scent forced on me whenever the downstairs tenant washes laundry--which is often. My primary partner, fueled by believing my allergy could not recur, pretty much exploded. He's tired of my "neighbor wars". He does NOT want to move & he doesn't want to live alone either. I don't know who will have to tell him he may very well only get one of those choices, but it won't be me. What started off as "we may have a perfect solution here" ended with him saying "I do not want to talk to you any more. Just leave me ALONE." No time limit was specified so I have no idea what might happen when he wakes up now that I'm back upstairs.

Step 5: Back to ER after having a MONSTER panic attack last night. Another service offered here is anyone who feels they are in a serious mental health crisis can call 911 & request the mental health on-call, who will call the person in crisis as soon as they're able. All the licensed mental health personnel in the area take shifts. Before I had to shut off extra partner's cell phone at the ER, the on-call had put in a message to my former Adult Case Manager that it is urgent I get signed right back up for her assistance. In the ER, it was rapidly decided that my tranq's in pill form would not be fast enough & I got a whopper of a shot of tranqs (in my butt, & she hit a nerve & almost locked up a muscle on the needle, such fun!). Then the other side of my face started swelling visibly right in front of the doc, who immediately dumped more nasty meds on me. Then the asthma attack hit & it was a while before we could find a nurse to find out it would be okay to use my emergency inhaler. Which, of course, turned out to be as useful as saline solution because I rarely need it & it had expired. A replacement was provided & after 2 doses it still took 2 hours to get my breathing normal.

Step 6: I take care of extra partner at night (he has cerebral palsy and suffers the lifelong effects of several severe injuries) as a regular part of our routines. This morning I woke to him crying--I don't know if I've seen him cry ever before in 7 years--because he thought my 1st choice was to just move out alone.

Step 7: It's Dec. 23. I already had an appt. with my psych prescriber for 9 am today & while there I will be begging on my KNEES if necessary for a 2nd crisis appt. this week with my therapist, who works in the same office & who I saw Monday due to the Sat. ER visits. The ER doc last night told me I had to follow up w/my MD today & I said "Uh, yeah, if he has the time." ER doc's answer was "I'll be calling & they WILL be seeing you when I say they need to." Didn't know they could do that! In addition, I will quite likely be meeting with the ACM, making for a busy day that my primary partner does not know about because he's asleep.

Step 8: There are no words to cover how grateful I am that I don't have to plan or be at huge holiday events. Primary's relatives are 350 miles away in the ID Panhandle area. Extra's family is 700 miles & 3 mtn ranges away & my family is 50 miles more in the same direction, barely 25 miles short of a 4th mountain range. This has already been a very long week since Sat. morning as I wait for the Wed. sunrise.

If I can leave any patient readers w/advice I TRULY believe in it is this: Do not let anyone make you feel stigmatized, unworthy, or less of a human being if you have mental health challenges. Help isn't always easy to find & what works for me won't always work for anyone else. Contrary to what the pharma companies would have us believe not everyone's body & brain work the same, but the 1 thing I'm sure of in what tattered, terrified little soul I have is that hiding mental illness, denying the possibility that some problems may have a medical solution, or tearing down people you know are mentally ill are all REALLY BAD IDEAS.

1 thing that has often worked for me is a quick & easy mantra: hope for the best, plan for the worst, land in between. In that spirit I'm going to have to pare down my collections of heavy things--but I am NOT getting rid of all of them.

I hope that someday this will find someone who needs help & something I've said will point them to a path they had not previously found out of darkness, misery, danger & fear.
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Old 12-23-2015, 09:50 AM   #2
Undertoad
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Quote:
I hope that someday this will find someone who needs help & something I've said will point them to a path they had not previously found out of darkness, misery, danger & fear.
I hope that for my posts too.

So: you're presenting with a history of anxiety disorder and panic, and now in addition you cannot abide certain products with a scent?

This is multiple chemical sensitivity

You should be on an SSRI. It will cure your dryer sheet issue. It worked for me, not over chemical sensitivity, but other things.

One of your docs has suggested a relatively benign over-the-counter medication Benadryl for its placebo effect as you will be highly sensitive to that effect. I suggest you take it. It will help. But you should be on something stronger.

Quote:
A replacement was provided & after 2 doses it still took 2 hours to get my breathing normal
Asthma inhalers (I used them for years) work immediately by relaxing the bronchial tubes that lead to the alveoli where oxygen is exchanged. They won't work if your issue is not a histamine reaction tightening those tubes. The issue is in your head, not your lungs.
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Old 12-23-2015, 11:28 AM   #3
xoxoxoBruce
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Damn, Snake, how come you got such a large allotment of fun? That ain't fair. Some of that fun should be spread over say, a thousand or two other people.

Well, in addition to the meds and doctors and shrinks, you've got the Cellar, so you've got that going for you.
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Old 12-23-2015, 01:40 PM   #4
sexobon
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Snakeadelic View Post
... I have developed a severe allergic reaction that started with my blood pressure medication deciding my existing allergies (smoke, artificial scent, neoprene, penicillin, & opiate/opioid painkillers) needed company. ...
It's unfortunate that anything a person has a bad reaction to is often placed in the Allergies section of their medical records without qualifiers.

True allergies cause a histamine reaction for which antihistamines can be used. Other reactions, that don't cause histamine release, include idiosyncratic (from drugs) / idiopathic (various conditions), and psychosomatic (indirect relationship). It's important for a person having reactions of more than one type to distinguish between them.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Snakeadelic View Post
... The biggest issue is the woman who lives downstairs. Her dryer vent is directly below the only access to my unit & she uses highly allergenic products that she has known for YEARS cause me serious problems...
... there is exactly ZERO management can do to get her to care about being a lethal danger to me. ...
If this was a true allergy with potentially lethal consequences, you would probably have been prescribed an anaphylaxis kit and taught how to use it.

If it's not a true allergy, the antihistamine Benadryl will likely only work as a placebo for the other aforementioned types of reactions. UT suggests you should be on something stronger; however, that's not for an antihistamine effect ... that's for antidepressant and antianxiety effects. A property of antihistamines led to the development of SSRIs. Depression and anxiety have been associated with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity like you experience.
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