I am very cognizant of my stress levels because stress (physical or emotional) is a trigger for my illness. When I am too active, physically, or when I experience anxiety at high levels for whatever reason, my body reacts with an auto-immune response that includes joint pain, abdominal swelling and intestinal pain, chills, fever, skin rashes, light-headedness and (if I don’t take medication to counteract these symptoms) severe nausea, fever in the 103-104 degrees F range, vertigo, excessive vomiting and diarrhea that requires hospitalization. I’m pretty cognizant of when these flares are starting (after 15 years of dealing with them I should be) and so I take a corticosteroid, prednisone, to counteract the effects and prevent the worst case scenario from coming to pass.
Right now I’ve been taking prednisone (60 mg per day) for the past 3 days and I still fell like crap. My home life has not caused any anxiety or stress (even with a teenage daughter and my 22 year old son living at home with us). My physical activity has been within my normal range. No, the only thing stressing me out is the debt ceiling debate and the concern that if nothing is done my family’s meager life’s savings could be wiped out in a market crash and my wife could stop receiving her SSDI check, the major source of income for us. That the Tea Party faction in the House is playing Russian Roulette with my family’s future well being (and the well being of my children, and yes, even the well being of my relatives who are extremely conservative) is the only cause of stress in my life at the moment.
Right now, despite the high dose of steroids I’ve been on for three days, which usually knock out any autoimmune issues better than Manny Pacquiao destroys his opponents in the boxing ring, my skin is broken out in a rash, my left hip is extremely painful (for some reason it is that hip that always flares up when I have one of my episodes), I am experiencing chills and fever, I feel light-headed and my gut is distended and painful. and, oh yes, I am running to the john on a regular basis.
So, that’s where I’m at. How are you holding up?
