Jaw Ache, Flu and Impetigo (by sarah)

I had been meaning to book an appointment with the dr for ages as I feared I had brought the bed bugs from london back with me - itchy red lumps were still appearing on my legs and now on my stomache.

I had unfortunatly scratch the bedbug bites I and some had gotten infected. Then on Saturday I woke up and found I couldn't open my jaw very far and couldn't really shut it either - I lost my ability to bite. Side ways movement was painfull and cuased clicking and crunching - from one or two old bites I was covered in red spots - but not in a way I would associate with a rash - was I being bitten? I haven't found any bed bugs here and have been making Al hoover the bed and stuff just in case.

Smaller incidences of the jaw restriction had been happening for a while but nothing like this - I couldn't eat and drinking was hard.

Sunday my jaw was a little better and I could eat soft things but my hearing had gone west and by night time I was starting to show cold symptoms.

Monday Al phoned the dr as the glands in my neck had swollen to look like small chicken eggs on the outside - my joints are all stiff and achey - I felt/feel pathetic - obviously I have man flu - ie I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill.

So the Dr looks at me and checks my tonsils and is concerned I can't open my mouth and then the question - when did I last go to the dentist - erm.... I don't remember - in fact thinking about it I don't think I've been to see a dentist since I was about 11 :/ might have to remidy that shortly.

Podded and pocked and questions asked - everything is inflamed and may or may not be the flu, and the red spots aren't insect bits but maybe infetigo. So not knowing what that is I look it up when I get home and it doesn't look anything like the stuff of the wikipedia page but thats cos there are different types - its a bacterial infection cuase by the strep stuff that cuases sore throats etc... It's common in toddlers and sports people and take advantage of cuts or insect bit that have been scratched.

Mmmmm... so if this is what it is I think that were I was bitten by bed bugs in London was ultamatly the cuase of this - of course I shouldn't have scratched but I do it in my sleep. Symptoms include swollen lymph glands and flu like symptoms :/

I have Fucidin cream which is an antibiotic and steroid mix. They are hoping that this will clear it up - I have to put it on each spot indivdually.

I have another appointment for a weeks time and if my glands haven't gone down by then it'll be blood test time.

It took a little bit of time for me to work out that infetigo was impetigo. I am now being very cheesed off about bed bugs. I am now going to have a bath - get Al to change all the bed sheets, apply the creme and sleep.

Oh and I'm going to have hairy legs as I'm not allowed to shave or wax them - they reckon that they should have it cleared up in time for me to not have a hairy leg summer - lets hope so.

Clarification (by sarah)

Ok from some of the reactions I got from the previous post about depression I thought I just needed to make it clear that there are mulitiple pains that I suffer - some of which have known cuases like the pain from the scar tissue/inflammation in my shoulders and the disc in my lower back that likes to squeeze its way out.

However, around the time I came down with the impedigo ie a few weeks before the strip of red rash I begain to get other pains - in the joints like flu and burning skin and stabby pains that suddenly bubbly burned (if that makes any sense).

These have continued even though the possible shingles rash has gone.

Previous to this bought of illness I had the localised pain of my shoulders (a worsoning condition I've had since a teenager), lower back and pelvis (which still clicks if I do too much). Plus the arthritic wrist joint and all the associated refered pain from them. Now where the refered pain sits in the medical world is complecated along with secondary problems of if I stress my muscles clamp down and go into spasm. I know about most of this and have been doing my pain management stuff for them but these new pains have just added ontop.

Increasingly in the last few months I have also been even more tired than normal for me. Last time I was tired all the time they said it was becuase a muscle had gone into spasm and just hadn't come out - resulting in the upper half of my back being ridged and therefore not flexing properlly. I have also been waking up with pins and needles in my hands and feet resulting in stumbling first thing in the morning. I have also been falling over lots. My joints have always been weak especially just after I had Jean so I have alwasy stumbled more than most poeple. The pins and needles have been there since the pregnancy and they say they'll follow it up and they decide there's no point as I'm managing.

Depression is a complecated subject and what is cuase and effect can always be argued but people with chronic pain end up depressed becuase they are in pain lots especially around flare ups. IBS also has this as I assume any chronic illness does to be quiet honest.

In the past I have also lost the use of my hands for extended periods of time and obviously there was the wheel chair stuff after the pregnancy. Dealing with this sort of thing is an all to common occurance for me.

I was taken into the hospital the other week becuase I was dehydrated the other week - I felt I wasn't sick enough to go even to the Drs but when a Dr says you need to be on a drip and is offering you an ambulance - you go to the hospital. I had an infection that was acting up the IBS and if I wasn't so scared of drs and hospitals I would have gone and seen him sooner. I hate Drs and hospitals so only tend to go when Alaric forces the issue this last lot started with the impetigo thing and I only went - becuase I couldn't actually open my mouth to eat.

Now I don't know what is cuasing the skin sensitivity but the back pain is not cuased by depression - but chronic pain can be made worse by stress becuase your muscles clamp down and there is more strain on you body. If you are stressed you don't relax properlly etc...

Stress is also a known trigger for IBS. Now I am the sort of person who gets stressed so I have to be careful about how I manage things - now there are different types of depression so sometimes it can be there with stress and be mixed up with the stress and sometimes not.

I also got myself run down and exhorsted which didn't help - and I didn't notice it happening until the Dr said.

Anyway the point of this is that the pain (at least the old pain) is not cuased by depression but can be made less managable and more server by stress, some with the IBS. The dr was very admimant that I've been doing too much. He also said this was not something that could be solved over night. So to minimise my very physically symptoms I am supposed to be avoiding stress at the moment, now how mind works over matter is a very intracote subject and there are shelves and shelves of books on the subject.

So I don't propose to go into that in depth becuase its really not going to help my situation.

A Depressing Outcome (by sarah)

I went to the drs yesturday to get the results of my blood test - they decided not to run them as apparently I've had them done in the last year - don't know when :/ maybe at the hospital. And becuase there was no need as I'm depressed according to the questionaire.

Now one of the heavey scorers on there is sleep problems and tiredness - well yes - thats the problem I am tired all the time :/

Another was feeling like your failing - erm well I am failing at stuff aren't I becuase I'm sick and tired all the time.

And yes I probably am depressed - the dr said its Life Situation depression which can't be solved with drugs and that I have been under too much stress and things for the last few years.

He said it was only a matter of time before I broke - I've got two chronic conditions - chronic pain and IBS both of which have depression as 'side effects' (along with chronic fatigue). And then there are the stomach ulcers.

I still haven't gotten around to telling him about the pins and needles and had to sort of force the issue that the brown blotches on my skin are getting worse not better. I have yet another cream for them a topical steroid - anti-inflamitory and anti-fungal called Daktacort hydrocortisone cream. So I am hoping that will get rid of it - as its even on my neck now and I'm petrified it will get onto my face.

The Dr also can not back date the note for college to when I started to feel really bad - ie just before the suspected shingles rash appeared as... I didn't go to the Drs with it! But I did - I went to the Drs and had a prescription - but its not there in my notes - only the impetigo which was mild - but I actaully went to the drs that time becuase I couldn't open or close my mouth due to a swollen gland in me neck and the skin issue was an aside.

I've been going to the drs on and off for months now feeling feeling bad and its not there in the notes! This is when I start to feel I'm imagining it all.

Imagining the pain thats crippling me - pain management people never sorted out the stuff they said they would. Imagining the pins and needles and the amount I'm falling over, to tiredness - the fact that one of my back muscles has been in spasm for two years (what the physios tell me never corrosponds with what the Dr then tells me).

The way I feel at the moment is that I didn't need to go into hospital for the diarreia stuff and that my course has been screwed up for no reason what so ever now - if its only depression then why couldn't I go and do my presingtation?

I actually feel far more what I think of as depressed since seeing the dr - I feel I've just screwed everything up for no reason now and I'm in so much pain and so tired all the time and have an upset tummy all the time. I now feel like a complete flake and that everything I do is tainted - but wasn't feeling like this until he said I was depressed which is in its self stupid.

I feel like a complete and utter failure.

So yeah I suppose that means I'm depressed - I'm signed off for a month and have to see him agian in three weeks time to assess things - he suggested I think hard about taking on the potential client I also saw yesturday and about college. He did say i could have a cover letter thing for college but I would have to pay so he suggested I see if they will pay for it.

I'm feeling like the rugs been pulled out from under me.

The other thing is they say there's no sign of inflamation - so why do my joints hurt? None of it makes any sense. I wish they hadn't lost my notes from before I moved here - all the stuff for the pain clinic - all the tests I went through and some of them where quiet painfull.

Last time I asked about this they said I'd been coping so long with it that there was no point in doing anything other than pain management. So I'm left wondering is there really nothing that can be done - am I really going to feel like this for the rest of my life?

Becuase if that's the case how can you actually be anything other than depressed? Especially as the back stuff gets worse with time and I have to be so careful. I don't want to end up being scared of going out -I saw the state of some of the older people on my pain management course and I don't want to end up like that.

To be fair he did ask me what diagnosis I wanted and I said I didn't care as long as it was something that could be sorted and thats true - I just want to be able to do stuff again.

Allergy or Shingles (by sarah)

I had to go back to the dr - Saturday after the first aid course my arm broke out in a server rash - that didn't look like the impetigo which was clearing up nicely with the creme. The photo's were taken Monday as and I got to see the dr Wednesday morning - the dr who had been dealing with me has apparently left the surgery.

I got a bit flustered at the drs as he said he didn't know what it was and started asking questions about bites - we ascetianed it probably wasn't bites but was it an allergy?

It looks like shingles as its in a strip on one arm but I'm 'a bit young for that'. So I was prescriped another cream this time Betnovate RD cream which I think is just to stop me scratching my self to bits. I mentioned the itching but forgot to mention the burning or the fact I feel pooh.

Apparently shingles is from chickenpox when I was younger and just flares up if your run down etc... I am now waiting 2-4 weeks to see if its an allergy - if it gets worse I have to go back imediatly.

I considered mentioning my backs got a new 'sharp' pain in it but they get a bit upset with you adding things to the sessions that aren't related. On the plus side either way I'm not infectious which is good 🙂

Also I have Cassiopea or the wonky W as one of the spot patterns which is kind of cool 🙂

We had the last Scout meeting of the term last night and it was decided that I should take a break from it until mid May which to be quiet honest is a relief as I'm going to be submitting alot of course work then plus have presingtations and the like going on.

Catch Up on Dr Things (by sarah)

I went back to the Drs Tuesday morning leaving Ella and Oliver asleep on our living room floor - they'd come up to visit us which was most excellent.

On the plus side the impetigo is clearing up and I have got alot more movement in my jaw - and I'm feeling alot better. Bad side is that I still have lots of fluid in my ears and she found another skin infection.

This time its a fungal infection that's probably cuased by the stuff that cuases thrush - this means I'm not to use perfums and have yet another creme to apply - joy 🙁

I have been over doing it and have gotten myself really run down apparently hence I have mouth ulcers again etc... she told me there's a spray I can have for them if they continue and if I don't start to feel better soon I have to go back again.

But I am happy that things are responding to the medication. I'm abit worried that I have ended up with skin infections at all though. To be far the fungal one feeds off of perfumed soaps and things including the skin lotion I'd been using 🙁

I have also been moaning about this far too much for what it is aswell - its not made me really sick just uncomftable :/