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Showing posts with the label organs

A Dizzying Day of Nausea

Today was one of those rather lousy days. It wasn't "miserable" nor "grueling" but it was quite lousy. Systemic Mastocytosis causes all sort of transient symptoms, problems, difficulties and obstacles. One day can be vastly different from another. One moment can be vastly different from the next! Today, however, was fairly consistent... quite lousy. This all started late last night with some flushing. Sheila had noticed a splotchy, deep red rash on my face and neck. I felt "okay" at the time so I just let this first sign of impending trouble just slip by with no countermeasures. By the time I laid down in bed last night, I was experiencing palpitations and mild tachycardia (120-130 bpm). This is a sign that my blood pressure was dropping too low... my body would respond naturally by jumping into overdrive to counter the loss in blood pressure (which is a very good thing)... then my blood pressure would drop again... body would respond.... etc. Co

Inflammation and Debilitating Pain

This past week has been an unbearable week of inflammation and debilitating pain. Needless to say, getting anything accomplished this week was virtually impossible.   Standing hurt, sitting hurt, laying hurt and sleeping long enough to keep my health stable was very difficult because the pain kept me awake. Understandably, my mood was negatively impacted. My ability to stay focused on anything for longer than a few short minutes was impossible. What an absolutely frustrating and excruciatingly painful week.  My entire spine was so inflamed it seemed like it was swollen and on fire... constantly... steadily... it burned consistently like the sun.  Each of the areas of my spine that have been injured during my career hurt so badly that it felt as though I had a large swollen red bump the size of a handball at each point of injury.  For those who aren't aware, after two line-of-duty spinal injuries I am left with two herniated disks, four bulging disks, six compressed disks, two a