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Showing posts with the label lingering

Fevers, Pain and Fatigue

This week has been quite brutal.   My usual bone pain has recently moved to a level so painful that I, myself, am unable to touch my long bones especially my femurs and tibias.  At rest, the pain is in the seven out of ten range.  When I lightly touch my femur or tibia, the pain skyrockets off the charts.   I'm also overwhelmingly exhausted.  I slept half the morning today and most of the afternoon.  My excruciating level of pain isn't helping me get some useful rest at all, of course. My breathing hasn't been the best either which also adds to the fatigue problem.   My fevers continue to come and go too.   Needless to say, I'm not accomplishing much of anything over the past couple of months.  When things get this bad, I attempt to do a lot of research so that is what I have been doing most of my waking time.  Well...  most of my waking time (which isn't much time at all) is probably spent preparing and cooking meals followed by the time spent researching.  I'v

Still Feeling Lousy

I 'm feeling slightly better than yesterday but I still feel quite lousy.  I'm feeling lousy enough that I am dreading going outside to remove snow from the roof and driveway.  I'm still exhausted and my joints ache.  My breathing isn't bad but my head is all congested and I'm coughing up phlegm so I'm still expecting to have some breathing problems when I'm doing something physical like working outside.  We'll see how my breathing really is later today when I do head outside to move snow.  I'm definitely not looking forward to it though.  Just the thought of heading out there is making me more exhausted. I had a fever last night before we headed to bed.  I was fever-free all day and was hoping that the fevers were finally behind me but apparently not.  So far, today, I'm fever-free so that is good. What isn't helping any is the fact that I am still vividly remembering trying to move snow while sick with COVID in past winters.  Saying it was

A Lingering 'Cold'... Quite an Understatement

For most people, a cold is an annoyance... an inconvenience... a nagging little problem of needing tissues nearby and having some over-the-counter cold medications. For those struggling with other illnesses, like my own illness, a cold can be brutal. My illness, Systemic Mastocytosis, causes overactive mast cells, all day, every day... an abundance of mast cells... and, since mast cells are at the center of immunology, this means I have an over-active immune system.  Because of these overactive mast cells attacking all sorts of things within my body which it should not, I often have symptoms of a typical cold even on a good day. I have too much histamine in my body. I have too much of every mediator produced by mast cells which causes all sorts of problems including some life threatening problems.  Now... add a virus or a cold to this already unhealthy body...  During a typical cold, my mast cells get even more over-active... moving into hyper-activity. This causes some absolut