NEW STUDY! Parasym Plus™ for Multiple Sclerosis › Forums › PrettyIll.com Discussion › EDS/MS/Chiari › Newbie looking for advice about symptoms and appointments › Reply To: Newbie looking for advice about symptoms and appointments
As for my own allergies, I think I am allergic to all kinds of things including cats but cats don’t seem to be a severe one. If they have recently been licking themselves and I pet them or hold them near my face, my eyes can start to burn and water and my skin can feel a little irritated. It’s nothing compared to my outdoor allergies or when compared to my older brother’s reaction to cats. Some cats seem worse for him than others but it sets off his asthma in a really bad way. He had those shots in his arm to test allergic reaction and his skin looked like mine where it gets all red and gets huge welts. My brother lives with his girlfriend who has a cat and two rabbits. He seems to do a little better with the rabbits but the cat does a number on him. Before my little brother moved to Texas, he was still living with my parents and had gotten two cats. He left them there when he moved and whenever my older brother has gone to my parents house he gets terrible allergies. He has a horrible time breathing and even ended up sitting outside of the house sometimes as well as wearing a breathing mask indoors to see if that would help. My parents kept trying to get him to hold one of the cats even though his reaction is obvious. They. . . are not helpful. We had dogs growing up and he never seemed to have an obvious issue them.
I LOVE animals so I my heart needs to have pets. They have been the only consistently pleasant thing I have. My husband and I used to have fish but we had to move enough times that it was just too heartbreaking to lose the fish each time and my body couldn’t keep up with taking care of the tanks. I injured my wrist from lifting and turning a bucket of water and the pain was excruciating. For a few weeks after, the pain was intense and I couldn’t use my arm for anything. It hurt no matter what position I put it in and I was wearing a brace to stabilize it. Even now, a handful of years later, I get pain in that wrist. I can’t turn my hands palm up without it feeling like that wrist strains and pulls. There is something in the wrist that also pops and moves, I think. Oddly enough, that wrist is acting up right now. Ouch. I recently saw a video of a wrist subluxation and that is something my wrist has done a handful of times. I have also had what I now believe are subluxations in both sides of my hip but mainly the right side, my wrists, ankles, a clavicle, my sternum, and maybe my knees and a shoulder. Oh and one time it felt like it in my neck. That was scary. I don’t know if any of my family members have had that at all.
I definitely want to see a cardiologist. I tried seeing a rheumatologist recently but was told not to bother since that doctor was leaving that month and I should wait for the new one. That new doctor should be there now but I haven’t tried setting up an appointment yet. I feel a little more able to handle appointments now after taking Dr. Driscoll’s recommended Zantac/Zyrtec combo. I was feeling out of my mind delusional for a bit. It didn’t feel like brain fog. It felt like dementia. It was terrible. But a few weeks of the meds seems to have brought some clarity back. Yay! I hope to get official answers soon. I am so tired of not knowing. Oh! And my husband and I just completed our 23andMe kits so fingers crossed I will get something useful out of that in the coming months.
I actually suspect my husband may have EDS as well. His knees seem to hyperextend just a teensy bit, his skin is hyperflexible and stretchy, he has some paper scarring, and a mild case of scoliosis. He pops his sternum all the time and has a pretty bad issue with the IT band of his left leg. His hip sits pointing outward and his feet point outward so his IT band is irritated and is as hard as a rock. When he was still in the military (he got out last fall), he had no choice but to see a doctor about it. He was basically crippled. He had so much pain and couldn’t tolerate walking or even standing for long. He saw a physical therapist once and got a steroid shot which helped him a lot. He still has issues with it and I am trying to teach him how to be mindful of where his joints are. He also has a nasty case of sleep apnea which is not weight-related. I suspect that joint laxity may have something to do with it because his head just collapses in on his neck and his ribs seem to collapse a bit when he lays on his side. If I hold his jaw to open his neck or if I lift his shoulder to open up his ribs, he immediately breathes better. He had a cancer scare earlier this year (well two separate ones actually) and the areas where his skin biopsies were taken seemed to not heal well. The scars seemed to open a bit and remained very dark and purple. His father has sleep apnea and one of his uncles’ from his father’s side has knees that definitely bend too far back.
I want answers! *shakes fist at nothing in particular* A weird thing is that as a kid, besides always knowing something was wrong, I had this feeling that I wasn’t going to make it past 30 or at the very least there would be some big medical thing going on then. Well, I turned 30 and all hell broke loose and I have an uncertain future. I joke around and say “Ha! I knew it! You all said I was crazy but I was right! Bwahahaha!”