I am not a doctor.
Sometimes I think I should have been (I also think I should have been an
attorney). Then I realize I would have
to have to deal with dead bodies and see other things I’d prefer not to and
realize I’m glad I didn’t go in that direction.
Nevertheless, I am almost a doctor as in the Ph.D. kind. (Every single one of you need to hunt mie
down if I don’t finish this year. Better
yet encouragement along the way to freakin’ do it would be wonderful!). This scholarly endeavor has only fed into my
natural investigative spirit and reasoning power, which comes in handy at times
when faced with a variety of strange illnesses that hit our family from time to
time.
Strange illnesses you ask?
Why yes – here are a few:
- Narcolepsy
- Dupuytrene’s
Contracture – despite the fact that this primarily runs in middle-aged
males, when I as about 17 my right ring finger began contracting. I had the tumor-ish thing removed when I
was 20 and now I have a zig-zag scar on my right ring finger and hand that
is only irritated every so often, like when my kids try and pull back on
my fingers or when painting a particular daughter’s room pink
recently.
- Recurrent
sinus infection caused, at least in part, by nostril openings that were
too small.
With these crazy diagnoses, it’s been really helpful to have
a discerning mind when working with doctors, and I’m grateful for that. Though the internet may very well be a way
for folks to get overworked about the possible diagnosis and self-diagnose far
too often, it is a helpful resource to get an idea of what symptoms might be
related so you can tell the doctor the whole story and, when you get a
diagnosis, be able to look it up and increase your knowledge of the
condition. This has come in very handy
with two fairly-recent illnesses/conditions in my home.
1 – Recurrent ringworm
All of a sudden one month there appeared to be a very
rampant, quickly-spreading version of skin fungus in our home. Within a couple days my son (who was just shy
of 2 at the time), my husband and I all ended up with a version of what
appeared to be ringworm. My son had it
all over his elbows and knees and my husband and I had it in additional
locations. Mine spread quickly and
turned into a full-body rash that needed a long dose of steroids to
control. When I went to the first doctor
for the rash I explained that my whole family had it but mine was worse and I
thought maybe it was a virus of some sort we were dealing with. Her response?
She’s never heard of a virus causing a rash. I immediately dismissed her expert advice,
aside from taking the steroids, because she clearly forgot about things like
oh, Chicken Pox, Measles, and all those other viruses we’re vaccinated against
that often express themselves with none other than rashes.
Instead I took my son to his doctor, who happens to be
fan-freakin-tastic. He did swabs and
diagnosed my son (and me) with a condition called Nummular Eczema. It isn’t contagious but in our case probably
something triggered by an allergy to something we both had and therefore why we
broke out about the same time. Google it
– you’ll find out frustratingly similar it is to Ringworm in appearance. They look nearly identical.
It’s frustrating because you all might remember #4’s case of ringworm. For 16 months we battled it
and that did spread to everyone who came in contact with us. It was a constant battle with multiple people
having multiple lesions at any given time.
Thankfully, I knew it couldn’t be THAT difficult to treat, seeing as how
we’d done everything to try to treat it, so when #4 switched to Logan
Nevertheless before her correct diagnosis and treatment
Logan and I had this constant battle between the eczema and ringworm. The problem is that you can’t tell the
difference between the two until they get to be about the size of a dime. If you don’t treat ringworm it grows and
spreads to others. If you treat ringworm
with the eczema medicine it feeds the ringworm.
If you treat eczema with the ringworm medication it further irritates
the skin and makes the size of the eczema grow, just like ringworm would. So we ended up having to treat every lesion
that started like ringworm – when it grew rapidly on my son and I to the point
of being pussy and scabby we knew it was eczema and began treating it with the
topical steroids. One time I
misdiagnosed one on Logan
I’m so glad we’re mostly over
that though the eczema is probably a lifelong deal.
2 – Mouth Blisters
This past summer my son came down with a 24-hour fever and
then bad mouthblisters. At the same
time, I came down with swelling in my mouth and horrible blisters all over my
tongue, gums, and lips. In addition, he
had a bit of a lattice rash on his body.
I did not but had a bad breakout of the eczema. I got so bad I couldn’t
get out of bed and slept for nearly 24 hours but I never had a fever like my
son did. We went to the doctor together
and they thought my son had hand foot and mouth but didn’t understand why my
symptoms were so similar to my sons and yet not characteristic of hand foot and
mouth. They tested us both for strep and
we were both negative. Then they sent me
to my doctor to follow-up. He thought I
was having an allergic reaction to something, maybe, or some other strange
infection yet it wasn’t consistent with my son’s still very similar symptoms.
Then my mom came in town.
She came down with the exact same symptoms as my son – mouth blisters,
high fever, sick.
When I saw the doctor he gave me a shot of some
antibiotic. By the end of the day I was
nearly back to normal. The next day I
was sick again.
It wasn’t for a while before I figured out what was going
on.
My mom and my son had hand, foot, and mouth.
I was highly allergic to my narcolepsy medication, which I
had just started that week. Therefore,
we all had mouth blisters and swelling and my mom and son had the fever but I
did not. I was getting worse while they
were getting better. It all made perfect sense, except for understanding why the
antibiotic worked for me if it was not strep or some other infection like
that. Turns out that morning and the one
before I was so sick that I didn’t take my narcolepsy medicine. I started to get better quickly after that
with the blisters clearing up almost overnight.
How did I know it was the narcolepsy medicine? The next day after feeling so much better I
began to take the medication again as usual and immediately started getting
blisters. Then I heard a radio
commercial on the way home from work advertising the medication I was on and it
ended with a warning to see a doctor right away if you start having blisters
and swelling on your mouth and tongue.
I still haven’t returned to my neurologist. I just stopped taking the medication. It would be nice to have a new prescription
for another, non-allergy producing medication though!
And there you have the reason I’m thankful for medical discernment
and healing. No more ringworm, no more
swollen tongue, faster healing of skin lesions due to eczema, and no death from
the allergic reaction! Score.
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