Ping Pong

After over doing it at the pool Thursday, Friday was a suck of fatigue and wannabe cold sores. That improved overnight, with rest.

But now I'm hitting the wall and BP is dropping. Not slamming me to the floor this time, more gradually deflating down into the pit of fatigue.

High Exhaustion

BP still was not behaving so I took another dose of the prescription medicine yesterday. It did nothing, but today I seem to be trending lower.

I may be also a bit 'adrenal'. We went swimming last night and I got ambitious. I'm better right? I've been walking, up hills even. I should be able to do stuff now, right? So every 'adult swim' break, I ran my ass off in the pool. Today I'm sore and heavy-limbed and forgetting to eat.

I just ate and am hoping it will improve my sense of fatigue---not eating is half the battle sometimes.

Bitter Moment

The BP is high again. I'm waiting to see if prescription stuff is going to kick in or not. If it doesn't, I guess I call the primary care doc and see what they want to do. Because while, yes, there's an herb for that, there's only one, apparently.

Actually, in researching herbs and natural shiznit, there are not many promising remedies for high blood pressure. So I'm in the process of exceeding natural medicine's capabilities as well as those of mainstream medicine.

I've lost 40lbs, I've cut out salt, sugar, flour, processed foods and yet I need twice the blood pressure medication. And now that may not even be enough.

Are there specialists in blood pressure? I would love to talk to someone who could just explain this craziness to me.

You know, I am not all that overweight. I'm fat, don't get me wrong, but I'm not big enough for Biggest Loser either. Nor am I a manager at McDonald's like a person I know. They gorge and gorge on that junk food and are easily 150 lbs overweight and it doesn't touch them.

I'm over here making smoothies. Out of fucking spinach. Eating walnuts when I actually don't like them very much and eschewing chemicals and all the other fun stuff.

And I can't lose weight. I can't get ahead in my health. Meanwhile, I'm surrounded by people bigger than me with crappier diets who are just fucking fine.

Although, to be fair, the GERD is going to be a success story at this rate. It does really well with digestive enzymes, ginger for breakthrough and avoidance of trigger foods. I went from Nexium twice a day to maybe twice a week. If that.

However, GERD was the thing that bothered me the least. As in who cares if I don't have heart burn if my heart explodes from high blood pressure or I give myself a concussion from low blood pressure? See also, I still have adrenal issues.

Hello, body? This is your brain speaking. Get it the fuck together.

Shit, my parents at 60 are healthier than I am. The boomers are going to outlive me at this rate.

Local Adrenal Bitchiness

BP is better today. It was still elevated this morning, but has been dropping.

I've been salting my food. On purpose. Because there seems to be a paradoxical relationship there. Salt stabilizes.

Don't ask me why or how or what.

I'm just muddling through, following my instincts (a distinct salt craving) and checking my BP frequently.

Saw the doctor. Licorice is no more. We had a roundabout conversation where they want me to go to the ER with my body slamming BP and I don't want to because, frankly, I'm pretty sure the ER would not care. I'd rather just fall back on the prescription meds. Then if it's out of control still or I pass out (I swear that day is coming), we could try an ER.

Preferably before any car accidents.

However, this is truly adrenal with a side of licorice. I've had this pattern before. I had that whole cold (which is pretty much done with me, the lead-up was the worst part adrenal-wise) without stress dosing which did not help. At all. There's just a lot of chaos in my system and the adrenals no likey.

Bitchy adrenals are evil devils.

Anyway, had a great day overall today. At least after the doctor's appointment. Another one-stick IV (squeee!).

Hubby came home an hour early with a birthday present for me. It's a gorgeous lamp with a glass lampshade. I love bright, shiny objects (yes, you could give me empty soup cans and I would be all 'oooo shiny') and was just thinking we needed a nicer lamp in the dining room, so a billion bonus points for the hubby. It caught his eye at a garage sale, and is major score given that the lamp is signed by the artist.

Then we went to a farmer's market and sourced grass fed meat and cheese (although did not buy any as mucho expensivo aiii). After that we ended up a great local restaurant with a little bowling machine to entertain the toddler. We sipped blueberry sage iced tea, sampled appetizers and...well... the toddler screamed her head off and was generally unpleasant.

And then she peed her pants.

Eh, so it wasn't perfect, but the hubby and I had a great time.

Still took a nap today, but my energy, otherwise, was good.

The War Between High and Low Blood Pressure Continues

One of these days, I'm going to pass out. Just flat out, fall down and go boom. I'm losing my vision and balance to these blood pressure swings now, sooner or later I'm going to be sol.

Hope it doesn't happen while I'm driving.

Gulp.

So last night, I reverted back to my prescription blood pressure medication. The high bp was giving me a headache and its stubborn refusal to respond to anything else got to me.

Within a half hour it went down to 100/70. That drop didn't bother me, I just felt sweet relief.

This morning's readings were good, so I went back to the natural stuff. After several good readings, I started spiking high again. Damn it.

And I just now tanked a good 30 points. Thank goodness I was sitting down because this drop would've had me kissing the floor. The whole world tilts sideways and you can't see because your eyes go wonky. It's like a horrible earthquake mixed with tornado simulation, only inside your body.

So now I'm drinking pickle juice and fretting.

Oh hey, look at that my blood pressure is high again. Did I need the pickle juice or not? Did I hurt or help? I have NO IDEA! I think my body is going to do whatever no matter what I do to try and control things.

This makes my head hurt. Why isn't it just one or the other? How am I supposed to handle tag-teaming symptoms of high and low blood pressure?

Now I Know

Thursday was a great day, except for the fact that I overdid it in the pool. Friday and Saturday I was in sad zombie shuffle mode with ever decreasing functionality.

By Saturday night, it became clear I had, in fact, caught the hubby's cold.

Which I kind of suspected. Being tired with increasing fatigue that erodes my ability to keep up with the basics of daily life is not normal even if I did over do it that one day. (And technically it's not so much that I over did it, it's that my body can't hack coming down with a cold and floating in a pool at the same time.)

It's a mild bug (I assume, based on the hubby's interaction with it) so I expect this will pass without too much drama.

Just to keep things interesting, however, my blood pressure is no longer controlled. Probably due to the licorice. Or being sick, I've had some zig-zags that make me think the adrenals are doing more than just making me tired. Either way, it needs attention.

I'm not stress dosing because I can sit on my ass all day today and don't have to be anywhere. I plan to do the same tomorrow. This cold should pass by then (I hope) and allow me to move on.

I am convinced that the key is going to be BHRT and if I can't stay off steroids, that won't happen.

If the asthma gets worse or the adrenal GI stuff starts up, it will change the game, but, for now, I'm trying to just hold on to the status quo.

Wish me luck, because, apparently, I don't have any.

Postivie Effects of Alternative Medicine

Since I'm about six weeks into being a super duper alternative patient, I thought I'd list out some of its effects.

-Thicker hair. This is a biggie as most women with PCOS lose quite a bit of hair. I lost about half of mine and, by the time I finally got pregnant (after many years of infertility treatments), I had a small bald spot. That spot filled back in as the hormones of pregnancy were, essentially, a cure for the PCOS. I've managed to keep my hair since pregnancy, although it did thin out again. So I'm pleased to see thicker hair. I might go long again!

-Improved edema. I suspect most of the lower leg edema I have is due to the steroids--either the ones I've been on recently or the cumulative damage of long term steroids (15 years oral steroids before I was switched to inhaled ones). The improvement does not last much beyond a few days after an IV nutrition therapy session. But I do notice it.

-Improved blood sugar. I don't have a meter to test (anymore), but I don't get those whirling sensations if I eat some sugar like I have in the past. An example, I had a SAD (standard American diet) meal at the volunteer gig a few weeks ago and that usually makes my head feel like it's going to spin off from the sudden carb dump, but now that feeling is gone.

This is important because I have muscle problems when I take Metformin or Fortamet. If you think Type 2 Diabetes from long term steroid use is bad, try facing it down without being able to take the first line medications. That's the modern equivalent of being cursed. So I work very very hard with diet and nutrition supplements to diabetes proof myself.

So far so good. My last A1C was 5.6, fasting glucose 87, insulin 16. I'd like the A1C and insulin to be lower and, if I could stay off steroids, I bet they would be.

-Reduced muscle pain. The legacy of long term steroid use, multiple whip lash injuries, and multiple HPA axis suppressions has been muscle pain. The intensity depends on how recently I've been on steroids, with steroid withdrawal being the worst offender. My neck bothers me almost constantly with other muscles spasming inappropriately. The IV nutrition therapy pretty much obliterates the muscle pain. I can still outpace its effects in my neck with poor posture, but, if I'm ergonomic, I have about 80% improvement in the pain.

-Lightening of brown marks. From this last adrenal suppression I had brown eyelids with dark brown splotches extending into my crow's feet. I don't know if it's a leftover from the few times I've crossed the line into Cushing's territory or just the mark of long term fatigue. Either way, it lightened by about 80% with the first IV treatment.

-Kept me out of the hospital. I still can't quite believe how sick I was and how lucky I was to not end up in the hospital this past May. I am terrified of being intubated and this could have been The One (being worse than the last bad episode that did put me in the hospital). The extra magnesium the clinic added to my IVs really saved me. Not to mention how the other IV ingredients kept breaking up the congestion so it didn't sit and fester in my lungs. Really an amazing experience and I'm still processing it all. I feel like I experienced true healing for the first time in my life.