Friday, July 22, 2011

Help Dr House.. I need a diagnosis!

This has not been a productive year for my blog. Entries for this year is appauling if compared to previous years. I must be careful or this blog may go into extinction without me realizing it! In my previous posts, I've given few excuses which was valid mind you! However, one must remember that once one starts blogging, one must continue till one's last breath!
Let me tell you what happened to me since late May. I was sick. I fell sick. The reason why I'm blogging this is so that I can look back at this entry to recall the bitter 2 months experience.
I have no previous history of allergy nor any chronic illnesses. It all started in one of my calls. Initially i had a bit of itchiness in unspecific areas of my body but i thought it was due to the scrub's detergent. But after a procedure where i used the sterile glove, i had a bad urticaria attack. My whole body was red as a lobster and i needed a stat dose of IV antihistamine and steroid! Imagine, me doing the call with an IV branula on the dorsum part of my hand!
The call itself was busy and that created more stress to my body. By the next morning, my urticaria remained and i felt numb over my extremities. It got worse during the Saturday list and on my way back home, it was throbbing. I cant feel my fingers as it felt like exploding. I was in pain and needed a strong analgesic and a short nap to wear it off. The whole week, my symptom was severe urticaria.I was on piriton TDS.
The next week, the symptom changed and I had high grade fever.Of course, it came with a really bad headache where i had to sleep to wear it off. At the same time i was starting to have knee joint pain. Waah.. multiple symptoms! It looked like some connective tissue disease thingy so i had my blood worked up. I recovered from the fever but then the joint pain became more prominent but not static. It went from one joint to another and i remembered waking up with my fingers swollen like mad! The pruritis was bad and i needed to take the pirition regularly to settle the itchiness. It was a terrible time. I was in charge a lot of things then and i dont know how i managed to do it then. I guess I was lucky to have a team around me so when the time came, the plan was executed well. I had my SHOES ( Shadow Housemanchip Oncall Emergency Simulation) programme, State level CVC course and numerous meetings. My head was not right and it was terrible getting off and on bed during that period. I lost my appetite really badly and had to go for early night for weeks.
When i appeared for a meeting about 1 month after my symptoms started, everybody was shocked to see my state. I lost quite significant weight and it was obvious to many. Due to the worry that there was malignancy, an urgent imaging study was done to ascertain that we're not missing something sinister.At the same time, I prepared to ICU in case I react badly to the contrast given; anaphylaxis during the contrast study.
Of course, as with all my previous investigations the result was normal. The pruritis was really bad and I didnt know how to control it. It caused a lot of excoriations on my body and currently I'm having to live with the "injury" inflicted.Everyday I recited the syifa' after my prayers to make it go away as nobody could offer me an explanation or reason what is happening. The symptoms took turns and I was going nowhere.
At this stage, a lot of alternative explanation was offered to me. I went for cupping hoping that it could relief my agony but it did not really work. I lost 7 kilos during this period of time. Bukan senang woo nak hilang berat!!
Somehow, the symptoms reduced and slowly i am recovering. My head is clear and I am able to think straight without feeling drowsy or not in the right state of mind. My appetite was restored but I am not a keen food muncher as I used to be. At least to me, the positive side of al this is i need to maintain the weight i've lost so far! hahahaha
I've gone for two short holidays with the family the last 2 weeks. Hopefully it will help me to recover and Insya Allah, with every disease or illness there is a cure somewhere somehow..

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

you could be allergic to latex ie the sterile gloves.. sometimes it takes long time for it to happen when it does its bang wham.. I had similar experience but not as teruk as yours and with stress its worst. Nothings helped so I resorted to using the dressings for burns to reduce inflammation, sores and itchiness on my hand.