Feel Like It has Been Forever Since I was here

Wow, and it is already Thursday! How time flies when you are not able to do the things you want to do, or maybe it should be the opposite of that. Time should really be "slow" when you are ill and unable to do those things you enjoy or want to get done. Either way, this week has been a bummer in many ways for me.

I came down with "something" over the weekend, that I had thought was a stomach bug. My stomach was just upset, I was nauseated, could not stand the sight of most food other than toast, and a few sips of green tea at a time. But, I had this very "odd" thing that was happening to me. If felt as if each time I tried to up off the sofa on Monday morning, my muscles would almost "lock up". The way I can describe it is, if you are yawning, or let's say stretching, and it feels like your jaw is almost stretched too far and it wants to "lock up" for a moment, well each time I would get up, it was like that, only all of my joints felt like that wanted to do it. It was the oddest thing, and I guess the closest to what I would assume a "seizure" of some type would be. I was just extremely weak, other than the other weakness of I have had now for a few weeks, and just felt horrible. I did not feel "feverish" as far as having chills, or feeling cold etc. So, since I Never run fever, I did not think to even check my temperature at first. But, early in the afternoon, I decided to just check my temperature and it was 101.5!!!! For me that is very HIGH! I had wondered why I kind of felt, "out of it" like I was almost hallucinating... and it was due to the fever. That is also why my joints were acting crazy, the fever was causing me to almost be in a seizure type of situation. I cannot remember the last time, no matter how ill I get, I run temperature. Even with double pneumonia, or whatever I come down with the only time my temperature is a tiny bit high, which is very low grade at about 99.5, sometimes with a flare. So, that explained to me a great deal of the odd symptoms. Also it scared the hell out of me because due to me having basically 'NO" immune system between the Lupus and my medications, I am supposed to never not call the doctor or go to the ER right away with any type of fever. I can go from a mild fever to the ICU very quickly with my health issues. But, I knew I had a doctors appt yesterday (this all took pace Monday) so I took as much BC powder as I could (it has LOTS of aspirin in it) to try and fight the fever. It took most of the day to get it down. I was even putting ice packs on my neck, forehead, arms... to try and get it down. Finally late in the evening it came down to 99.5. I knew if I could keep it down, I should be okay until Wednesday. I felt like hell Tuesday, and even yesterday and today I am still not at my best. But I have another kidney infection! This is like the 3rd or 4th one in the last several months. I can't seem to get over them. I think it is just due to my immune system, plus I also think I have passed several small kidney stones, over the past few months. They hurt like hell but then seem to pass on their on after a day or so, thus there is no use in running to the ER or doctor, since all they are going to do, is put me on an IV and try to flush the stones out. Well, I can drink tea etc... and flush them out myself, as long as they are not too big. OF course if they are large enough, I will be at the ER. The at a bigger size are too painful to not go in believe me. I have had more than one in each tube at the same time. It took a MONTH to flush them all out. It was nuts!!!!
Thus, I am back on antibiotics, and thank goodness also got lots of things explained and cleared up about this high level of myoglobin I have, why that is something to be concerned about, and that is one "abnormal" test that "ANY" in your system is not good. Of course it is not extremely high, BUT if we don't find out what is causing it (which we may not), it could get higher and cause kidney issues, which is what I fear maybe already happening. I may have explained the myoglobin before. Myoglobin is a substance that comes from the muscles, when they are "injured". You usually see high abnomrality of this in those in "crush injuries", bad car wrecks or accidents where someone suffers a great deal of muscle trauma or even athletes that overuse their muscles to such a degree they actually injure them and thus it causes the myoglobin to appear in the blood stream and urine. Having it in your blood stream in itself is not "dangerous" BUT you will have muscles aches and pains, sometimes severe depending on how badly the muscles are damaged and how much myoglobin is put out. Also, certain medications such as "statins" which are used for cholesterol  reduction or for those that have had heart attacks, they put you on a statin. This particular medication can also caused an abnormal amount of myoglobin to be in the blood, and people that have this usually come in complaining of aches and pains in their muscles. it is not all that common, but it cam happen. Well, the bad part of this is that the myoglobin is kind of like "particles", so in other words it is larger pieces, not like a blood cell etc. So, when it meets the kidneys, which are like a "filter" to take out the bad stuff from your liquids in your body, those myoglobin particles can "stick" to those filters, the kidneys blocking the flow out "poisons" out of the human body. Thus, just like anything else that does this, it can cause kidney damage or even renal failure. So, that is why it is so critical to try and find out the reason for the "abnormal" myoglobin in the blood stream, and fix it to stop this from happening. For one thing, the patient is in pain due to muscle damage. For the 2nd you could be looking at potential kidney damage or complete failure. There are also other types of "Myoglobins" that they look for and appear with a heart attack, but this is different. Well, this is not a blood test that is "normal". Doctors do not usually in routine run it, unless there seems to be a reason to. So, my doctor did several months ago due to my all of a sudden, acute muscle pain, that was so abrupt and severe, he was looking for causes. First of all, he took me off my statin, thinking it was the cause. By the way, my myoglobin levels are high, thus abnormal. I found out, unlike some blood work that just because it is a little high, may mean nothing bad, ANY myoglobin appearing in the blood is potentially not good, so there is no thing as just a little or not the high etc. It should be none basically. Well taking me off the statin did not work. 4 weeks later it was still high. So, against all I wanted, he next took me off the muscle relaxer, which of course really caused me issues. I have such muscles spasms, that of course I am now hurting due to muscle spasms. BUT, I went to see my doctor yesterday, for several reasons, one was to straighten out this myoglobin issue, find out why we are looking at the amount being "not good", what that could mean or cause etc. Plus we also got the entire thing straightened out about my Diazepam the office, the pharmacy etc. So, I left fairly happen. I do have a damned kidney infection, which sucks. Anyway, if the myoglobin stays HIGH and does NOT change, then I get to go back on my muscle relaxer, because that is not causing it. IF it DOES go down that means the muscle relaxer WAS causing it, so I get to try different ones until we possibly find one that does not cause that to happen with me. Thus it is an ongoing process, and actually could be the LUPUS etc causing the issue, which is what Jim and I think. WE think the double vision, the myoglobin. the pain, etc are all kind of "together" and they are coming from "either the Lupus" or that they have not found out yet what is going on. I kind of think I may have another AI disease called myasthenia gravis. Just due to the double vision, etc... and some of the other tests that were positive in nature to this illness. But, that I guess we shall see as we go along. "Baby steps" with these autoimmune illnesses, because NO ONE really knows, thus it is sometimes the blind leading the blind in all concerned. Nothing to put down any professional, but none of us really know the depths that Lupus does effect and how. Hopefully with all of the good news out this week we shall see some great changes for the better in a way to diagnose, analyze, treat and possible stop or cure Lupus and many of these other AI illnesses.
Give a hand to the Alliance for Lupus Research!!! Great leaps and bounds they are making in the fight against this mysterious disease! May is also Lupus Month! So let's also try to raise awareness everywhere we can....
http://www.lupusresearchinstitute.org/lupus-news/discoveries/13/05/01/lupus-research-institute-tops-170-million-novel-research-lupus