I've calmed down somewhat now. Two sleepless nights will do that to a girl.

(It's okay, I'm premenstrual and have finally accepted that two sleepless nights is part of the deal).

Basically, all that's really happenned is that a Proper Doctor(TM) has written down an opinion (without prompting) that accords quite strongly with one of the possibilities that I've been entertaining anyway.

But it still remains a theory.

The only way we can find out if it's true is to get me off prednisolone, which is where it gets complicated.

I'm probably going to be doing a few posts about the ins and outs of this.

But here's the guts of it for those who are wondering what the fuck I'm talking about and actually want to know (and feel free to ask if you're confused):

( blood and guts and fangs in my teeth )

In unrelated news, Fuzzychops The Outside Cat(TM) is having a bastard of a day. We've got proper winty weather happening here at the moment and I would let her stay on her little heated cat-mat in the laundry all day but well, we're having a clothing crisis at the moment and so we really need the laundry for you know, doing the laundry. So she's outside feeling sorry for herself.

We can't have her in there with the tumble dryer going - it freaks her right out. And worse, if we left her in there with the tumble dryer going for too long, it would stop freaking her right out. She'd get used to it. That would be even worse because then we'd never get her outside ever again except when she felt like going out.

It's kind of important to effective long term cat-wrangling that she remains convinced that the tumble dryer will eat her.

Today I'm under a rug and flat out on the couch.

It was bound to happen eventually I guess. And I'm not actually feeling too woeful so long as I don't try anything, so maybe this will pass quickly enough.

I don't know how clear it's been from where you're sitting, but I've been quite active this last few weeks because I've felt very capable of being quite active. It's been good.

But once again, I'm not quite sure when I could have stopped in order to offset this crash. When everyone involved in ME/CFS management, right across the spectrum, agrees that overgoing it and crashing is bad, post-mortems are inevitable.

Yesterday I had a few woozy spells and was kind of-not-quite migrainey. And my heart rate was starting to go up at the drop of a hat. And I did crash out in the afternoon. I guess that was a sign. And just that feeling that I was being stretched. Overnight I developed a sore throat, which has now receded to mere croakiness, suggesting ME/CFS rather than a virus.

OTOH, if I recover quickly enough, I may decide that I did offset the crash by crashing today. Not that I had much choice in the matter. I was in bed and asleep before midnight (I think), and there until abotu 12:30 this afternoon. I'd woken up briefly when the alarm went off, gone back to sleep and tossed and turned and generally felt woeful for a few hours, been unable to either sleep properly or rouse myself at 10AM(which is now my target wake-up time), and given it all up as a bad joke until noon when I came to and lay still for a while. Fortunately the last two hours were of more peaceful sleep than the awful ME/CFS type.

~~~~

It wasn't until yesterday that things started to feel odd. And I had already started to pull back a little on the weekend. Or rather, I'd stopped increasing my activity because I realised I'd done a lot of increasing and it was time (no matter how I felt) to consolidate and be cautious (even while a little voice in my head had started chattering about all those things I want to do). But I guess I'd started erring on the side of movement and activity rather than conservation of energy.

~~~~

Anyway, a quiet day for me. I saw my endocrinologist yesterday and apart from her really wanting me off prednisolone, things are as good as they can be.

Today I saw the endocrinologist.

According to the path report from my bone densitometry scan:

The values show a loss in bone density which does not meet WHO criteria for osteoporosis but does indicate a mild increase in fracture risk.
(For those who came in late, this is a vast improvement on straight out osteoporosis).

More specifically, lumbar spine is a tad worse, but not enough that she's concerned AND the bone density of my hips is now within normal range.


Go me! Go my dense bones!


Also, I am no longer vitamin D deficient.

Go me! Go my appropriate vitamin intake! Boo sucks to sunlight and healthy eating! Hooray for drugs that do it for you!

AND I simply don't have any blood-testable markers for PCOS anymore. She cannot explain this and does not understand, especially since my weight has increased not decreased. In fact, my hormones are mostly well below average. This is brilliant.

Go me! I am a medical conundrum! (Who doesn't have PCOS, which is potentially quite nasty!) Hooray!

( Then we got onto the interesting stuff (Cut so only the stalkers need know). )

Damn but I wish one or two other medical folk were as proactive as this.