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please, comment so that I know I'm not alone. I'm just trying to keep my head together while I wait for the doctors office to open.
so women are said to have a higher pain tolerance than men. this might very well be true. I don't like pain (who does, obvs) and when I'm actually experiencing it it's hard to think along those lines because you can only ever experience pain as yourself and compare it to your own past experience. when I think of it in light of my tolerance threshold for itching, however, I think I might be pretty okay with pain. part of that might just have to do with available remedies. modern medicine can effectively make the pain of something completely disappear, whereas I've never had that experience with itching -- you can relieve it to certain degrees, but it's still there. so there's certainly a psychological component as well, knowing even in the midst of pain that there's an end in sight (of course, I am speaking as an able-bodied person who has never dealt with chronic pain).
granted, I have extremely sensitive, reactive skin, so maybe this is different for other people, idk. when I got poison oak I think it kept me out of work for a few weeks and I felt like I was going mad. I said at the time that, having had my foot run over by a car and my heel bone broken, the worst pain I've yet experienced-- I said that I would rather go through that pain again than have to endure the poison oak. with hindsight and time? I would still rather have my foot run over with a car than get poison oak again. this makes me think I either handle pain well or itching very poorly.
I made a very stupid decision recently and, instead of buying my usual dye-free, fragrance-free detergent I bought lavender-scented detergent. I don't even particularly like the smell of lavender, but the picture of the flower on the bottle apparently overrode my ability to think beyond the mental capacity of a goldfish (though for the record they did bust the 10-second-memory myth on Mythbusters). I started using soap without scents or dyes quite a while back when my skin started reacting to it (though nothing this severe), and apparently I just... forgot that. so about a week ago I started experiencing pain in my vaginal area - I thought maybe I had been sitting too long on our couch, on which the cushions are as flat as can be so we've added layer upon layer of blankets until we can afford a new couch. in retrospect this wasn't enough to account for the pain, which wasn't just on the surface but felt like it went way down into the tissue. I would gasp when I moved. unpleasant, but the way I feel now I would go back to it in a heartbeat. no, that sentiment doesn't make any sense if you examine it closely, but I am having a hard time thinking rationally, you know?
anyway, a few days later I started breaking out in what I suspected and were later confirmed by the doctor to be hives. I only really stopped (I think, I hope) breaking out yesterday, all over one side of my business and back a little ways onto my bum. way after I realised what was happening and made my husband rewash all of my clothes with my usual detergent (I couldn't do it because I couldn't, you know, walk). not only do they itch, they are extremely painful.
after I tried various remedies and realised none of them were going to work, I went to the obgyn yesterday and got a prescription for a steroid cream. I am only bothering to make this post at all to bide my time and maintain my sanity until the office opens this morning and I can call them and ask for an alternative, because oh my god, the first application went fine but the second made me jump in the shower and wash it all off because it stung so badly. even if it hadn't the cream will take like a week to really be effective and fuck, I need to be able to do something other than lay on one side of my body for a week, I can't take this. I am effectively bedridden already, I cannot handle being confined to one position and unable to even sit up occasionally.
oh, and did I mention? I got my period at about the halfway point of this whole process. LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL. I can't wear underwear or a pad if I could wear underwear because they both chafe/aggravate affected areas, so I've had to constantly wear tampons which has been pretty uncomfortable.
back when I had poison oak the doctor actually gave me steroid pills, so I'm hoping when I call in half-an-hour I can convince them that's what I need now. I just want to pop some pills and not slather any more gook down there (there have been like, five different things, which I acknowledge may be the reason my skin is too sensitive for the proper remedy, lovely). actually, I refuse to put anything else down there except bags of frozen vegetables, which you can all thank for the fact that I haven't already lost my mind. I have actually had idle fantasies about killing myself (keyword: idle, I'm just saying, I do not do well with itching and it says something to that effect that such thoughts hold any appeal at all). I keep crying and I need my life and my vag back.
oh, they actually open 30 minutes earlier than I thought, time to go rouse my poor exiled husband from the sofa (apparently my moans of pain keep him awake), put him to bed, and go demand some drugs.
eta: they probably won't get back to me for another couple of hours. in the long run it won't make much difference, it's not like the effects are instantaneous anyway.
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so women are said to have a higher pain tolerance than men. this might very well be true. I don't like pain (who does, obvs) and when I'm actually experiencing it it's hard to think along those lines because you can only ever experience pain as yourself and compare it to your own past experience. when I think of it in light of my tolerance threshold for itching, however, I think I might be pretty okay with pain. part of that might just have to do with available remedies. modern medicine can effectively make the pain of something completely disappear, whereas I've never had that experience with itching -- you can relieve it to certain degrees, but it's still there. so there's certainly a psychological component as well, knowing even in the midst of pain that there's an end in sight (of course, I am speaking as an able-bodied person who has never dealt with chronic pain).
granted, I have extremely sensitive, reactive skin, so maybe this is different for other people, idk. when I got poison oak I think it kept me out of work for a few weeks and I felt like I was going mad. I said at the time that, having had my foot run over by a car and my heel bone broken, the worst pain I've yet experienced-- I said that I would rather go through that pain again than have to endure the poison oak. with hindsight and time? I would still rather have my foot run over with a car than get poison oak again. this makes me think I either handle pain well or itching very poorly.
I made a very stupid decision recently and, instead of buying my usual dye-free, fragrance-free detergent I bought lavender-scented detergent. I don't even particularly like the smell of lavender, but the picture of the flower on the bottle apparently overrode my ability to think beyond the mental capacity of a goldfish (though for the record they did bust the 10-second-memory myth on Mythbusters). I started using soap without scents or dyes quite a while back when my skin started reacting to it (though nothing this severe), and apparently I just... forgot that. so about a week ago I started experiencing pain in my vaginal area - I thought maybe I had been sitting too long on our couch, on which the cushions are as flat as can be so we've added layer upon layer of blankets until we can afford a new couch. in retrospect this wasn't enough to account for the pain, which wasn't just on the surface but felt like it went way down into the tissue. I would gasp when I moved. unpleasant, but the way I feel now I would go back to it in a heartbeat. no, that sentiment doesn't make any sense if you examine it closely, but I am having a hard time thinking rationally, you know?
anyway, a few days later I started breaking out in what I suspected and were later confirmed by the doctor to be hives. I only really stopped (I think, I hope) breaking out yesterday, all over one side of my business and back a little ways onto my bum. way after I realised what was happening and made my husband rewash all of my clothes with my usual detergent (I couldn't do it because I couldn't, you know, walk). not only do they itch, they are extremely painful.
after I tried various remedies and realised none of them were going to work, I went to the obgyn yesterday and got a prescription for a steroid cream. I am only bothering to make this post at all to bide my time and maintain my sanity until the office opens this morning and I can call them and ask for an alternative, because oh my god, the first application went fine but the second made me jump in the shower and wash it all off because it stung so badly. even if it hadn't the cream will take like a week to really be effective and fuck, I need to be able to do something other than lay on one side of my body for a week, I can't take this. I am effectively bedridden already, I cannot handle being confined to one position and unable to even sit up occasionally.
oh, and did I mention? I got my period at about the halfway point of this whole process. LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL. I can't wear underwear or a pad if I could wear underwear because they both chafe/aggravate affected areas, so I've had to constantly wear tampons which has been pretty uncomfortable.
back when I had poison oak the doctor actually gave me steroid pills, so I'm hoping when I call in half-an-hour I can convince them that's what I need now. I just want to pop some pills and not slather any more gook down there (there have been like, five different things, which I acknowledge may be the reason my skin is too sensitive for the proper remedy, lovely). actually, I refuse to put anything else down there except bags of frozen vegetables, which you can all thank for the fact that I haven't already lost my mind. I have actually had idle fantasies about killing myself (keyword: idle, I'm just saying, I do not do well with itching and it says something to that effect that such thoughts hold any appeal at all). I keep crying and I need my life and my vag back.
oh, they actually open 30 minutes earlier than I thought, time to go rouse my poor exiled husband from the sofa (apparently my moans of pain keep him awake), put him to bed, and go demand some drugs.
eta: they probably won't get back to me for another couple of hours. in the long run it won't make much difference, it's not like the effects are instantaneous anyway.
This entry was originally posted at http://jeeps.dreamwidth.org/28502.html and currently has
comments. You can reply there with your LJ by using the OpenID option, or get your own Dreamwidth account here.