Friday, March 5, 2010

What else is going to go wrong?!?!?

At about 8:00 last night, I was eating a microwave instant noodles dinner. I've had lots of different varieties of ramen and instant noodles in my life. As I was finishing them, I noticed that my stomach was getting itchy. I looked at it, and sure enough, there was a fine rash there. So I took two Benadryl and sat back down. A few minutes later, I decided to take a shower because I was cold. So I got in the shower.

About 5 minutes into my shower, I started getting pain in my diaphragm area and it hurt when I took a breath. It was a tightness, like someone kept sinching up a belt under my boobs, and it went all the way around my back. I got out of the shower. It kept getting tighter and harder to breathe. My first thought was that I was having an anaphylactic reaction. My mom was going to drive me to the ER, but I told her to call an ambulance instead, in case I needed immediate treatment with an EpiPen or something. My throat didn't feel like it was swelling, but it started burning, and I really did not want to take any chances. I have no known food allergies, and I was scared shitless. I seriously felt like something is trying to kill me- I mean, first I get a subdural hematoma, that seems to be resolving itself, then I end up eating something and can barely breathe. I guess that's what I get for buying an 88-cent instant noodle dinner at Wal-Mart.

The ambulance arrives, and I get in. They put me on oxygen. They say my lungs are clear. Pulse ox is good. Blood pressure is fine. I feel like it keeps getting tighter around my diaphragm, and I'm doing my best to remain calm and take slow, deep breaths (as deep as I can with the pain).

We get to the ER, they put me in a room. No oxygen. And we just wait. The itchiness has gone away, so it looks like the Benadryl is working. But all the tightness is still there, and it hurts like a bitch. I get asked the same set of questions about 5 times by different people: EMT, nurse, med student, resident, and doctor. The med student pushed on different areas of my abdomen to see where I had pain. She pushed on my left side right under my ribcage, and it was tender, but the discomfort went away as soon as she took her hands off me. She repeated it in the same spot on the right side, but this time, there was residual pain for some time after she stopped pressing on me. Then I remembered a couple days ago I had some shooting pains there, but they only lasted a few minutes then stopped and didn't come back. I discussed this with the doctor when he came in.

They discharged me and gave me paperwork about anaphylactic reactions and... gallbladder attacks. Yes, that's right. They think I'm having gallbladder issues. Fuckin' LOVELY. More problems are just what I need. I called my doctor this morning and have to set up an appointment to see her, and will probably need an ultrasound of my gallbladder to see what's up.

Fast forward to today. I wake up this morning. The rash is still there. I get up, use the bathroom, and then bust out the breast pump. As I'm pumping, I start to get itchy again. What the hell? The food should be out of my system, and I haven't eaten anything else. Strange. Well, I think I have it figured out. I don't think it was the noodles. When I went to my 2 week OB followup on Tuesday, Dr. Burstyn prescribed me metronidazole gel, which is a vaginal antibiotic. I've never had it before. My only known allergy is to doxycycline, which is an antibiotic in the tetracycline family. This new medication isn't a tetracycline. I looked it up, and metronidazole is Flagyl, which I've taken orally for a UTI. But I've never used the vaginal gel before. I inserted it before I ate last night, and when I used the bathroom this morning. So I'm not going to use it again and will continue to take Benadryl and see what happens.

An allergic reaction and a gallbladder attack at the same time. I can't win.

2 comments:

Sherry said...

Damn girl!!! What the hell???? Your body had better straighten itself out soon! Feel better and get better!

Sherry

Lexie's thoughts said...

my God! One thing after another!!You need to get feeling better ASAP. I miss my best friend :(