So, I was on vacation for a week, had half a week trying to recover from that but got covid, was totally down with covid for nearly a week, spent half a week trying to recover from THAT and then had a work thing that I needed to travel for, got back from THAT and then had to help lead a Pride thing.

Other than the covid, nothing has been like super bad, it's just been a LOT and now I'm stuck in this situation where like...

I'm still having lingering covid symptoms but it's also been a month and there's just... shit that has to get done.

Like, I managed to do laundry right before my trip, but before that I hadn't even had the time/energy to do that in like, three weeks.

I have to unpack, I have to clean things, I am trying to buy a house and have financial things I have to do for that. I haven't been able to tag, which sucks.

And then I also have like, EXTRA fatigue and brain fog on top of my regularly scheduled chronic illness AND the hives have morphed into a slightly less annoying variety but I still totally have hives which makes sleeping difficult.

I'm still terrified that I have bed bugs instead of hives, but I keep doing all the "checking for bedbug" things and haven't seen a single bedbug and the morphed hives look much less like bug bites than previous.

When I had the really bad hives previously and tried to get them fixed without good medical coverage, no one ever found a cause, just that they were probably stress/allergy.

But now I'm in the death-spiral of-- hives cause a lack of sleep which causes a lack of energy which causes me to not get much done in a day which causes MASSIVE STRESS which causes hives.

yikes. sounds like MCAS

And all of this isn't taking into account the emotional toll of like... knowing I'm behind on everything but needing to do like ALL OF IT RIGHT NOW.

Huh, I hadn't really considered that before, because I wouldn't say the symptoms are USUALLY severe enough to like, warrant a separate diagnosis from just "my immune system is fucked" but reading through this versus how my covid recovery is going is interesting. Particularly the bit about asprin. The best I've felt during all of this was the few times I've

taken some medicine with asprin in it.

MCAS is also comorbid with a lot of things

Benedryl has helped some, but honestly not a TON, it's just relief from the worst of it, but the day I had asprin I felt like a real human being again, at least for a while.

TIME FOR AN EXPERIMENT.

Trying some of that same medicine again to see how that goes.

But yeah, doing FODMAP stuff might not be an awful idea either-- though I really think both the last time I did the hives thing and this time that it's less likely to be food-based.

But anything that reduced inflammation when I'm like this is a good thing. LUCKILY, like with most of my chronic illness stuff, things have always come and gone on their own for the most part.

yeah, I'm not looking forward to the idea of figuring out an elimination diet for this dyspepsia

But it's been getting more severe every time it hits. So I hearya

... which has made things difficult to diagnose, unfortunately, but does mean I at least always have the hope that I'm not just stuck.

But the biggest issue with any of my stuff has ALWAYS been that the symptoms make life harder but one of the causes of the symptoms is usually intense/prolonged anxiety and stress.

So it's really hard to get out of the loop.

But I DO at least know that like... getting stuff done and trying to not have things to panic about DOES help, it's just SO HARD when you're starting from the bottom of the pile.

And you know you will feel better when the pile is smaller but the pile induces the anxiety you are trying to remove by working on the pile.

yyyyyyyep orz

Mostly though, it feels good to whine about it a little bit and just like, get it off my chest, lol.

I'm one of those people who is often just like "well complaining about it doesn't fix anything" and I forget that sometimes just the catharsis is good.

Also, this is unrelated, but I fell during my trip and I both look a hot mess and both my legs hurt. ;_;

I just absolutely WIPED OUT on a curb.

Ah, geez. This is a lot. I’m glad you’re overall feeling better but the energy thing sounds like the pits. And the falling!

Uggggh, have to be in the office for stuff today and tomorrow but I am going home early today because everything suuuuucks.

The fatigue levels are off the fucking charts today to the point where like...

Have you ever been so tired that sitting up hurt?

Yeah, that’s where we’re at today.

Oh no. I know what you’re talking about and it suuuucks

Luckily getting home and collapsing for a few minutes seems to have helped. Still probably going to bed mega early tonight though.