Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Normal!!!

I couldn't find any of the pictures I took of the rash on me, but here's the gist of what it looks like. But I will say that mine was much worse than that, especially around my ankles.



I got my results from the blood test I had done last week and MY RESULTS WERE ESSENTIALLY NORMAL!!!!!! Yay! I'm so happy! That means I can stop taking the steroids I've been on for the past few months!!!! The steroids were awful! They made me so wired. I had a hard time sleeping.
For anyone who didn't know I have Henoch-Schonlein purpura. It started out as like red bumps on my legs which I thought was just razor burn, but it progressively got worse and worse. I went into urgent care one night because I had become raised red bumps that were irritating. They did blood tests there and didn't know what it was so they referred me to my regular doctor. I went to them the next morning and they told me it was folliculitis and gave me some cream for it. As soon as I put the cream on it the bumps at least doubled and became very red and irritated. I was next referred to a dermatologist. The dermatologist took some biopsies. Which I nearly past out from. I had to stay and extra 30 minutes afterward to recover. I got 4 stitches, so I think it counts as my first stitches because the first were in a place I couldn't see because my ladyhood ripped after having Liam. Well, anyway the biopsy came back saying I had Henoch-Schonlein purpura. The dermatologist had heard about it, but never actually seen a case of it (that's saying something since he was at least 65!) It is a really rare illness. I was next referred to a rheumatologist who is the type of doctor that deals with this sort of illness. Well, this doctor put me on steroids and that's been the main treatment since I didn't develop any kidney failure this time around. By the way it can return once you've got it. Sucky I know! If you want to read more about it here's the link.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henoch_Schonlein_purpura

1 comment:

Alison said...

Our little next door neighbor, a boy 7 or 8 years old, was recently diagnosed with this. He was in the hospital for several days... It was such a difficult thing for the docs to figure out because most of them had never seen a case of it either...