ShaniFaye

This is a must read....even if you're a guy, you should read this in case you ever know a female that has the problem we have figured out I have been having...

thanks in advance for reading...its long...but it could help someone not to go thru what I have been going thru for the last 3 months



Ok...so alot of you know the on going battle I have had since the first of june what I thought were mosquito bites. What made me think this? Well...we found out our basement had been flooding every time it rained...the mosquito population down there would have rivaled the swamps in south georgia, so naturally they made their way upstairs. On June 6th I woke up with my face so swollen I couldn't really see well...and well I wont repeat previous blogs, suffice it to say that has happened to me several times, along with huge welts all over the rest of me that just showed up at various times of the day and night. (Please keep in mind, I'm EXTREMELY allergic to biting/stinging insects and react awfully to mosquitoes, but not SO bad that I have to use my epi pen...thats reserved for bees/wasps/fire ants).

I was going to bed every nite praying I wouldn't wake up with a swollen face again, it happened several times, but only twice on a work nite where I had to call in sick, the other times it was on a weekend. We spent god knows how much money on foggers for the house, bug spray for me, so much benadryl (both pills and cream) that I should have stock in the company...not to mention the missed time from work because I cant function on benadryl and sometimes had to take it during the day. There hasnt been a day since June the 6th that I haven't had at least 3 of them a day, I've been sleeping in smelly citronella bracelets (poor Dave), spraying myself with bugs pray when I walk in the door from work. My short term memory is so shot I will be surprised if part of this isnt repeated because I've forgotten that I've already typed something. Seriously...Dave and I and Amanda drove from Chatsworth GA to Waynesville NC Sunday...and on the way back I had NO memory of driving on a road I had been on 5 hours previously. I have quite honestly felt like I was slowly losing my mind for 3 months. Irritable? You'd have thought I was preggie I was so unpredictable with my moods. Most of the time the welts started showing up when I'd been at home for a little while after work in the afternoons, and on weekends I'd get them first thing in the morning and then again at nite....sounds just like mosquito peak times right? Once or twice it happened at work, but since I go outside to smoke...I thought it was mosquitoes. We couldn't see anything biting me, Dave wasn't getting bit..but we got an electronic mosquito trap for the house and the catch container was full of them every time I'd empty it.....so logic says....Shannon your problem IS mosquitoes....Part of me was really dreading spending this past weekend in the woods

Well guess what?

Its not mosquitoes

Friday when we were leaving to go to the mountains and was packing Amanda's stuff in the car I got bitten several times on legs...this time I KNOW it was mosquitoes because I saw them and smushed them. The reaction was awful....way worse than what I'd been having....the welts were bigger and redder and covered a bigger area...I'm thinking oh great......these are killer mosquitoes or something. Ok....no other thoughts about it. We get up to the cabin in the mountains, and anytime I'm outside I'm wearing my citronella bracelets, covered in bugspray from head to toe and just waiting for the assault to begin.....Friday nite I didn't get welty, so I'm thinking...cool this new bug spray a friend recommended actually works!!!!

Saturday morning, we get up....we have a morning of horseback riding planned. While I'm fixing breakfast my face starts to swell...at this point I'm devastated because I know Im going to have to take benadryl (plus I look pretty silly). I take one, hoping that will get me thru the horseback ride so that Amanda isn't disappointed, but I know when its over Im going to have to take another one which will make me comatose for hours, which means I'm going to have to miss the live snake demonstration we were going to. Dave takes Amanda to that (they promised her the nite before at the community park marshmallow roast she could hold some snakes) while I sleep. After dinner that nite, I spray myself down and put on my bracelets and we go hiking and I come back with not one bite...so I'm thinking, I just need to put the bug spray one as soon as I get out of the bed lol.

Sunday...no issues....we decide to drive 3 hours to the Inman Family reunion (most of you know that my family is THE Inman family from the movie Cold Mountain), and had a good time there. Course by the time we drive 3 hours back I'm exhausted so we went to bed about 10 that nite. 4 am I wake up....this time my face is swollen but its started at the bottom of my cheek and gone down....my throat is swollen and I cant swallow. I get up in a panic...where is my epi pen? What the hell bit me thats caused my throat to close? I calm down enough to notice I can breathe with no problems, I just can't swallow (kinda like having a severe case of strep throat or something). Dave wakes up and we are talking......

Out of the blue it hits me, and I don't know why or where the thought came from....but I'm wondering if my birth control pills are causing me hives. Why do I think its the BC pills? My insurance company stopped covering the ones I was taking in May. The Dr prescribed me new ones the end of the month and it hit me that the first time my face swelled was 2 days after I'd taken the new ones. On the way home (once we cleared a mtn and my cell phone worked) I called my mom and asked her to google Orth TriCyclene and find out if hives are a side affect. Didn't take 30 seconds to find out that one of the severe (telling you to get emergency treatment immediately) side affects of OTC is Hives, mainly in the face, hands and feet. Which is where MOST of my problems have been....I had gotten welts in other places, but I would say 75% of the time it was Face, hands and feet. Mother said page upon page pretty much said this

An allergic reaction will present with symptoms that include facial swelling, including swelling of the lips, mouth, tongue, or throat, hives, and difficulty breathing. Other serious side effects include symptoms such as sudden numbness or weakness that dominates one side of the body, chest pain or heaviness that involves the arm, sudden headache with pain behind the eyes, blurry vision, difficulty with speech, loss of balance or coordination, changes in the pattern or severity of migraines, nausea, stomach pain, dark urine, clay colored stools, jaundice, loss of appetite, swelling of the hands, ankles, and feet, breast lump, or depression.

I had had every single one of these.....the hives being the worse.

I have been, in my opinion, in a complete living hell for 3 months because of what I thought was bug bites. It never once occurred to me it was the BC pills....I had thought a few times...hmmm maybe I'm having a problem with something I'm eating...but nothing in my diet had changed so I dismissed it as being hives.

Thankfully I took my last pill on Saturday and that bitch back up dr I went to see earlier this month that was covering for my Dr wouldn't write me a new script (Im sure a lot of people remember my vent about her and the fact that she wouldn't give me the new script when I had my yearly exam). I must say I thank God for her not doing it....but not the way she did it lol.

I guess time will tell me definitely if its the pills now that I'm off of them. Most of the hive stories I've read online said they went away after being off of them anywhere from a week to two weeks, but I'm positive, because of the other problems I've been having that I attributed to being drugged with antihistamines so much, that the entire thing has been due to the BC pills.

Part of me feels better knowing there is light at the end of the tunnel....part of me is pissed at myself for being so stupid that it never occurred to me that...yes I was having an allergic reaction...but not to bugs.

I hope you girls that read this will keep this in the back of your mind if you or anyone you know ever has a problem remotely close to this.

Pray for me that this is over....and that shortly I will be myself and sane again

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!