Allergies are a bitch, arthritis and the old spider bite
This summer the molds are kicking my ass. It's what led to the sinus infection, well actually, that's incorrect. The antihistamines I took for the allergy symptoms are what led to the sinus infection. So no more antihistamines except that untreated allergies sometimes leads to an arthritis flare for me and guess what? Yep. I've got the classic red, swollen joints that tell me I'm headed for trouble if I don't do something. And here's where things get tricky. I've got lots of past experience with this and there's not a whole lot of workable solutions. Antihistamines = sinus infections. NSAIDS for the arthritis = stomach ulcers. I could probably talk my doctor into giving me a cortisone shot which will treat both and make me feel fabulous for a short while. Except that I discovered as a kid that I should never take cortisone, oral or shots, except in extreme circumstances due to... well, I suppose the short way to describe it would be excessive tissue damage. Those dimples I have between my hip bones and my buttocks? I wasn't born with them, they're from the shots I had as a kid. The scars have faded, but the dents remain. I figure they go with the dent in my nose, though that was from a cabinet door that I hit so hard it dented the cartilage. I am a dented person, much like a used car, and quite frankly, I don't mind one bit. Adds character.

And you know, I had completely forgotten about that reaction to cortisone which might explain why the cream the doctor gave me for my spider bite (after the infection had cleared up and it still wasn't healing) made it worse instead of better - it had cortisone in it. Didn't think of it at the time and I had never used cortisone cream before then so didn't have any prior experience with it. And that spider bite did finally heal up as of last week, but only after giving up on the doctors to just let my body deal with it naturally for a while. Special K told me try calendula oil, but I never got around to getting any and it seemed to do so much better on it's own that I just left it alone. Although it did leave a nasty scar the size of a quarter. It looks like I got burned by a cigar and I suppose it could turn into a conversation piece should I ever wear a skirt or shorts out somewhere. "Ooo - what happened to your leg?" And then I could make up a story that's much more exciting then getting a spider bite that got infected with a rare form of strep. Maybe it looks more like a bullet hole than a cigar burn? No, Rob says it's not puffy enough to be a bullet hole. Oh well, I'll have to work on coming up with something.

Anyway, back to the problem at hand - allergies & arthritis... the only thing that has ever worked in the past was to lock myself up in a room with an air purifier until the mold count went down which as a child was impractical, pure torture as a teenager and impossible as an adult that has to work at a job to pay for the room in the first place. So I'm going to try Zyrtec which supposedly works well on mold allergies and maybe, just maybe, won't lead to a sinus infection. And perhaps a NSAID at night when the allergies are at their worst... just at night for a week or so... and maybe in another week the mold count will have come down - one can always hope.