Made it through Christmas

Well we made it through Christmas without too much turmoil. Everyone got what they wanted, for me, an IPod touch! Now when Im sitting at my own dr appointments or at my hubbys I can play a game or watch a movie or just listen to music. Its pretty cool, Im still excited over it. I hope everyone else had a decent holiday also.

Ok, for my hands, I have a few bumps here and there, only a couple of them painful on my left thumb. My fingertips just get that hard leathery skin over them and then peel off in big chunks. I hate it.

My feet... ugh, my feet. I wish I could get them to calm down. I have to wear socks all the time right now because my body thinks the purpose for feet is to act like velcro. the center bottoms of both feet are scaling, peeling, cracked. All around my toes I have blisters and peeling skin. The tips of my big toes have blisters and peeling skin all the way up to under the nail. Ive soaked them, slather them with vaseline, which normally softens the skin enough that I can sleep a day or two even without socks on but nothing is working lately. Ive tried to keep as stress free as possible too but sometimes this crap just has its own plan in store I guess.

Now Ive had a bad cold the last 3 days, sore throat, stuffy/runny nose, now a mild but irritating cough. Im wondering what my hands and feet will look like in a week.

Ok, well thats about all thats going on right now. Ill try to post next week again. Its hard with the heavy schedule of doctor appointments. Take care!

Brrrr

Its been so cold! The weather went form summer almost into winter. Its fall and its already spot out a few snow flurries. I'm having a really hard time with my P. Both my big toes are not only peeled off down to the soft tissue but there are more blisters now which means, yep, more peeling to come. I don't know if my skin can grow as fast as whats needed. I also have bad areas between my toes and around the base of them. The cent palm area of my feet are still peeling and now around the edges of both heels, blisters and peeling. My fingertips are also starting to show tiny blisters. Not as bad as my toes though thank goodness. My hands look fairly nice really. I cant complain about them. Just a few sore spots here and there with a blister here, peeling there.... I feel like I'm singing the 'Old Mac Donald' song lol I have one spot on my left thumb that is almost raw. Its the only place on my hands that is "bothering" me.

I have ointment I can put on my toes and feet. I just hate having to do that. I think sometimes it makes it worse. I put Vaseline on after showers and I do soaks about once a week with salts and oatmeal. I use Curel Ultra Healing lotion, omg I love this stuff. I keep socks on my feet all the time, including in bed although on occasion I'm able to not wear socks when my feet aren't grabbing the sheets and blankets constantly.

I had an EMG done on my feet and lower legs. Why didn't anyone tell me this is painful? lol Its not supposed to be. The Dr said that most people find it uncomfortable but that my nerves are more sensitive than most. He said that I have Small Fibro Neuropathy (I think that's what he said lol). Which is common with diabetics and is why I have constant burning and needle type pains in my feet. He also said that it amplifies the pain from my P so I'm getting a double whammy.

I started insulin. I was surprised how easy it is really. I get a little bit of stinging sometimes but giving myself the shots is much easier than I thought. You should have seen me the first time though lol it took me about 5 mins of holding the needle next to my skin before I actually pushed it in lol I'm a big chicken :) But I got over it and now its nothing at all. Been on it a couple of weeks and its bringing my numbers down slowly. Once they get my fasting numbers down they'll start trying to get my spikes down when I eat. Being a diabetic is rough. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Anyway, I got my husbands Christmas shopping done. I need to shop for thanksgiving dinner this week and then Ill be ready to put up lights this weekend on the house for Christmas. Lots of stuff to do and think of the next couple of months.

I hope everyone has a great week and a great Thanks Giving!

Settling back in...

Sorry its been such a long time since my last post! It has been a very rough couple of months. We made it through Christmas, but then my mom had a stroke in mid January and I went to Texas to be with her. She is doing much better now and is at home, but she still has a long road ahead of her.

Well it only took a couple of days for my hands and feet to start flaring. At one point I had to go to the doctor about my feet because I had chunks of skin coming off and it was bleeding, blisters everywhere. I was walking, even though I had good shoes, all over the hospital, getting up every 5 minutes for my mom. I started becoming more depressed, its so disheartening to see your mom who you have known all your life and not know if you would ever get to have a conversation with her again. If she understood you even. Emotionally I was a huge mess. My father and I don't normally get along to begin with and going through this proved to make things even worse.

I have been home a bit more than a week now and I'm happy to say that my hands are beautiful! My feet are on the mend as well.I have only one tiny spot on a finger that is sore because a blister wants to pop up. My feet are not as good but they're not terribly bad. Where I had bled before the skin is scaly, scabby and sore. I do have a few blisters still doing their thing. But my hands... they haven't looked this good in a year! Anyone looking at my hands would think I was completely normal :) I'm so happy about them. I'm able to play the piano which I am learning right now and that makes me very happy too.

The only thing I can contribute my hands doing so well to is my medications. When I was in Texas it was very hard for me to remember to take care of myself while I was taking care of my mother. I missed doses of this and that and my system was thrown off. Now that I'm home I'm taking all my medications again and I'm clearing up well. Of course now that I have talked about how good my hands are Ill flare up lol Oh well, we all know this stupid condition has more hills than a roller coaster. But for right now, I'm enjoy being able to touch things, I'm going to "try" to do some baking this weekend. Make some cookies for the hubby and some fresh bread. My mouth is watering just thinking of homemade bread fresh out of the oven, a little butter and fresh honey YUM! Maybe Ill bake some tonight lol

Well here's to everyone having a great day! Take care and be good to yourselves!

Celexa

Well my hands are about the same, they aren't too bad, I do have some tender spots however and they are dry and peeling like crazy. Last Friday I went to the new PCP I have and she put me on Celexa because I haven't been sleeping and have been having panic attacks and mild depression. Well I didn't know at this point that Celexa has been known to cause psoriasis and to cause flare ups. *BIG SIGH* But since starting the Celexa I have been sleeping and I hadn't gotten more than an hour of sleep at a time for the two weeks prior so I am so thankful that the Celexa seems to have helped this problem. Its nice being able to sleep. When you get sleep its like seeing the world in color instead of black and white. Ill have to keep an eye on my PPPP very closely though. If I flare up Ill know it must be the Celexa doing it or at least it may be involved. If that happens then Ill have to go back to my PCP and ask her to change my antidepressant to something else and pray that doesn't also cause a flare. I have a spot on the bottom of my foot that has been extremely sore and if that doesn't get better Ill show her the spot. I am thinking of bringing up that my feet have been very very painful and ask if she can either check for arthritis or refer me to a rheumy. I hope I don't have PA.

Alright, I have things to do, hope you all have a wonderful P free day!

Gah Im in a flare!

Before I start, I didn't notice until today there was no "Subscribe to" button on my blog. You should be able to subscribe now and Ill subscribe back on you're as well.

Ok, so I don't think it was the chlorine in the pool. I'm thinking it is the fact that the doctor who prescribed me the Keflex was on vacation and I couldn't get a prescription refill until Friday. I have been off Keflex for two weeks. I'm on them again now though. I need to call my derm because I'm not sure that the topicals are doing any good at all. Maybe she will have me try another one, I don't know, I don't have much faith in her to begin with.

Ok so I took pictures the other day of the newest flare up. I think its going to be more mild this time, but here are the first ones.

Taken 8/22/09



And since I seem to have left my camera at my aunts house, those are the only ones I'm posting today lol I am using my topicals I did last night and the night before, I don't think I will have to use them tonight, but Ill decide closer to bedtime. My feet might get the topicals and not my hands because my feet are really bothering me. My right foot in particular is hurting pretty bad today.

So that's the update for now, I will try to get my camera and post more pictures tomorrow for you.

Hey can everyone tell me what you think has been the most beneficial thing you have done for yourself concerning your P.

Have a great day!

In a nutshell

Ok, I'm going to try to put everything from the last 4 - 5 months into one post and catch up to today so that I can continue on from here :)

So you hopefully have read my P story which I previously posted. I haven't always had my camera to be able to take pictures so you wont see any from when it was severe. I have had some really rotten days even when my hands and feet looked mostly clear. Having something like psoriasis is not just physical, it's also a very hard emotionally and mentally. Its hard. It doesn't matter if you have pustular, palmoplantar, guttate, plague or any other type of psoriasis I haven't mentioned, this is a very hard skin disorder to have, no matter the severity.

So when I first started taking pictures I had like the very start of my first flare. I started getting the blisters and the pictures were taken the next night. They come up so fast you can almost watch them rise, literally. I only had pictures of my feet because at this point my hands hadn't really started doing anything yet. I had maybe 5 tiny blisters on the palm of one hand when the ones of my feet were taken.



A couple of days later my hands flared up and ugh, it was almost unbearable. I couldn't even dress myself, I couldn't walk, I couldn't use the restroom without assistance. I crawled around on my knees and elbows when I had to do anything. Thank God for my husband. I wouldn't have made it through that without him. It got really severe on the bottom center of my feet and my fingertips and hands.

These were taken about 2 weeks later.


At this point I only had one picture of one hand, its the one I use as my header for this blog. It was taken about 1 week after the previous feet pictures you see here.



All the skin ended up peeling off. The worse part of this has been the pain and not being able to live the way I want to. At one point it was so bad it was bleeding, the itching was driving me insane, it looked like my skin was rotting. I was crawling around the house on my knees and elbows because I couldn't walk.

So this is like one big roller coaster. You get better you get worse you get better again, you get worse. I did at one point clear up on my hands, my right hand completely but not my left. My left hand is always worse than my left which I am grateful for because I'm right handed.

Ill post some pics and date them so you can see how it gets better then worsens. Thank God its never been as bad as when it first started and I couldn't walk. Since that first flare, it's been much milder but as I said, it goes from mild to moderate then mild.

These were taken on 5/29/09 You can see I was doing great here. I had been on Presidone for a week and using Halobetasol Propianate Ointment 0.5% for 2 weeks at this point.




This was 5/30/09. Just a little bit of red spots and a tiny bit of peeling.


6/07/09 Check out my right hand, its beautiful! My left hand was getting a little rough though.



6/20/09 After using Halobetasol for a week prior to the pictures. I had to stop using it per doctors orders on this day.


6/22/09 Still not too bad I guess but what you can't see is the pain. The feeling like you have been playing with fiberglass.



6/23/09 The next day, you can really see how fast this stuff flares. My fingers were really hurting there. It didn't help that they were swelling up either.



6/24/09 Still about the same.



6/30/09 It looks a little bit angry here.



So, the 5th of July I got out of bed and my right heel hurt. It was a shock, put my foot down and OUCH! So I baby it all day and take it easy. Well the 6th comes and its worse. I really don't like going to the doctor. Besides it being about 15 miles away in the next town over, sometimes I just feel like its such a waste of time. So going against my husband telling me I need to go I stay home. Well when the 7th got here I could only limp around and I knew I needed to do something because it wasn't getting any better. I waited until I knew there wouldn't be a lot of people in urgent care and drove in. The doctor who was there that night is awesome. I really like her, she listens to what youre saying and doesn't just blow you off like a lot of doctors do. She determines that I have a skin infection from a small crack in my heel. Oh yay right? You bet your butt yay! lol She put me on Keflex. Well I had been trying for a while to get my dermatologist to put me on Keflex because one of the gals on the NPF forums says that it helped clear her up, so this is something I REALLY wanted to try. I was so happy. You couldn't slap the smile off my face. So I go on Keflex. At that point I was only taking baths with oatmeal and epsom salts and occasional Halobetasol. The next pictures were taken 3 days after I started the Keflex.

7/10/09




Next ones are taken 5 days later. Still kind of angry looking.

7/15/09




A very wise woman told me it takes time to heal, be patient. :)

Next ones were taken on the 18th, 10 days after starting Keflex.

7/18/09



Next ones you can really SEE the improvement. They're taken 23 days after starting on Keflex.

8/01/09



Wow huh? Yea WOW! To me this is a HUGE improvement! I did use my Halobetasol about 4 days during that time. If I wouldn't have I don't know it would have done so well.

Now, that pretty much brings you up to date. Right now I DO have some blisters coming up again. I'm using Halobetasol for a couple of days and then not for a couple days, on and off. I would be in trouble if it weren't for the Halobetasol I think.

So I have hard days and easy days and lately they have been more easy ones which is good. I have had days I hurt so much I couldn't open a bottle or hold a glass. Days I had to have help doing the most simple things.

I hope they find a cure one day. But until then Ill keep treating my psoriasis and doing the best I can while I try to help others. Ill try to keep posting updates on here, plus I have 3 other blogs so I'll most likely be going between them all on alternating days.

As for me Ill end this post for the night. Today is my 9th wedding anniversary and we have a drive planned to Lake Michigan to see lighthouses. Have a great day!