Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Rash Wars - Part II: The Rash Strikes Back

So, against my better judgement and along the lines of the instructions from the ER doctor I started and finished my course of steriods that aleviate the symptoms (but not the cause) of my rash. I won't go into detail on the hows and whys steriods work - or even what the side effects listed were (knarly dude!) - but they don't do anything FOR the rash itself.

So, I finish that, I'm using my prescription cream and BOOM a rash explosion 2 days after the steroids flush from my system. Oh LOVELY. Just what I was hoping?

So, what do I do? Well, being that I'm mostly broke I did the only thing I could do - I went to the doctor in my healthcare system. That isn't what I wanted to do - I wanted to go to a homiopathic doctor. No such luck. So, what does my primary doc say? Well, that the ER doc had it wrong (he was treating for candadiasis - fungal - that's what the cream does) and that the rash was from a food allergy. Then he prescribes the EXACT same steriods, except for at DOUBLE the doseage! E-gads man! I asked him if they actually did anything and he said no, they only treat the symptom of the rash. So I asked him if I removed anything possibly in my diet that had changed and just let the rash flush out normally if that would be OK. He didn't even understand my question! so, I spent the next 5 minutes or so trying to convice him that I didn't want more steriods and I wanted to let the rash go away by itself! And that's what I'm trying.

The thing is, I can't figure out what it is!!!! I've check for symptoms regarding cashew nuts, soy and tahini (pureed sesame seeds) - none really match. But I sure do have the rash! Well, I've already cut out the cashew butter (which I miss dearly) and as of tomorrow no more soy or tahini. I'll see what happens.

In the mean time, I am going to schedule an appointment with an allergist for the scratch test so we can figure this out! I'll keep you posted.

Ciao!

1 comment:

CyberGal said...

Hey MacPhilly! You got on a new diet, and i believe they have a website and forums. What about writing an email to the Doctor who wrote the book you use? I bet someone else has run into this before.

When I was into macrobiotics I learned stuff from other americans who'd changed their eating and found symptoms not documented in the macrobiotic literature.