Sleepy...

Well, I finally allowed myself to take medical leave. I have to get to a certain level of illness before I feel justified. Apparently, that meant alternating nights on the bathroom floor.

I went to see my doctor Thursday and picked up a prescription for Ketotifen. Traditionally it was used to treat itchy eyes and asthma symptoms, but it's a mast cell stabilizer and antihistamine and he hopes it will calm the mast cells in my gastrointestinal tract. I think my doctor suspects I have systemic mastocytosis. He thinks that my body has essentially developed an allergy to the food I cut out for a while thinking I was helping a systemic candida issue. Systemic mastocytosis is very rare. The intestines, skin and lungs all have the most mast cells in our body. My small intestines are extremely painful, I have nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, and this all happens after I try to eat a small amount of foods I'm not used to whether it be fruit or cooked vegetables and grains (not gluten, I'm just trying amaranth and a couple others). I am also becoming allergic to things that I wasn't allergic to. Tree nuts are starting to bother me and kick up asthma, which I haven't had an issue with since I was a little girl. I'm also getting tested for intestinal parasites and bacterial imbalances to check everything out.

I'm supposed to take Ketotifen up to 4 times a day, but just starting out at once a day knocked me on my backside. I think I've been sleeping 16-20 hours a day. The pharmacist and doctor warned me that was probably going to happen for the first three days. I feel a little more awake today, but really want to crawl back into bed.

This week I start some I.V. treatment and just do more tests. Hopefully I'll be better soon. I was hoping to miss work only for a couple weeks, but I'm not sure how realistic that is. I don't even feel like cooking - and that's usually my coping mechanism. This morning I did make some tasty porridge out of amaranth, hemp milk, raisins, and spices. We'll see how that settles.