Thursday, December 20, 2007

The Bloodwork is In...

After the sever outbreak of hives I had in August, my allergist diagnosed me as having chronic hive (aka, Chronic Uritcaria or UC), told me to finish up the prednisone, and started
me on 5 antihistamines. He sent me in for blood work. Most of it was back at my last apt. but not all of it. He said my thyroid was fine, and my glucose levels were beautiful. We were waiting on the results of the testing to see if the cause was genetic or autoimmune.
My dad is adopted so we don't know anything about his history.

The results are in: my allergy levels were perfect, showing no real allergic reaction to anything. The autoimmune levels were high. Really high. I believe she put it as through the roof? I see my
allergist after the 1st of the year (no openings due to Christmas) and he will go over everything with me more.

I discovered the hives.com web page after getting the CU diagnosis. I
read the symptoms of auto immune and it lined up. So this isn't a big
surprise to me. Looking back, I've always thought I was allergic to
menstrual pads as I always break out in horrible hives during that
time. I guess it wasn't that.

So this is what I'm facing for the rest of my life. I get to start a regime of strong meds, I'll never be able to get private medical insurance to cover this part of my health (pre-existing condition), and we can't drop the $500 a month insurance we have right now w/ DH's work b/c I HAVE to have medical coverage for it all. The good news: during pregnancy the hives tend to go away. I am NOT going to be getting pregnant just to make the hives go bye-bye though. LOL

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