There are times in my health world that it seems everything goes wrong all at once. Every symptom or side effect possible decides to rear their ugly and intrusive heads all at once. Stress tends to make it all worse, throwing my blood sugars, my sleeping habits, and my hormones out of an already teetering balance.
These past ten days or so have been an onslaugt of Dr. Murphy's Law (I say Dr. because it's strictly health related). The Accutane is giving me off and on side effects like back pain, insomnia, crazy dreams, fatigue, itchy skin, headaches, and so on. My blood sugars are trending low with the increase in stress and exercise. And the rest of my body seems to be following suit in the craziness.
Like yesterday, I woke up to a slight pain in my lower abdomen. It turned into a vice-like pain concentrated on my bladder shortly after and didn't show any signs of stopping until I drank a gallon of water, took AZO tablets, and downed way too much ibuprofen than recommended. And for the rest of the day, I dealt with an uncomfortable feeling around my bladder and a general malaise that didn't let up.
Today, I went to the doctor...knowing the signs of a UTI all too well and wanting to get this under control as soon as possible. My urinalysis showed only slightly raised white blood cells, ketones, and sugar in my urine. The ketones and sugar really irritate me because my blood sugars had been stable at 116 for the past 15 hours. And I was low before that.
I've been put on 10 days of antibiotics even though my urinalysis really doesn't show an absolute infection. But between the vice-like pain on my bladder yesterday and some random sharp back pain over my kidneys over the past week, the PA wanted to make sure we weren't letting something neglible turn to something larger. I also put a call into my endo to make sure it wasn't something I should treat more urgently (as in, are my kidneys okay?)...which the nurse agreed that the antibiotics are the first treatment and to keep an eye on the pain and blood sugars.
I've gotten a Precision Xtra meter plus the ketone urine strips and plan to check my ketones at random over the next few days. I'm hoping both pain symptoms are just the bladder infection, despite the urinalysis being mostly clear. Between the antibiotics and all the cranberry products that I bought, my symptoms should get better within a day or two.
It's just irritating that I can't seem to get my body straightened out these days. I'm having mood swings again now that the progesterone is completely out of my system. Perhaps a different birth control is necessary to stop this. The yeast infection symptoms that I've had off and on for the last two months are still there despite several treatments. And come to find out, Accutane often causes yeast like symptoms without an actual infection present.
Basically, I'm just trying to make it through the next 58 days until I'm done with Accutane. Then I want my body to have a long time to recover. My immune system, my organs, my whole body system just needs time. A long sleep, lots of good food (which I admit, I've slacked on vegetables lately), and maybe even a Mexican getaway.
I just wish Dr. Murphy would leave me be for the time being.
