a diagnosis

FINALLY. It seems it was really only a matter of finding the right combination of doctors who knew what they were talking about.

So, I went back to the rheumotalogist in Charleston today. He had run some blood work when I was there 4 weeks ago and given me a prescription for prednisone. The steroid was GREAT, but he told me at that time that if being on them caused my blood levels to come up then he would definitely think I had lupus. Last Friday, I had to have a CBC done, and all of my counts were down. So, naturally, I assumed that I didn't have lupus.

However, when we got to the appointment today, he pulled out the labs from a month ago and began telling us that this was elevated and that was centric and something else was a low complement.......(can you tell he was speaking medicalese?)  all that to say that he was 99% sure that I DO have lupus.

What is lupus? It presents itself in people in several different ways.....a skin rash, joint pain, and kidney disease are the most common. It does present in the blood in some people....like me! Basically, my immune system is in hyper overdrive and is killing the bad stuff (germs) and the good stuff (platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells). Our goal now is to try to calm it down.

How are we doing that? Well, first off I am starting a new medicine. It may take a while to get the dosage correct...yippee.....and it may cause me to become sick. Secondly, I have to completely change my diet because I can't have anything with preservatives. In his words, all fruits and veggies should be as close to raw as possible and meat should not contain all that stuff they pump into it. Why, you ask? Well, preservatives act as an antibody in the body and they will not allow my immune system to calm down because it will be working to remove those foreign substances from it. This is gonna be a hard one for me, because as you all know.....my favorite food group is cake! However, I'm going to have to be vigilant (do you know how much we eat contains preservatives?) like EVERYTHING! I also have to walk 10-15 minutes 4-5 times a week for now. That shouldn't be too bad.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this thing so I am sure that I will have much more to say as I get started. So, for now, I am off to eat my dried vegetables (bleh) for dinner.