Have you ever tried to lose weight when your body is determined to produce as much cortisol as it possibly can? It’s not easy, and it’s not fun.
We (my care team and I) are working diligently to figure out what is causing all this extra pain I’ve been having lately. So far, we’ve come up with fibromyalgia, arthritis, vitamin deficiencies, weight issues, and this totally fun condition in my thighs where they go numb for weeks on end and burn to the touch, called “Bernhardt-Roth Syndrome”. While all of these things have been put in my medical record, they do not warrant enough of a diagnosis for my insurance system to authorize me seeing a Rheumatologist about the possibility of an auto-immune disorder, even though it would make much more sense to have one diagnosis of an auto-immune disorder than 10 diagnoses to cover what goes on with me.
So we are stuck, or so I thought up until last night, when I got a message through the Epic system from an arthritis consultants place here in town (it’s even LOCAL, y’all!) saying that my referral to them went through and I should be hearing from them sometime next week to set up an appointment. I am ecstatic! If it wouldn’t make me scream out in pain, I’d be jumping for joy right about now!
Since the steroids are tapering down, the pain is definitely coming back, and so is the weight (hello, inflammation, my old friend!). I’m down to 10mg of prednisone for today and tomorrow and then I’m off of it entirely. When I was at 50mg, my weight was down to almost under 360. Now it’s back up to 365 today, with no change in behavior except that I’m eating more salad and less carbs, and getting more exercise and burning more calories. So yeah…. not making much sense beyond the inflammation.
And of course, we can’t forget our good friend, Cortisol, the stress hormone! Mine has been insanely high lately. Go figure, right? I’m working on trying to lower it with meditation and mindfulness. I know, I know. Hippie-dippy shit. But I know several people for whom those methods have worked out really well. At this point, I’m willing to try anything that will get me back to being productive with my writing and keep me on track to getting healthier.