Yesterday’s set-up (“Two afflictions”) for today’s more detailed report:
I have largely lost the last few days to afflictions
…. One of [them] comes with rapid descents into very low barometric pressures [pressure drops] (as has happened twice in the last three days, as sea storms sweep through coastal California). The other is a mystery ailment that has variously annoyed and plagued me for many years: intensely itchy spots over most of my body, but especially my limbs, sometimes maturing into actual pustules; I have taken to referring to this condition as the itchies. On the night of the 14th/15th, I had the worst attack of the itchies in my life
So today I bring you a report on the Days of Pressure Drops and the Itchies. You hope for days of milk and honey, cakes and ale, wine and roses, beer and skittles, but sometimes you get days of pressure drops and the itchies. Both of which hurt, both of which exhaust you.
Pressure drops. First, some experiential description: a report to my daughter on the morning of 11/16, about the second of two recent pressure drops (lightly edited):
Initially terrible night. Wakened by excruciating joint pain when the barometric pressure fell precipitously. Eventually got some sleep in the recliner chair in the living room, then was able to get back to bed and fell into what was ulimately a very nice sleep, ending with especially pleasant dreams. Went to bed at 8:15, arose at 5:53, so almost 10 hours of fragmented sleep. First morning vitals absolutely splendid on all counts (pulse rate of 65). It’s a rollercoaster.
But I was wrung out, exhausted, and came back to life slowly yesterday morning.
Two things you need to know. One, I need to be able to get to sleep almost immediately, then wake up briefly roughly once every hour to whizz and drop back to sleep with equal facility. Two, I can do all this through an ability to willingly enter an altered state of consciousness, a kind of trance state — an ability I discovered by accident as a teenager, and one that has served me well in escaping from great pain, or just sleeping soundly in noisy and bright environments.
But the trance is broken by unexpected sharp pain — slap me, and I’m wide awake — or by calling my name — say Arnold and I’m back in the world. If I’m suffering from the joint pain of a pressure drop (which causes the connective tissue of joints to swell), I can escape it by going away (as I often put it; lots of people find trance state uncomfortably woo-woo). But the sudden joint pain of a pressure drop breaks the trance; sometimes I wake up screaming, my heart pounding, and that experience is draining, enervating. I can then surmount that pain by going away, but I’m worn out.
The sea storms are hell.
Previously, on this blog: from my 3/8/19 posting “Vasolidation”, in a discussion of the Maytals’ 1969 song “Pressure Drop”:
Low air pressure affects some people — I am one — both physiologically and psychologically. Physiologically, by aggravating the pains of arthritis, bunions, and some other afflictions (ouch ouch ouch). Psychologically, in the form of a mild but still distressing depression (I inexplicably burst into tears over some tiny thing, then think to check the air pressure).
On top of everything else, pressure drops are sad times.
The itchies. On this one I’ll start with the background. From my 5/30/23 posting “On the dermatology beat”:
Here I quote, edited and amended, e-mail from me to my Bayarea Geriatric caregivers on 5/20, commenting on the instance that the pedicurist had noted [a pimple with a dark head], which they were concerned might be an abscess
… But I am an idiot; I should have recognized — epiphanic moment — what it was. It’s a pimple / pustule from a persistent (that is, chronic) microbial infection that I suffer from. Some have darker heads, some yellow heads, some have no visible head [but are just slightly raised areas, a bit of puffiness]; they are tender [they hurt], and itchy.
My attempts to have them identified in the past — I’ve had the pustules checked at [the Palo Alto Medical Foundation] (because of my 2003 bout with [necrotizing fasciitis caused by MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphlococcus aureus), which came very close to killing me] …), and they’re not S. aureus, but they’re something microbial, maybe viral rather than bacterial — just led to the doctors telling me, rather contemptuously, that they were mosquito bites. On very unlikely parts of my body (I have a persistent one on my right buttock), in the winter when there are no mosquitoes, and at times when I haven’t been out in my little garden. (Sometimes I wonder why I consult doctors.)
I had one (with no head) on the (lower surface of the) middle finger of my left hand that lasted for more than a year, always itchy and tender. A new little one (with a dark head) just appeared at the base of my right thumb, which is what made me realize why the spot on the sole of my foot looked so familiar.
They are demonstrably not the red measles-like rash of allergic reactions (to food or to contact with allergens).
On to the night of the 14th /15th, when I had the worst attack of the itchies in my life, all over my body, too many to count, indescribably awful. I was, at least, able to escape to trance-land (while still getting up for a moment every hour to whizz). To trance-land, where I slept for an amazing 11 hours, ending up in an especially pleasing dream I was reluctant to leave, but it was actually rather late in the day. With record-low blood pressure and pulse rate (the readings of my teenage years). And only two itchy spots, on the middle joint of the second finger of each hand, all very symmetrical. (I’ve had these particular itchies maybe 50 times over the years; they go away and then they come back. They are aggressively hurt-itchy; but if there are only two of them, they can be easily treated with topical anti-itch (hydrocortisone) cream.)
Since the 15th, I’ve picked up a few more. Alas, several in the small of my back, totally unreachable to my ministrations. But I’m used to having some itchies all the time; they are a chronic, moveable affliction, not unlike my various sources of chronic pain. There’s a certain level you can become inured to, tolerate without stress responses. So that I feel good and look good (people tell me so), and I can do my work, writing postings like this one. Making hay out of Pressure Drops and Itchy Spots.
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