106: hives!

grrrrrr!

a few hours ago i felt my face itching. i was paying attention this time so i knew it was the beginning of a hives attack.

last time this happened, i'd been up for about 36 hours straight and i ate something i shouldn't have. i was just about to go to bed when i felt my face itching. i was tired and sleepy so i didn't pay it much attention. i only wanted to finish up my project and get to a bed.

pretty soon my face was itching to beat the band. i stopped at a mirror on the way to bed and horror of horrors! my face looked red and whelp-y. um... okay... my skin is medium brown. red whelps were scary enough to make me cry.

i put a wet washcloth on my face but that only helped a bit. in fact, it made the itching feel... itchy-er, in a weird metallic way. (i still don't know what the hell that was about.)

i didn't get much sleep because every few hours the itching woke me up and had to get out of bed to re-wet the washcloth.

several hours later, my face looked like i had been in a boxing match with laila ali. my eyes were swollen almost shut and i was still itching. my grandma saw me and said, "oh my! what happened to you? you look like you been in a fight. you sure you ain't got wunna them computer viruses?"

(yeah, i know that's only kinda funny. but grandma meant that in the realist sense. she's pushing 80 and the only viruses she knows are the ones you see a doctor for. she doesn't understand that computer viruses only exist in virtual reality.)

so back to the rash at hand...

now a sista ain't pulled an all-nighter since the last time i wrote about it. but i probably did eat something i shouldn't have. i'm not sure what tho and that's the problem. it could have been any number of unknown ingredients in any of several things i ate today.

in fact, i was just reading the otha day bout a woman who almost died from eating applesauce. seems the applesauce had "natural flavors" as an ingredient. that "natural flavor" was cherries. the woman was deathly allergic to cherries and spent several days off work and months on medication related to complications from eating the cherry "natural flavors".

my body is getting more and more sensitive to "natural flavors" as i get older. i don't think it's age per se as it is the many years accumulation of stuff.

but back to the rash...

i'm taking a homeopathic remedy that seems to be helping a bit. but i also have a headache.

grrrrrrr!

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