Secular Confessions

[3andMe]

I'm about to leave for a hike, but this abstract from PubMed mentions all of them:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22052280

Abstract

Lichen planus (LP) is an inflammatory dermatosis of unknown etiology that is primarily associated with liver disease. Recently, there have been several reports of LP developing after administration of the hepatitis B, influenza and combined MMR-DTaP-IPV vaccines. Here we report the first case of LP developing on the lower extremities of an otherwise healthy adult male after administration of the Tdap vaccine. We present this case to draw awareness to this observation in light of recently updated Tdap vaccination recommendations.

[Bridget]

I thought Kai has scabies again. I have to take him in tomorrow.

[missychrissy]

...But really I cannot see anything without my glasses and I don't wear them in the pool....so I kind of think that if I cannot really see anyone else, they cannot see me. LOL

You're too funny!!

I haven't been swimming once this year It's too late now. It has to be over 90 before I'm tempted. I don't swim in public pools. Not sure why...but I just don't. Our school has one that's open to the public and I've never swam in it.

[missychrissy]

I thought Kai has scabies again. I have to take him in tomorrow.

Oh goodness I hope not Bridget.

[Suja]

I thought Kai has scabies again. I have to take him in tomorrow.

NO! He can't have scabies again. I forbid it.

On another health note, I woke up nauseous and dizzy, and a blood sugar of 24! Hypoglycemia is a new one on me. Need to get to a doctor, because there are potentially serious underlying problems there.

[Bridget]

Me too. I am freaking out. But the rash did start the day after his 3 shots. And the 2 rashes are very similar looking imo. I just called the mom of the kids I take care of to tell her I thought he has scabies again and she told me her mom was incorrectly diagnosed with scabies when really she had licken planus.

I can't figure out how on earth he could possible have gotten scabies again. It changed everything about my housekeeping habits. I'm a freak about it now.

[Bridget]

So is pubmed something I can bring to the dr's attention without him thinking I'm a dr with a google degree?

[missychrissy]

You test your own blood sugar for hypoglycemia? I've had a couple episodes of it myself, but no one ever suggested I test my own blood sugar.

Speaking of dr's, I'm starting to get anxious about my yearly female exam. It's kinda a long story and I can't even remember if I shared it on here or not, but when I was pregnant with Conner I had an OBGYN that told me I had tested positive for HPV. I remember the two visits where I argued with him about it because I was certain I'd never been positive or had an abnormal pap and I'd only been with Rich at that time for 15-16 years. He insisted I did have it but that it was no big deal. I remember being incredulous and asking how I could have gotten it but not tested positive for all that time. He just shrugged. Anyway, at 33 weeks he left and I found myself scrambling to find another provider at the very end of my pregnancy. I opted to use a midwife that I'd had for Jesi & Syd, but she'd moved to a hospital group that I absolutely hate. I loved and trusted her though, so I decided to go to her office. I needed to sign to have my records transferred of course, but given that I'd had complications with Bobbie, Jesi & Syd, they didn't want to wait the 10 days it can take for my original office to send the records, so I instead went up one day and got them myself. My appt with the midwife was the next day and out of curiosity I went through my chart. I saw the blood work and HPV NEGATIVE it said. I was PISSED! All that anxiety and worry for nothing? Anyway, at my first appointment with the midwife I brought it up and asked her to double check, thinking maybe I missed something. She reviewed things quickly and said nope, I was definitely HPV negative and she commented that it was lucky I didn't go home and accuse my husband of cheating on me. The thought had never crossed my mind. I was absolutely certain (still am) that he'd never. But other people? Can you imagine getting news like that from your dr? I think it would have been a normal reaction to go home and accuse your partner of cheating.

Anyway, I'm bad about going to the dr and I never had another pap until it was time to change my Mirena last fall. That pap came back as abnormal, but because I have new insurance and it was yet another provider (planned parenthood) I had to wait a full year before I was tested further. Now paranoid me is wondering if my OBGYN made a mistake and I really had an abnormal pap but he mistakenly called it HPV, and then my midwife only double checked the HPV results and missed the abnormal pap? What if I had 'something' going on for the last 6 years?

I'm not uber uber worried about it, but it's in the back of my mind. I probably wouldn't have thought twice about my abnormal pap results from last year because I do know it happens from time to time and it's not a big deal. EXCEPT that whole fiasco that happened when I was pregnant with Conner. Of course if I'd been told I had an abnormal result then I'd have followed up a year later just to make sure. Ugh. I'm really kicking myself because I should have just done my yearly exams like a good girl.

[Suja]

Chrissy, I have never been diagnosed with hypoglycemia. I was trying to figure out what was going on, and decided to use DH's diabetes testing kit because it was there. I re-tested just now, an hour after a heavy meal, and it is 99. I usually test every time he gets a new pack of test strips. I'm kind of the control, because my sugar levels tend to always stay a little low, but within normal limits.

Of course, Dr.Google says death is imminent. So, if the broken off tampon tips don't get me, whatever led to the hypoglycemia will.

Bridget, I would absolutely bring up PubMed. It's a good, scientific source, and any doctor that brushes off your concerns does not deserve your business.

[Cosmosmom]

So is pubmed something I can bring to the dr's attention without him thinking I'm a dr with a google degree?

Absolutely. It's one I would search for articles for the doctors. I can look tomorrow morning for you....I just do not have access to most of our resources from home. I probably could email you the whole article....we have well over 5000 journals electronically.

[Bridget]

If you had time that would be great. I am going to call first thing to get him in. I think I should keep Savana home too, in case it is scabies.
Please don't let it be scabies.

[AmeriBrit]

Sending the non-scabies vibes your way, Bridget. I hope it's not that again!

I just have to say that I'm reflecting back on this past week with it being Cash's first week at daycare, my first week at work and Travis' first week of full time school, and I have to say that first week went so very well! I am so pleased with how everything went and seems to be flowing. Travis is having a good time at his school's breakfast and after-school club even though he some times says he doesn't like it, I know that he does enjoy it because he's always having a good time when I collect him. It's going to take a little more time for him to get used to eating breakfast at school, but that will come with time. He's still a bit hesitant with new things/concepts/ideas, so going there and not knowing everyone there yet is daunting for him. What makes me feel most anxious for him is that I can remember being really young and having a hard time making friends or talking to adults, so I tried to do everything on my own and that's why I am how I am now (I tend to be a loner but am working on being more a people person these days because I've come to realize that I actually do like people and want to have friends but my people skills are behind since I've spent so long doing my own thing!) So, I don't want that for Travis. We do our best here at home to really hype school up and talk about how cool it is and how we can try to help the other kids and try to be their friends, so I'm hoping our role-modelling will wear off on him. Oh, and I'm really proud and a little shocked with how well he is reading this past week. I hardly spent any dedicated time with him with reading over the summer (except at bedtimes) because he just was not interested, but his teacher sent a simple book home with phrases like, "The cat sat on the man" and he can read those! He read the whole book (10 pages!) It's like, 'hey, you really are listening to me sometimes!' LOL.

Cash still has a hard time when I drop him off at nursery, but I think that, too, will ease off in time. When I drop him off in the morning, the first thing he does is grab my car keys when I go to say g'bye to him. And then he tries to cling on to me, so I have to leave him screaming "Muuuummmmyyy!!!!" while I wave to him with trying to not burst in to tears myself. They've said he calms down a few minutes after I leave. He also is always having a good time when I pick him up. Every time I've collected him, he's not noticed me because he's having that much fun playing until I shout his name and then he drops everything and comes running to me. He lifts his arms up and says, "get out!" (meaning for me to get him out of there). LOL. He is still pushing people when he wants their toys, but he's getting better at saying sorry, so I'm hoping he gives up with that soon.

I had a great first week at work. The teacher I work with is such a great guy; he's full of energy and the kids love him. I work doing mostly intervention groups (helping kids who are a little behind with their math and writing skills and handwriting). We have a good class of kids. The days go by so fast because I enjoy it so much! It's strange after having had an office job for so long to actually go to work and actually enjoy what I'm doing!

[missychrissy]

I'm THRILLED that everything is going so well for you and your family Ash. You're right, things will get easier with Cash in time and I have no doubt the pushing will end as well.

Conner absolutely loves school too. He's very excited about everything he's learning. I'm glad we waited a year for him to start. He's absolutely ready now.

[Ky'sMom]

So glad to hear everything is going well at school Ash!! I recently was reading about the East End of London and thought about you due to the fact that they were discussing how many of the residents there didn't feel like the Olympic venues would really do anything to help that part of London economically, as it is one of the more depressed parts of the city. They have a lot of immigrants there and poor Londoners. There was a pic of a school there where practically all the children lived in poverty but it was one of the best performing schools in the city and they spoke of the teachers and teacher assistants and how they love their students and provide them the support they need and that they are equal to those on the West End. I thought that was great and showed IMO how education can be a successful journey for all kids with the right tools necessary. Most of the kids at the school shown were ESL students so that was extra impressive IMO.

And LOL at all the tampon talk. I also use the tampax pearls though. No other tampons will "open up" for me for some reason and even the pearls don't open up all the time. But they are the easiest to insert. I never sit on the toilet though to insert them as they seem to push air up there and I will cramp for some reason. I will kind of squat over the toilet and put them in if I am in a public bathroom, at home I'll stand up and lift my leg, that way no air gets in. I always think I'd look really ridiculous if someone ever decided to invade my privacy and film me in the bathroom and happened to catch me putting in tampons and I'd think that whatever perv wanted to see that would be grossed out and hopefully not have toilet cams again.

And wow about your HPV story Chrissy. I had a doctor tell me I tested positive for it when I was 20 and I thought I was going to die of cancer. Turned out, I didn't have it. I was retested for it when I was PG with Ky. I think that that doctor must have told all women with abnormal paps that they had HPV. I also have never had an abnormal pap again since then. And I admit, I did accuse DH of giving it to me. He admits he used to be a man whore though and even went to get tested for it and was apologetic, he didn't have it either so then he joked about me getting it when I was younger and wondered what guy gave it to me and how we'd better use condoms again. My last OB/gyn visit, they wanted me to consider getting the HPV vaccine since I don't have it. I made my new gyn test me again to be sure and I didn't have it again. My new gyn also said that I may have had an abnormal pap due to poor amounts of folic acid in my diet. He said that that is one of the reasons why folic acid has been added to a lot of "women's vitamins" not only for spina bifida prevention for fetuses during pregnancy, but that it can balance the environment of the cervix, something like that. I have taken a multi-vitamin since then rather regularly and haven't had any problems down there. But I will admit I haven't been to the gyn since Elle was around 16 months old when I got my IUD taken out after I got PG with the IUD in and miscarried. It was an ordeal mostly because it took a long time for my HCG levels to go down and they thought I may have some sort of cancer due to that as high HCG without a viable pregnancy is something they said was bad. Even though my levels weren't that high, they took a LONG time to go down and I had to go in for HCG testing every 2 weeks for about 4 months and it was such a PITA that I haven't wanted to go back to the gyn due to that. I'm going to try to find a new gyn and go before the end of the year. My old gyn moved to another area and I didn't like the lady to took his place. Plus you have to pay to park at that location and the fees are pretty excessive IMO and I don't like to spend so much money on parking when I already have to pay to go to the freaking doctor. One of my favorite things about Obamacare is that I no longer have to pay for my gyn office visits. Also DHs employer revamped their healthcare and MAN, it actually saved us some money, almost $200 per month so I am satisfied with it now. We also don't have to pay co-pays for yearly checkups and such so that will cut down on medical expenses. Even though I'm not all gung ho about the plan, I like it now. Anything that saves me a little money, let alone $200 a month ($2400 a year!!) is something I can support.

Erin

[missychrissy]

Wow Erin, that's a GREAT deal for you! I know our insurance is changing, but that's just because Cornell is dropping 1 of our 5 options at the end of this year. It happens to be mine. As it is right now, all the other options cost more

[girlwonder]

That HPV thing happened to me when I was 20. I got an abnormal pap smear twice in a row and then a biopsy and then had cryosurgery. The weird part for me was that no doctor actually mentioned hpv to me. I just thought I was getting cancer. My mom was the one who dropped it in conversation one day, told me I had HPV, and I thought she was full of it because you would have thought that one of the doctors I was dealing with at the time would have mentioned HPV. Anyway, since then I just always assumed I had it but no one has ever diagnosed me as having HPV. The whole thing still seems off to me - it seems like something like that would be able to be tested for. Can you test for it? Why did no one ever test me?

[Cosmosmom]

Bridget, that article above is literally the only one linking vaccines to a case of lichen planus. How is he doing this morning?

Rashes are the worst things to figure out I think. Half the time we never seem to figure out what was causing it. DH had one on his hands when we first got Molly and we almost thought we would need to rehome her. Little bumps all over his hands that itched. Finally figured out that it was natures miracle doing it. So now I either clean up the mess (not often now unless someone throws up)....or DH makes sure to super wash his hands afterwards. Or he can put on gloves.

[Cosmosmom]

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/hpv...0/METHOD=print

Says that routine testing of younger women isn't usually done. And HPV can sometimes clear up on it's own. And there are false positives.

[daylilies]

That's really odd because right after we got Bo I was really itchy. I was sure he had fleas. He didn't, and after a couple days I stopped itching. I wondered if it was just because I'd never had a dog before and was having some kind of mild reaction.
(that was meant to be a reply to Jennifer)

[Bridget]

His rash is worse and dr has no idea.

[missychrissy]

Oh no! Did he schedule him for tests?

[Cosmosmom]

Can you get him into a dermatologist or an allergist? Does hydrocortisone cream help?

[Bridget]

No. He gave me some steroid cream and a referral to a derm if it's not better in 3 days. He wouldn't even scrape it and see if it's scabies even though he says some of it looks like scabies and some of it doesn't. I called the kids' school to let them know what was going on and they said he is fine to come to school. I was shocked. I mean, what if it is scabies???

[dana_renay]

Ladies! I haven't posted here in a while, because I just can't keep up, and then I feel kind of bad about it. But you all are cracking me up with the tampon talk, and I guess now's as good a time as any to jump back in.
I think I have rhapsodized elsewhere on this forum about my love for the divacup. Seriously, that thing changed my life. But before that, I used the Tampax Pearl and while it was the best 'pon I ever used, I agree with L, there is no reason my girlystuff needs to smell like a deoderant trash bag. So nasty, and so easy to make a mistake.

Jennifer, I have several swim pieces from www.jms.com. Tops and bottoms are purchased separately, they have skirt and short options for the bottom. The tops are reasonably supportive, and at least contain all my ample bosom, plus they are long enough not to show belly even if I put my arms over my head. And very reasonably priced, to boot. I highly recommend.

15 years ago, I had an abnormal pap, colposcopy, the whole deal. The ob/gyn didn't even test for HPV, even though most cervical cancer is caused by HPV and abnormal cells without HPV are usually just inflammation. She was a crappy doctor. I did later get tested, and it was negative.

Bridget - I hope you got a referral to a dermatologist!

[missychrissy]

No. He gave me some steroid cream and a referral to a derm if it's not better in 3 days. He wouldn't even scrape it and see if it's scabies even though he says some of it looks like scabies and some of it doesn't. I called the kids' school to let them know what was going on and they said he is fine to come to school. I was shocked. I mean, what if it is scabies???

Wow-as a mom, I'd be uber annoyed if I knew that the school allowed a child in that could possibly have scabies. Can you call & make an appointment with the derm prior to 3 days?

15 years ago, I had an abnormal pap, colposcopy, the whole deal. The ob/gyn didn't even test for HPV, even though most cervical cancer is caused by HPV and abnormal cells without HPV are usually just inflammation. She was a crappy doctor. I did later get tested, and it was negative.

That's good to know actually because I remember clearly that my practitioner thought I'd had sex within 2 days but I hadn't and she was slightly confused by that. And then a week later I did develop a yeast infection. The most likely scenario is that is what caused my abnormal result and really it's nothing at all to worry about. I'm still gonna go, just to be sure.

[Cosmosmom]

Does it seem to itch him? Any changes in products like soaps lately? Or exposure to anything else new? A rash is listed as a potential side effect for at last some vaccines.

that doctor didn't sound too helpful at all.


OH I totally forgot about jms.....I wear their undies so always think of them for that but not for a suit.

[Bridget]

it's very, very itchy.

[Bridget]

So you think I should keep him home anyway? Dbf thinks we should send him but I am weary.

[missychrissy]

it's very, very itchy.

Poor little guy. I hope the cream offers him relief!

So you think I should keep him home anyway? Dbf thinks we should send him but I am weary.

I'd be on the fence about it myself. I'd probably keep him home at least 1 day and see if it looks better tomorrow.

[Cosmosmom]

I would keep him until tomorrow. If it was anything like what DH got....his was little raised bumps that itched like crazy.....the cream helped a LOT and pretty quickly. Basic contact dermatitis and it was where his skin had contact with the solution that caused the rash. Steroids calm things down pretty fast.

Any chance he got into any gluten at school? If he does have celiacs like you suspect, I believe that can manifest in a rash as well.