Hives

Forgot to post about this. Almost a couple months ago I felt a bump on my back that felt like a mosquito bite and it itched like crazy so I scratched it. The next day, it had turned into 2 bites, the next day it was five bites that were these huge hives. I have a tendency to get some heat hives after hard workouts so I assumed they'd migrated to my shoulder blade. The itching got so bad that I bruised my skin surrounding where I was scratching. The area kept getting bigger and itching worse. I had my mom look at it and thought it was maybe shingles but I hadn't been sick. I decided to wait a few days to see if it went away.

They didn't go away, they got worse. When I scratched in the wrong spot, it HURT so bad, I'd almost shoot through the roof. Then the skin around it started numbing. By this time I was pretty freaked out and called the dermatologist. I contemplated going to Instacare but knew they'd send me to a dermatologist anyway and with our high deductible insurance, I didn't want to see more doctors than necessary. Unfortunately for me, the dermatologist was booked out about 6 weeks. I tried to get in to another one, booked out 3 weeks. I knew I'd go crazy by then. I guess the squeaky wheel gets the grease because I finally go into the on-call doc who promptly diagnosed me with shingles - chicken pox reincarnate along nerve roots.

I was too far into the sickness for them to do anything (thanks for making me wait weeks! What if I was DYING?!?) and way past being contagious and then broke the news to me that I could have it another 2-4 weeks. Luckily, I got it so young, my case was a relatively mild case, just ANNOYING. Could have been a lot more painful and more prominent (mostly only older people get it and sometimes on their face which could cause sight loss). So I survived. I don't know how I got it, some sort of virus I could have got anywhere. I don't recommend them though!