Oddly enough, a really bad foot swell on right foot. It’s been a long time since I had a foot swell that was bad enough to worry about, but here we are.
Feet started itching at about 7:00 p.m. for no real reason – hadn’t been on them much that day. In fact, had been on them less than usual as we spent the day with my neice, and holding her standing up was hard on my growing gut. Itching was so bad I had to take a Benadryl to go to sleep. Was still sore when I got up, but not hugely swollen.
Did I say I hadn’t swelled in month? That was silly.
Woke up with lower right lip swelling at about 6:00 a.m. Was resolved by 2:00 p.m. when I went to pick up my sister. Fairly mild as far as lip swellings go.
I may never utter these words again:
I went an entire month without any swelling.
This is the first time I can remember since the three month break I had the year I graduated from college. (At least, that’s when I think it was…that was a long time ago.)
Hey, Di (I can hear you thinking), why do you think that is?
I have a theory.
Although we are not sure what protein it is that I am missing (the docs seem to be leaning toward the thought that it is not C1 esterace inhibitor, but something else that holds the mast cells together), we know that having infusions of FFP (fresh frozen plasma) helped me out. We think that the donor plasma has whatever protein I don’t have, and therefore heads off my symptoms.
I haven’t had plasma in almost a year, and probably won’t until I deliver this baby (for sure) and finish breastfeeding (speculative). Therefore, I have had pretty regular swelling.
Until I got pregnant.
The doctors have told me that some women do really well when they are pregnant, and some women do really poorly when they are pregnant. So far, I seem to be in Category A. So what it is about pregnancy that has made my symptoms go down?
I think it’s the increased blood volume.
When you are pregnant, your blood volume increases by about 50%. That means I have more protein floating in my body than I normally do. I am guessing that the extra blood volume/protein presence has brought me up to “normal” levels, and lessened my swellings.
Since, again, we don’t know what protein I am missing/doesn’t work in me, there is no way to test this hypothesis. There doesn’t even seem to be a way to count/test the efficacy of many proteins other than C1,so it’s not like we can look at before/after labs (and, since there is nothing interesting in my labs anyway, the docs have discontinued making me go through a five-vial blood letting once a year).
It will be interesting to see if this trend continues for the rest of my pregnancy…watch this space!
Have had the worst cold ever for almost two weeks, and came down with The Creeping Death (the stomach flu that’s been dong around) Thursday night/Friday morning. Which of course leads to swelling, as all illness does.
Started with right hand overnight Friday/Saturday, which is continuing now (8:30 p.m.) and right eye which is starting to go down.
Right hand, from “butt” of hand to 1/3 of way up arm, mostly on left side.
I have been sick since Thursday with about the worst cold I can ever remember having. I can’t breathe, or hear, or talk at a reasonable volume, and spent most of Friday and all of Saturday in bed. I started lip swelling on Thursday night, and have some lovely time lapse for you:
Friday, 11:42 p.m.
Saturday, 11:39 a.m.
Saturday, 1:49 p.m.
Saturday, 6:51 p.m.
It is now Sunday, 11:17 a.m., and I am starting to go down, and just look like I have had collagen gone terribly wrong.
So, I’ve been terrible at updating. During December, I had three swells: a tongue, and eye, and another eye on Christmas day. Also had an eye on January 4, when I went to see the doc for my quarterly check up.
Nothing new to report on the doc front – no change in therapy, no change in diagnosis, we’ll talk more about delivery at my next visit. Boooring. 
Started swelling in right side of upper lip and a bit under the nose in late afternoon, which progressed to entire upper lip overnight, and resolved by about noon 12.1.2008.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Of course, since I’ve been a Bad Girl about not journaling, now I have to remember it all right now. My husband is even sitting right here to make sure that I get this all done.
Had a lip swell a couple of weeks ago, followed in a couple of days by an eye swell. Neither were too terrible – over by about noon.
In the last few days, since I’ve had to stop taking my Allegra, I’ve been a truely swelly gal. Tuesday night I had a bit of butt and foot swelling, and yesterday my left eye started mid-afternoon, and my hands followed in the evening. They are HUGE – I’m hoping that some typing and later knitting will help move some of the fluid out. Also have a giant hive on my right ankle where my sock was hanging out yesterday.
