Wow, I knew it had been a while since I had the time or energy to post here, but I see it's been three weeks! Sorry about that. I am still in the throes of a bad relapse of my ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome)--about two and a half months now--and the holiday season has been rough.
I've had terrible flu-like aches every day for about the last 10 weeks, so I know my immune system is in an "activated" or hyper state. But I have no idea what triggered it this time. When the same thing happened at the same time last year, it turned out to be a flare-up of yeast overgrowth (common in ME/CFS; treatments at the link). So, I first tried a stronger prescription antifungal than I normally take for a month. However, I've been sticking to my stricter keto-style diet all year (which has been very effective), and I double-checked with TWO visits to my dentist, who confirmed there was absolutely no sign of thrush or yeast overgrowth. So, my best guess is that this lengthy crash was "just" triggered by exposure to some random virus, like a cold. Though I wear a mask out in the world, my son comes home sometimes, and we occasionally have close friends over and eat together. Who knows.
I also tried two short (5-day) rounds of prednisone (a steroid) to try to calm my immune system down. That did help a little bit (especially the second round)--and I added two more days just to get through Christmas--but I'm still not back to my normal baseline. I still have those flu-like aches every day, though they're not quite as severe as before.
You can hear all the details in my recent Chronic Illness Vlog, recorded two weeks before Christmas during that first round of steroids. It's an honest peek into my daily life for a week: the good, the bad, and the ugly! You can watch the video on my YouTube Channel or I'll include it below.
So, I was in pretty bad shape on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day: off the steroids and had overdone on Sunday, trying to help my husband a bit with cleaning and decorating (I know better but he's been doing everything). That's why I restarted the steroids--just for 2 days--on Christmas. I didn't sleep well Christmas Eve in the early morning (too worried about everything I had to do!), so I was pretty wiped out. I somehow just zombied through my day with a smile (and a mask) on my face. Our son (with a bad cold!) and his girlfriend came to visit, as did my mom and her husband, our usual crowd for Christmas Day. We smartened up this year and ordered the food in--a full turkey dinner that was delicious! It still required some work to get everything warmed up, table set, etc. but everyone helped.
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| Christmas dinner |
I was quite a bit better yesterday after a much better night's sleep (it sucks how one hour of sleep more or less can mean functioning OK versus feeling horribly sick). So, I managed to enjoy our annual cookie decorating/Grinch party with our oldest and closest friends--a cherished tradition, even though the "kids" are in their 30's now!
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| The cookies we decorated last night! |
And today, everyone had gone back home, my husband and younger son went golfing, and I had a spectacular day in quiet solitude! Still mildly achy and worn out (woke too early again), but with absolutely nothing I had to do. And now it's time to reheat leftovers for dinner!
Tonight I plan to add an extra 1 mg of my extended-release melatonin (from 2 to 3 mg) to my usual regimen of treatments to correct sleep dysfunction (which I am really appreciating!) to hopefully end this too-early waking in the morning.
Tell me how you spent your holidays this year!
How have you been feeling?
Do you get worse in late fall/winter?
How do you accommodate your illness and still enjoy holidays & family?
Let me know in the comments below.
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