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| Re: PHOTOS - Intrepid in Dry Dock and other nautical stuff (219441) | |||
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Re: PHOTOS - Intrepid in Dry Dock and other nautical stuff |
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Posted by WillD on Thu May 24 17:09:50 2007, in response to PHOTOS - Intrepid in Dry Dock and other nautical stuff, posted by Fred G on Thu May 24 07:13:04 2007. Truely excellent photos once again, I really wish I could have been there.I woke up about 7:30 Saturday morning and noticed that I felt funny, but chalked it up to getting up so early. I took a shower, noticed what seemed like a few mosquito bites over my body, but didn't think of it. I tried to put my contacts in, but my forehead felt funny, the mirror was fogged up so I couldn't quite see what I looked like. I managed to get the lens in. My alarm had woken up my parents so my mom was downstairs when I got there and she just about screamed. My right eye was almost swollen shut, my stomach was about 6 inches further around due to swelling, and I was covered head to toe with a rash that swelled outward. I'd hoped I could blame it on mosquitos and sneak out of the house without them noticing, but when I actually saw how bad off I was any hope of making it to NYC that day evaporated. I wound up at the Virtua Hospital emergency room, where they proceeded to question me about anything different I might have had in the past 24 hours. For the entire week I'd been eating left over roast beef for dinner after work, and hadn't changed soaps, shampoos, deodorants, or anything else. At first I blamed an allergic reaction to some leftover spaghetti I'd eaten that night, until my mom pointed out that there was nothing new or different in it from the previous times I'd had spaghetti. I wound up then settling on preservatives in a hot dog UPS had given us for 15,000 safe work days as the cause for my irritation. The doctor gave me a strong dose of steriods and Benedryl, a prescription for smaller doses of steriods to wean me off them and sent me home. With the Benedryl and general lack of sleep I fell crashed and wound up sleeping til about 4pm. When I woke up the steriods had completely cleared the hives from my skin and I thought I was cured. I considered heading for NYC Sunday despite having missed Working Harbor Day. Sunday morning I woke up and the hives were back. I was severely pissed off and was generally miserable at the ineffectiveness of the smaller steriod prescription doses. I was taking Benedryl every four hours to keep the itching down and still had no idea when this hell would be over. On monday the hives pretty well covered my feet, which made walking a whole new exercise in pain. The steroids seemed to be even less effective and throughout the day I watched the hives march around my body in roughly 2 hour cycles. Needless to say I called in sick to work. Tuesday I finally got in to see a doctor, but because the general practitioner near us was unable to see me I wound up at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. There the doctor looked at me and quickly dispelled several misconceptions I had. First of all it couldn't be a food allergy because my mouth and throat likely would have swelled up in the same way, a far more dangerous situation. Again I was questioned about any changes in soaps, shampoos, or anything else. I'd had an ingrown toenail cauterized a week before the breakout and in the instructions for recovery I was directed to keep it wrapped and covered in Neosporin. Thinking that this was the one case of self-medication that I couldn't screw up or end up overdosing on I'd kept it well covered with neosporin and changed the bandages twice a day. The PH doctor heard this and said "stop using Neosporin, you're allergic to Neomycin". Neomycin is an antibiotic, the active ingredient in Neosporin, and as it turns out lots of people overuse it and end up giving themselves allergies to the stuff. I had told the Virtua ER doc that I was using lots of Neosporin on Saturday, but he simply nodded and asked about any different foods. Because I didn't know Neosporin was the problem I continued dutifully applying it to my toe Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday all while trying to cure the allergies it was causing. Tuesday afternoon after getting home from the hospital I cleaned my toe very well, replaced the bandage without neosporin, and since then I've encountered a whole lot more success with the recovery. I still likely have to go to an allergist to confirm this, but it seems that the Penn Hospital doctor was dead-on with her diagnosis. Sorry about the fairly long narration, but hopefully folks will get the moral of the story, be friggin careful with Neosporin. Like I said I always thought while you had to be careful with painkillers and all other medicines Neosporin was the one thing you could over-apply without a problem. The Penn Hospital doctor told me that in the past she'd hand out little tubes of Neosporin to every patient she saw, until she came across cases of it causing severe allergic reactions. Furthermore she said that it's highly debatable if it's any more effective than washing a wound with antibacterial soap. |
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