Well, at least if you are using it without connecting all the dots….If you’ve been following you’ve seen my post about having an unexpected allergic reaction to a drug I had last taken 5ish years ago. It seemed to me to be incredibly simple once I made the connection. There was no change in diet, no traveling (please…these days…traveling amounts to going to and from the back yard), no changes to anything, yet the sudden onset of an itchy, angry rash did happen. With the aid of the rabbit hole journey it was fairly quickly established by me that the only variable in this equation was the hypertension drug. Presented with the evidence (and some pictures) my primary care doc agreed and changed my Rx (the new on due to arrive today). Having stopped the drug I was expecting it to get better rapidly…yet, not so…, that led me to contact the Dermatologist for yet another tele med conference. We set it up for this morning, first thing, but yesterday she also asked that I upload as many pix as I could so she could get a better look at it ahead of time. When she saw the angry, red, pix she suggested, if I was ok with it, that she’d like to see me in person and perhaps biopsy it (that’s kinda scary). Still feeling very healthy, I had no problem going in, which I did this morning at 9:30. It was quite surreal as the usually bustling medical building was empty. The doctor met me at the locked door and in we went, all PPE’d up on both parts.

Having had multiple surgeries over the years, I have absolutely zero worry about undressing etc, so I simply dropped down to just utrow, said that if she didn’t mind I’d ignore the gown and sat on the table. Well, the reaction was immediate….”Hey, I don’t need to biopsy this, you have classic Poison Ivy!!!” She asked if I had been gardening, (NOPE, I don’t do that I have “people” who do that ) However, It did occur to me that given the current lack of other activity, I had purchased a grass whip to cut down some larger patches between lawn mowings just out of sheer boredom. Voilá, the connection was made….I must have taken a chunk of poison ivy up at some point, it must have hit me in the face or arms and then the spread began due to the scratching and perhaps smearing my face in my pillow. Now this Bronx boy would not know poison ivy if you gave him 12 pictures, (and still would likely be unable to identify it, even now) but I was relieved that it was something so simple. The downside, she did mention that it would likely take a good two weeks to go away entirely, but that I can manage (she did give me an Rx for a strong steroid cream that will take a few days to get here via mail, in the meantime, Benadryl and cortisone cream will suffice).

The lessons learned here are a few: 1. You can’t solve an equation till you have all the variables accounted for  2. Regardless of the research, leave the diagnoses to the professionals who are trained to do just that 3. If this world was not upside down, I would have simple walked into my primary doc’s office the first day this happened and likely he would seen the same thing and come to the same conclusion. 4. I’m now waiting to hear from the primary’s office about which of the two Rxs I should proceed with.

The good news: I didn’t suddenly develop some strange allergy. The bad news: Annoying, itchy rash…on balance, I’d say it’s a win!