It’s like a billion determined ants crawling all over my body. Tiny, insistent, constant tremors in every crevice, including the previously untouched depths of my navel. If I try to physically relieve the sensation by scratching, it becomes infinitely more intense. I’m driven to the point of tears for lack of relief.
As it turns out, I am allergic to sulfa drugs. After 36 hours of being on a sulfa-based antibiotic, my entire body exploded into tiny hard bumps and hives, all of which are radiating an unbearable itchiness that cannot be relieved. I have gone through a lifetime’s worth of hydrocortisone. I have rotated ice packs. But since it is a systemic rather than an environmental allergy, these measures only offer superficial, temporary relief. Almost a placebo, actually. Applying ointments, taking pills, these feel like some sort of assigned task to create the impression that I can do something about this misery, so like I feel like there is some hope, some possibility of remedy.
I’m 51 and have gone through heartbreak, pregnancy, miscarriage, deception, and all the emotional and physical challenges that accompany those states. But I can easily say that this allergic reaction yielded the worst day in my life. It tortured me to the point where I recognized that it was affecting my mental health, because I couldn’t see the end of the tunnel. Within 24 hours, I went to three urgent care specialists, and finally the ER, because the itching had gotten so intense, the thought of peeling burning skin off my body just to have some sort of definitive climax of pain, was preferable. Since the reaction covered my body, any position of reprieve, sitting or reclining, had little calming effect. The ER doctor was finally able to get the reaction under control with an IV cocktail of antihistimines and steroids, which pulled my body back from high alert and I was finally able to sleep.
I think I have a pretty high pain tolerance. I believe that our bodies and minds adapt, and pain thresholds change with exposure. But I had never experienced anything like this before. The sensation, because it was so encompassing and uncontrollable, wore down my mental state.
The term “drug rash” seems so innocuous, but it was the most hideous experience I’ve gone through, and I’m still battling the tail end of it.
Ah, and how did this happen? On May 16, I was seeding the lawn, put up a doggy fence, promptly tripped over the fence, and ended up with a hematoma on my shin. As it healed, the new skin got infected, so I was placed on an antibiotic. I’m now on a different antibiotic, and the hematoma is just starting to clear up.
