Saturday, March 27, 2010

Left-eye syndrome

I don't know what I did. Maybe it was the pre-cooked "flavoured" chicken from last night.

Today I realised I've got a left-side syndrome. All the problems are on my left-hand side - a painful eye, aching tooth, stiff shoulder, Australia - which was The Splodge - on my left chest and gout in my left knee. By this afternoon I even had a headache in the left side of my head. When my fingers hurt, it's on the left-hand. You can explain some of it by sinusitis but not the knee and shoulder. I've wondered whether there might be a wisdom tooth problem also. My dentist doesn't think so - but the right side wisdom has been removed.

It's not just been today. My shoulder's been stiff all week.

I haven't taken many montelukasts recently and that may have allowed problems to build up. I took one last night and another tonight and am feeling a little better.

Is there any point in discussing the left-side problem with a doctor? I know the cause and what to do about it. It just means I have to police the diet more rigorously than I have been.

RAS

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Pain and gain

I think I overdosed on redbush tea.

Last night and this morning I had an aching pain in the index finger of my left hand - and a fair amount of aching on my left arm.

I took it to mean I had overdosed - and in fact when I woke up this morning there were few signs of the cold. And Australia, which was the Splodge, was quite red.

So I've given up redbush tea again and taken up decaf instant coffee - which doesn't taste too bad now. Tonight I took a montelukast and the ache has almost gone.

RAS

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

More dish-water

I've been drinking redbush tea for the last 48 hours. This morning at breakfast it tasted like dish-water but tonight it's been okay.

It makes me feel a lot better, especially at breakfast. This cold, which may not be a cold, is complicated to make sense of. Tonight I'm feeling itchy, especially around Australia, and my nose is stuffy. The tongue's a little tingly but my chest feels wheezy and cold - like with a cold. That suggests  hay fever- like reactions - maybe at the same time as a cold.

Last night I tried some instant decaf. It wasn't too bad but had absolutely no taste. There's another explanation for the dish-water taste - that is that my sense of taste was impaired before and has now been restored. Maybe I was just tasting instant decaf and badly brewed redbush for what it is - dishwater.

Tomorrow I may find out.

RAS

Monday, March 15, 2010

Drinking dish-water

I made a cup of instant decaf coffee the other night and it tasted like dishwater. In fact I threw it away, thinking maybe it was dishwater.

The same happened yesterday at breakfast-time and I haven't dared touch the stuff since. You may say, of course it tasted like dishwater - it's not as though there's much original coffee left in instant decaf.

The trouble is I normally enjoy my decaf coffee. So something's gone wrong. Over the weekend I had to dine out. I took a montelukast - the first in ages - and let the brakes off a little, even drinking half a glass of wine.

No appetite for days so I've been wondering what's going on.

Tonight I think it might be another cold, another one! It feels like one. I'm sneezy and starting to cough and narcoleptic. Australia - which used to be The Splodge - is quite faint, but that could be the montelukast. Or could it be a hay fever type reaction?

RAS

Sunday, March 07, 2010

Taking the brakes off...

This weekend I took the brakes off. I drank wine with my meals. I had a pecular Chinese concoction when I went out for a pub lunch. It was based on bean sprouts and egg fried rice - which are all okay - but had other vegetables too, such as onions.

I thought last week's cold might have made a difference. And I wasn't sure whether it was still around. It seemed to turn into a chronically stuffy noise - but then I have lived with one of those for some years, and it's not caused by a cold virus.

I was wrong. When you take the brakes off, you slam into a brick wall. Today I have red blotches all over me. There's not been too much itching I'm pleased to say. But Australia - which was the Splodge and before that The Ring - has been quite red. And there is chronically stuffy nose.

It's helpful to be reminded sometimes that
a) there is a problem and
b) the diagnosis seems to be correct.

RAS

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Australia fades

As luck would have it, I was due to go to a Chinese buffet meal last night. As I've said before a cold should be a cause for partying, not for misery - as it was over the weekend.

I had some sandwiches at lunchtime yesterday and they were quite spicy. I'd love to say that last night I really indulged - but habits are hard to break. What happened was I didn't worry about what I was eating. I chose essentially low salicylate food - plain meat, so-called crab feet, chicken and sweet-corn soup, egg fried rice and banana fritter. And cheese cake, sweet, plain cheese cake.

In the last stages of a cold it's difficult to know, yet again, whether breaking the diet is going to aggravate the runny nose and sore throat. Today I'm still feeling a little sneezy and tired but it's mainly gone. My left eye has been sore, on and off, over the weekend. So is that the cold causing sinusitis - or sinusitis caused by attempts to get rid of the cold by drinking redbush tea.

The Splodge, which was The Ring, has been looking like Australia for a couple of weeks, almost so that I could uncover in the summer and pretend it was a tattoo of down under. Alarmingly over the weekend it seemed to darken in the area of New South Wales.

Today it's very faint, in spite of last night's excesses. In the back of my mind, I've been wondering whether the cold meant the allergic problems are going away - or even that the virus itself might solve them. If that happened, I wouldn't be able to write so much on this blog. But I'd be able to enjoy my summer holidays.

RAS

Monday, March 01, 2010

The thick of it

This has turned out to be the mother and father of all colds. I feel like one of those unfortunate native Americans who were first exposed to the cold and flu viruses against which they had no immunity.

For the last four years, no cold has got past the tip of my nose. So why have I suddenly succumbed.

I have been drinking redbush tea all weekend. Each cup gives me a temporary fillip. On Saturday night I slept for 12 hours and stayed in bed until the afternoon. I did stir at 8am and had a cup of redbush and a paracetamol and then went back to bed. I had a couple of glasses of sherry before lunch - a good tonic but it burnt my tongue.

Despite a restful Sunday and another good eight hours sleep last night , I am still thick with cold today. Perhaps I should consume more salicylates - maybe try an orange - to stir up the immune system some more.

RAS