Thursday, March 27, 2008

Stress.....


So for the last year or so i have had a strange mark on the back of my calf and one on each of my feet. My family always said go get that checked and i just brushed it off cuz it didnt hurt, itch or seem to get bigger. But then the one on my leg started to change color and got a little bigger so with much relife to my family i went to the dermatologist today. Come to find out it is not eczema like everyone thought or ringworm like my sweet grandma thought. It was granuloma annulare.

Turns out there is no one thing that causes it , its usually on the back of hands, feet, elbows but not usually on legs like mine and there are some treatments available including steroid shots around the areas....but the doctor informed me it does seem to come about in association with stress in the body, and it is far more common in women than men. He told me about a neighbor of his...she found out her mom had cancer. the daughter developed these lesion looking things like i have and not until her mom had the tumor removed and was given a clean bill of health again did they start to go away.

Well he asked me if i could think of any similar amount of stress in my life i nearly laughed out loud! I of course told him the short version of the liver issue and sure enough this came about the same time i found out. He said even with the treatments it could take 6mo to 3 years for it to go away completely! Well i was just so happy that it was something so dumb and harmless not cancer or some other horrible thing. I was so prepared with all the bad news that seems to follow me at the physicians i see these days i just knew he would tell me i had to amputate stat!

So i have got to obviously find a way to decrease my stress and while my good health is helping with that i guess my body says do more...so if anyone has ideas let me know!