Saturday, November 14, 2009

A familiar visitor

This morning, as I was getting ready to take Jadyn outside to play, I started feeling feverish and experienced a pain in my left leg, kind of a cramp throughout much of the leg and a dull ache in the hip joint.
This is how most cases of cellulitis in my legs start for me. They used to be just an annoyance I could get over in about a week. But last year, a case in my right leg kept me out of work for several days in September. Another put me down for the count in December in the left leg. These cases resulted in severe skin damage to both legs. The right leg is a long way toward being healed. The left one is improving but isn't there yet.
It appears at this point I've had a minor relapse in the left leg today. I'm taking the appropriate medication and hopefully won't suffer a great deal with this one.
While we have not been able to make a certain direct correlation to diet, nor have I been diagnosed with such, cellulitis is a common problem for diabetics and these infections would occur after I had overdone sugar.
After the last major round of cellulitis in December, I significantly cut back on the amount of sugar I intake. In fact, I've gone several weeks with out it. I loosened up on it a little bit this week and again, though I am not 100 percent certain this is the cause, the correlation is there.
I've added in a lot of wheat bread and will eat it when nothing else is around.
One of the challenges I face is that I don't just eat to sustain myself. I eat when I'm bored, upset, stressed, happy and wanting to celebrate. I know this and have tried to find the ways to just shut it off and stop it. I've not been able to on my own. I get these cellultis reminders so I don't think I've arrived - that's when I usually get in trouble.
I'm not anywhere close to arriving in addressing this issue.
As I got ready for work this morning, I realized that a difference between this year and last is that people on four, possibly five continents will pray for me about this. This is a huge difference and I believe with their help I can conquer this once and for all.
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P.S.: I thought it might be in order to clarify what cellulitis is – It's a skin infection. The fever and joint/muscle pain are early warning signs the infection is on its way, at least in my experience. Once it is actually visible, cellulitis usually manifests itself by causing redness and swelling in the impacted area. At this point, my latest episode is mild compared to the ones which damaged my legs last year.
Here is more information from WebMD regarding the condition.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Brother -

I will be praying for you.

my biggest reminder to help me with that "get healthy" thing is when i put the kids down...

i have had to find a new way of dealing with headaches as the only medicine that appears to almost work has done some nasty damage...

if i can do anything for you - please let me know...

Scott Carver said...

Praying for you, Paul.

Scott

Paul said...

Duncan: Thank you for sharing about the headaches and I hope you find some relief soon.
Scott: Thanks man!
I appreciate everyone's prayers and to update, while it is still swollen (has been for some time), the latest infection appears to have been limited in scope and damage (to this point) and I'm very grateful to the Lord for this. Thanks for your prayers!