Winter is sick season for everyone – and it’s particularly difficult for those of us who are immunocompromised and/or living with chronic illnesses.

I feel like I have *kept* some sort of ailment lately – but a particularly gnarly upper respiratory infection came up pretty quickly several days ago, wiping me out and landing me on my usual course of antibiotics, decongestants, albuterol, Emer-gen-C, and Afrin.

This alone isn’t unusual but unfortunately it has triggered my CRPS – which is the most painful and also the most frightening to me of all my diagnosis.

With CRPS:

After my CRPS cycled through my legs and became systemic, I developed a different set of symptoms.

Though various problems present at different times, full body nerve pain is always present – and I am on round the clock nerve pain medication that I cannot miss or i immediately experience symptoms.

In addition to the nerve pain, from my CRPS (apart from my other autoimmune diseases): I experience:

• Hyperesthesia – this is increased sensitivity of the senses. For me, I am very easily overstimulated in loud environments – it’s actually painful – and I also have issues related to changed sense of taste, smell, and touch. CRPS really can realign a person’s entire sensory experience in some ways.
• Brain fog (though this is a symptom of all my autoimmune diseases as well as a side effect of many of my medications, so. . . 🤦🏻‍♀️ Still, it is significantly worse during a flare.)
• Headaches/migraines, again a lifetime issue, but now involving my facial nerves when my CRPS flares – so *much* more intense.
• Dry eyes – like sandpaper.
• Fatigue – an awful part of all the autoimmune diagnoses, the CRPS just compounds the problem it seems.
• Anxiety – again, an existing problem compounded by a neurological condition, CRPS.
• Skin changes – I’ve had so many, from the ones I’ve shared as I went through the CRPS in my legs, to now rashes, severe dryness (I moisturize constantly to prevent “lizard skin”), and infections I have to be constantly on guard for.
• Tremors – as I am dealing with a CRPS flare, I am seeing a noticeable tremor in my hands as well as the muscle “drops” in my legs that my body only does when my CRPS is really active.
• Frequent infections and septicemia – I’ve shared my path with these in real time here. Thank God, it has been some time since septicemia has been an issue – and we are fighting an uncomplicated URI right now with home medications.
• Voice changes – my voice is low, my family often has a hard time hearing me, and it is uncomfortable to raise it. This is a significant change from my healthier days.
• Squeezing chest pain – obviously not a cardiac pain, rather a muscular squeezing pain that comes and goes when my CRPS flares.
• Finally, with my flares now, what I most struggle with are the facial pain symptoms. I have severe pain in my face, through my teeth, and radiating into my jaw. This has always been mostly my left side – until this flare. A few nights ago, the right side of my face was absolutely throbbing for hours, with even the air bothering it, and nothing was helping. All I could do was cuddle up, take my meds, hold on to Ollie, and pray for it to pass. I am still struggling with this facial pain and flare – but, so far, thank God, it has not been that severe again.

Now, I am resting and taking meds and also preparing for what looks like another impending winter storm – or at least *very* cold temperatures – in a few days that are certain to be hard on this body.

This post was cancelled – by me – several times as I never want to sound like a broken record discussing health issues.

However, a CRPS flare in addition to my regular autoimmune symptoms is incredibly difficult to deal with – and the Autoimmune Hippie is here to talk about living with chronic illness issues so others will know they aren’t alone. ♥️

As I’m resting and mending, my birthday is next week – and, as always, we celebrate big here – because I am deeply grateful for every one.

So our next several blog posts will be 46 themed. 🖤

Be well, everybody. Take care of yourselves and each other.

Grace and Blessings.