Taking the Big D

Ugh. Mondays.

Over the Christmas holidays I started to get some hives on my body that would transform into a hard, kind of callous-scabby type skin. It moved around my body every couple of week, as one patch healed, another appeared. As the second was disappearing I went to the doctor to get it looked at. In his words, and I quote: "This worries me." Just what I want to hear. Fast forward and I've had my blood taken and went to get my backed stabbed on Monday with allergens and there are no allergies. One thing we did find in the blood test was a serious Vitamin D deficiency. Like, half the minimum level.

So that's an easy fix. It shouldn't be causing my issue but it can cause other conditions to get worse. I've been taking supplements for about a month now and seem to be clear of the reactions now. The allergen doctor figures it's just a random reaction that sometimes appear for people and then just never happen again. He's prescribed me some meds in case it pops up again, but I'm guessing that it won't now that I have all the vitamins I need.

But Andrew, why did you say Ugh, Mondays at the start when it sounds like you got good news. Well, I also went to the optometrist on Monday. That one wasn't good news. He disappeared for ten minutes, came back and asked me if I was waking up at night to pee, how my blood sugar was, etc. Then he disappeared for another 15 minutes.

Son of a bitch.

He came back and told me what he's seeing. I, like a few people in my family, have had cataracts my whole life. This is rare enough at my age for me to have gotten comments about it my whole life. I also have astigmatism (I've got the 'tism!). My existing cataracts have always gotten worse, but very slowly. Nothing to be alarmed about. They are splotches in my eyes, mostly on the outside of my viewing area, that are slowly growing to the center of my view. These aren't splotches I can see, but they do affect my vision.

Since my last exam, a new cataract has appeared at the center of my eye growing outwards like a star. This is were the diabetes type questions came from. It can make cataracts quickly. Only thing I could think of was the Vitamin D deficiency and the optometrist agreed that that 'could' do it, but he wasn't sure. This was something rare enough that he couldn't remember the name and he said I made his day. No problem doc!

It also seems that my astigmatism changed a bunch. One changed by half and the other reversed direction. So, I've been referred to a specialist to figure out what the hell is going on and I'm gonna go back for another eye checkup in six months.

In the end though, the title is a lie though. The vitamin D pills are very small in reality.

Stay healthy, kids.