Dermatologists are great!

I got to meet our local dermatologist today. She was amazing. I like her more than I like my OB, which is unfortunate.

Basically, I stripped and put on the paper gown and plopped my sweaty ass up on the exam table. the nurse practitioner came in and felt me up and immediately said, "I think it's PUPPP. Let me go get the doctor to see what she thinks." Sweet. I didn't have to suggest to her that that's what I think it is too. That's a good sign. She said in her 8 years she's only seen maybe a half-dozen cases of it, so she wasn't 100%. So she grabbed the doctor and a text book. The text book read identically to what's happening to me, but apparently the rash isn't "presenting" like normal PUPPP. There are a couple of scaly spots on me that apparently look like eczema.

So then the NP says "well, let's do a biopsy!" WHAT?! The NP and a regular nurse came back and numbed the crap out of my arm. Then the NP took a ¼" diameter chunk out of my bicep, and closed it up with a couple of stitches. I didn't realize I was going in for minor surgery today, so wtf. They have to send the nasty skin sample to a lab in New York, so it'll take up to a week to get the results back. And I have to go back in 2 ½ weeks to get the stitches taken out. Lovely.

In the meantime, they gave me a prescription for Elocon ointment and Zyrtec to take at night. Apparently, there are 8 levels of steroid cream... 1 being the strongest, 8 being the weakest. Elocon is considered a category 2. So it's pretty high-powered stuff. And the Zyrtec is in an effort to ease the itching and help me sleep through the night. They also told me to buy Olay body ribbons body wash with Jojoba Butter to use instead of my regular soap, then follow my showers up with Cerave lotion. Holy jesus. But in theory, all of this will work better than the random combination of garbage I have been using. Fingers crossed.

So my life is looking up.

Now I'm taking a prenatal vitamin, a DHA supplement, Famotidine, and Tums in the morning, using the Elocon ointment twice a day, showering with doctor-ordered soap and lotion, and taking Zyrtec at night along with another Tums to get more calcium. I've never taken so many medications at once in my whole life. Jeez.

OH! I also called my OB back today to get the results of my 3-hour glucose challenge, because he's been out of the office since Friday (which is nice, since I might have been killing my baby with too much sugar all weekend unknowingly... but whatever). The nurse said my numbers were fine. They did a total of 4 blood draws over 3 hours. The first was my fasting rate, which doesn't count... but the other numbers were 88, 149, and 86. The 149 is higher than the cutoff of 139, but she said it's normal for having 100gm of sugar in your blood for 2 hours. And then it dropped right back down by the 3-hour draw. So that's cool.

So again, I feel like my life is looking up. I almost can't wait to go to bed tonight so I can try my new concoction of meds.

ETA: I just slept for almost 10 hours without having to get out of bed. Holy crap. I haven't slept a full-night's sleep in almost 3 weeks. Modern medicine is amazing!!

I'm 30 weeks, 5 days pregnant and being a wuss about the stitches in my arm.