Swollen face and bruising landed my butt in the ER

[Arrigo]

So I need to vent a bit- and i feel like it's safe here. My family has been so burdened with my health issues that complaining and asking for support and thoughts on here feels like best thing to do...

This past weekend, i have 1 drink Fri eve: margarita. I have Graves, and taking 10 mg MMI sorta every other day: I am inconsistent with it. Well, well. Within 36 hrs of that drink, my face swells like crazy: red cheeks, feel burned almost, huge red puffy bags under the eyes. Then a bit later, i am literally watching a bruise form on my palm, under a painful finger joint. I freaked and went to ER. They did CBC and a few other basic tests. fT4 was 4x the upper limit, and 2x of what it had read last month... so i guess my 'self-dosage' gamble had failed me. Other hematologic and liver and kidney reads were juuust outside the range. The ER dx'd allergy - but i pointed out to the doc that allergy doesn't make you bleed, or your joints hurt. He agreed. So now it's either - all this happened b/c the hyperthyroidism is literally raging and it's taking a toll on all systems... Or. When you have one autoimmune disease you are at higher risk than the general population to get another... So I am fearing either lupus or dermatomyositis... ER doc said that both are valid concerns. Have to test autoantibodies now, and go from there to see if I now have yet another burden to deal with... Thanks for reading. I feel so lost and frustrated and sick. Hope your weekend was better than mine.

[shaws Administrator]

I'm sorry you are troubled and I realise when we don't think we're getting any improvement in our health at all it has a devasting effect on our mood.

I hope your tests turn out to be negatives and that you'll feel much better soon.