“If you’re going to see any reaction, swelling, or pain, it will happen somewhere likely between day 5 and 10.”
For me, it happened on Day 9.
Day 8 I had spent with the Sammamish Troop 571 Scouts in the annual Christmas Tree pickup event (you leave your tree on the curb with a donation, they take it away and chip it). As navigator my job was to sit shotgun and tell the driver where to go for a car with 4 scouts (who collected trees). Essentially I didn’t move much on Day 8.
On Day 9, my leg started itching. Not much. Just a bit. Around noon I got that naggy itch you get when there’s a hair or something in your pants leg, and you find it annoying. It wasn’t much until about 6pm, when it started to increase — first my calf was itchy, then my inner knee, and then up my thigh. Investigating, I found a thick red stripe from entry point to leg crease, and it started to hurt.
The on-call doctor informed me that I am/was now part of the 5% of the population allergic to the vein glue. They had asked if I had ever had acrylic nails and I answered yes, as there was a period of time in my life — roughly four years–where they were de rigeur. The ensuing fifteen years has provided plenty of time for me to formulate an allergy. The advice was to take some antihistamines and see how that goes.
That didn’t go so well. The next day I was on the phone with my doctor, and the day after that I saw Dr. Pepper (I am not making that up, that is his name, and he has four family members who are also Doctors Pepper), who took one look at my leg and said, “Yep, wow, that’s really bad, you’re having an allergic reaction.”
(For those who like data: my left thigh at its most swollen was 3.5″ thicker than my right thigh, and my calf reached almost 2″ thicker).
Onto the Steroids I go, which if you haven’t had a Prednisone Pack ever, are you in for a treat. It’s a tapered pack for six days, but on the FIRST day you take 6 doses. And if you get the pack at the end of the day, for the first day, you take all 6 doses at once, “before bed”.
I say “before bed” because you won’t sleep. In my case I got four loads of laundry done, some detailed analysis, updated some documentation, did some filing, did some housecleaning, emptied the dishwasher, reorganized part of my spice cabinet and half of a dozen other things I’m sure to remember later. For the record I was offered Ambien, but I’m not a fan and figured I’d make it productive.
The next day I had my regularly scheduled check up with Dr. Gibson, who indicated it looked like the steroids were working (Dr. Pepper had put a dotted outline to the swelling from the previous day, so I had a visual measurement aside from my tape measure), and I asked her if it was okay to run all or part of my half marathon. She asked when it was and I said “Sunday” (my time with her was on Wednesday). Verdict: I could walk the half marathon. Maybe run if I really really felt like it, for parts. She also cleared me to fly and did a quick ultrasound to ensure no DVT was present (there shouldn’t have been but hey I was in and the machine was right there).
Today is Day Four. The remaining days’ doses were a normal taper (1 in the morning, 1 at lunch, 1 at dinner, 1 or 2 at bedtime) and the swelling continues to go down, even though I spent most of yesterday afternoon walking around Disneyland. This morning there isn’t any soreness, but I’m still a bit swollen. I think this little episode has passed, so I’ll check in with another update (for those of you interested in the process) in about a month (with pictures).
Bobbie Conti 