This is Very Linda Blair

You know: The Exorcist...

Here's another medical oddity my body has decided to adopt as a hobby...

"One artist with dermatographism is reported to use her skin as her medium."

It creeps me out.

It definitely seems ("definitely seems": welcome to the world of medicine) to be linked to autoimmune diseases like my hypothyroidism (which is probably Hashimoto's...but may include Sjogren's)...as one person advised me, "you'll find you collect autoimmune disorders like baseball cards"...lovely...but it's one of those things that modern medicine is all-too-ready to call idiopathic...which you will notice by the etymology is blaming you...(and almost calling you an idiot at the same time...maybe it should be idiotpathic?)

I suggest we substitute the medical phrase "I haven't got a fuckin' clue" for all uses of "idiopathic."

It's more honest, decent, and shows more camaraderie. And it's not medical toploftical for whatthefuck.

I think I'm getting some results with my version of levothyroxine (God bless Wal-Mart for the 4 buck rx) but I'm still having recurrent weirdnesses that I can almost always find linked to hypothryoidism (but what can't you...not much).

I haven't woken up freezing lately and I'm often at the normal low when I wake.

It's still a rare occasion to reach 98.6 but I realize I'm not making that much of a metabolic sacrifice if I'm at 98.4 a lot.

I'm reading some things which say that Synthroid is preferred by many endocrinologists and these doctors HATE the generics, and I had encountered that when I worked for evil BigPharm Express Scripts...knowledgeable and invested patients seen by endocrinologists had told me as much repeatedly...but this is not standard practice and I believe the American Association of Endocrinologists (not sure I got that name right) endorse the generics, and it's individual doctors who dissent.

The dose I'm on (50 mcg) might take a bit longer to get me "euthyroid."

I read a study (small: like 20 patients in each set) where those receiving my dose didn't get "euthyroid" until 4-6 months after starting treatment. The other group achieved that status much more quickly. The study was done to check for cardiac consequences, which are a consideration when larger doses are used to start. The study proclaimed it safe to start with larger doses based on their tiny sampling, which of course makes me wonder if it's shill science. There is a lot of that.

I found it useful, though, in explaining why I might not be having a miraculous turn around.

I thought about writing a poem on my skin but No, that's just too creepy and my sense of humor is not quite resilient enough to take this illness as a joke.

I did do a test today to see how responsive the skin was to light pressure writing and sure enough it came up looking like hellfire and damnation. And vanished in fifteen or so minutes.

I repeatedly find a lot of my mental health symptoms linked to hypothyroidism too. Panic attacks had vanished from my life for some time, but returned with a vengeance when my symptoms worsened.

I started watching Camille Claudel but then life intervened. It's on now. I thought Isabelle Adjani was going to get it on with her brother, Paul. The poet Paul Claudel later becomes religious I'm assuming (from the works of his I remember reading) but in his youth they paint the relationship with his sister (who gives him Rimbaud's poems as love gifts) as borderline incest. I'm guessing when she goes mad, he converts. Maybe I'll go watch it some more.

Isn't that the beauty Daniel Day-Lewis got preggers and then abandoned so many years ago.

Oh well. They are both fine actors. I love D.D.L.'s movies for the most part. He works a lot, so of course he's done lots of mainstream boring and crap films, but he has an impressive resume overall.

Gerard Depardieu as Rodin seems a bit much to take, but what are you going to do...