Benign Cutaneous Polyarteritis Nodosa
First of all, I feel relief.
This blog is meant to answer the question from this blog. We found out about three months ago, however, I am just now figuring it this out.
My dermatologist discovered it, but I guess because of miscommunication, or perhaps lack of communication, I didn't realize he had diagnosed it. A biopsy was taken and results came back. All I heard was "benign" and thought that meant everything was somewhat okay. He prescribed steroids for the bumps, and I went on my way to Alabama. Being that Isaac and I want to try for a baby sometime this year, I wasn't okay taking any drug that could potentially effect me having a child, so I stopped taking them. A couple days ago I pulled out my biopsy report from the dermatologist just to go through it and maybe get some further insight to what is wrong with me.
Sitting here tonight, I was watching "Diseases" on the Discovery channel. The main take away from watching that show was I need to be more agressive in figuring out what is wrong with me and I need to continue to ask the questions until I get an answer that makes sense. First things first, I googled the term in my biopsy, "cutaneous polyarteritis nodosa". Wow. These are just a couple of the sites I found.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20618492
http://dermnetnz.org/vascular/polyarteritis-nodosa.html
In summary, I had all the symptoms (after googling all the medical terms of the symptoms), and I've come to realize the biopsy wasn't a symptom of what was wrong with me, it is what's wrong with me. Duh! I just wish I had asked the doc more questions. Although a very brilliant dermatologist, he was not so good with effectively communicating that point to me...or maybe he thought he did. Hum. Still not sure what caused it, but I have a few ideas...not that it really matters when it comes to treatment.
Now I know the steroids might just be a good thing for me, I'll call the doctor tomorrow. I just HATE coming down from steroids, it's almost more painful. But, I don't want this developing into something that could really harm me. At least we now know. :-) And knowing if half the battle.
This blog is meant to answer the question from this blog. We found out about three months ago, however, I am just now figuring it this out.
My dermatologist discovered it, but I guess because of miscommunication, or perhaps lack of communication, I didn't realize he had diagnosed it. A biopsy was taken and results came back. All I heard was "benign" and thought that meant everything was somewhat okay. He prescribed steroids for the bumps, and I went on my way to Alabama. Being that Isaac and I want to try for a baby sometime this year, I wasn't okay taking any drug that could potentially effect me having a child, so I stopped taking them. A couple days ago I pulled out my biopsy report from the dermatologist just to go through it and maybe get some further insight to what is wrong with me.
Sitting here tonight, I was watching "Diseases" on the Discovery channel. The main take away from watching that show was I need to be more agressive in figuring out what is wrong with me and I need to continue to ask the questions until I get an answer that makes sense. First things first, I googled the term in my biopsy, "cutaneous polyarteritis nodosa". Wow. These are just a couple of the sites I found.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20618492
http://dermnetnz.org/vascular/polyarteritis-nodosa.html
In summary, I had all the symptoms (after googling all the medical terms of the symptoms), and I've come to realize the biopsy wasn't a symptom of what was wrong with me, it is what's wrong with me. Duh! I just wish I had asked the doc more questions. Although a very brilliant dermatologist, he was not so good with effectively communicating that point to me...or maybe he thought he did. Hum. Still not sure what caused it, but I have a few ideas...not that it really matters when it comes to treatment.
Now I know the steroids might just be a good thing for me, I'll call the doctor tomorrow. I just HATE coming down from steroids, it's almost more painful. But, I don't want this developing into something that could really harm me. At least we now know. :-) And knowing if half the battle.
