Word of the Day

Herxheimer.

A Herxheimer reaction is when an infection dies off faster than your body can clear out the waste products of that die off, so you temporarily feel worse than before, even though you ought to be getting better. Here is why the word Herxheimer is awesome.

1. It's a fun, ominous word to say.
   
2. Its abbreviation, Herx, is even cooler.
   
3. It's a cool, counter intuitive effect with an edge of danger.
   
4. But not too dangerous, so you don't have to feel bad about pronouncing it gleefully.
   

The answer is no

Here are the names of some of the teams in my dodgeball league:


Multiple Scorgasms

The Dirty Ballers

Friends With Benefits

ThunderBalls

Title 9: Guys and girls are equal, so we hit both equally hard

and my favorite

Our Girls Like It In Da Face

In all seriousness people... why? It's co-ed dodgeball, which conveys a sense of "we're just here to get sunshine and exercise" rivaled only by my company wiffle ball league. Is this amount of sexualized violence strictly necessary?

Not going to waste the stretchiness this time

My cortisol numbers are looking good during the day but I lack the morning spike I should have, which is consistent with my symptoms. I restarted hydrocortisone on Monday to treat this, after a two month break. This shouldn't be permanent, just a little extra boost to help my adrenal glands. Restarting after a break is interesting. Recording the symptoms is complicated because I started naltrexone* the same time, and that one is disrupting my sleep as well.

At first, I got a milder version of the everything-is-AWESOME effect I got the first time around. I got four or five hours of sleep the first night and I felt GREAT. It didn't last- I'm basically back to normal now, and even had to make up a little bit of sleep. For the first few nights, the sleep was Not Normal. You know that stage right before you fall asleep, where you're safe and warm and calm but not quite gone? That lasts for some time between minutes and hours, it's hard to tell. I'm waking up faster, but not blindingly fast. Also, yay, I'm stretchy again. I didn't lose any flexibility when I went off hydrocortisone, but my rate of increase slowed tremendously. It was back within eight hours of taking it.

I seem to be coping with stress better. On the minus side, the cortisol induced appetite, which took months to kick in the first time, showed up almost immediately.

Meanwhile, there's a reason herxheimer was the word of the day. I'm on several immune system aids. Prior to starting them, my left throat lymph node was continually swollen. That hasn't gone away. But now my nose is running too. It could be allergies, but... it's only on the left side. I've never had a unilateral runny nose before.

*Note for the medically curious: if you google naltrexone, the first thing that will come up is its use in treating heroin addiction. That's not why I'm taking it. In extremely low doses it's also an immune system booster. The idea is that it very briefly blocks your endorphin receptors for a short time period while you're asleep, triggering your body to make more endorphins. Because you have normal endorphin receptivity for the rest of the day, this ups your functional endorphin level, boosting your immune system. Some people sleep better on it, it appears I don't, although it's hard to tell because last time I tried it my hydrocortisone dose was too high, and right now I'm still acclimating.