Already have one dx, pompholyx, a blistering autoimmune condition where the skin thickens like crazy and blisters form underneath, can affect hands and feet, or either one alone. In my case, its both feet, not hands, although my left hand looks as if it had, but it doesn't blister. Thats just scarring from both a perchloric acid burn and a burn (that did most of the damage) from, when I was a young'un, opening up a type of lithium battery, hoping to fillet it for the Li metal, but I was unaware, of the existence, at the time, of lithium batteries which use thionyl chloride, SOCl2, as the electrolyte, and after a pressure-relief pin was accidentally pulled out, it sprayed all over my hand, eating through the leather and metal-spiked glove I was wearing on that hand, the one holding the battery, and it just..shit..rotted right the way through the leather as if it were aging a hundred years every few seconds, whilst the steel spines on them rusted to fuck right before my eyes. The SOCl2 in the battery, one of a haul from a demolished building site, (thankfully, I managed to recover the rest of the SOCl2, which at the time was infinitely more precious because I couldn't buy it and it is both difficult and exceedingly dangerous to make) hit me, ate through the glove and then carried on going. When I tried to take the gloves remains off of my hand, what used to be skin just came off with it. Ironically they call that sort of injury, where the skin and surface flesh of a hand (and foot, I think, at least, not sure on that one) a 'degloving' injury. In this case it was literal. Because it just peeled away exposing the bare, acid-covered, smoking muscle tissue underneath. Wasn't what I'd call fun or particularly recommend. Its quite uncomfortable. Lets just say, no little child should have ever heard, let alone used the words that came out of my mouth immediately on its chewing through the glove, rotting it away to scraps and rusted metal spikes falling away as the leather they were anchored to just..fell apart, leaving behind a smoking, HCl-soaked, sulfur dioxide-stinking bare muscle and connective tissue.
And...no..definitely does not come recommended. Not in the least. And you can buggering well bet your last penny that I was a LOT more careful, once I knew what was inside those batteries as well as lithium metal, to say nothing of how virulently corrosive and highly water-sensitive it is (turns to acid on contact with water, including fuming in the open air, and reacts violently with water....and human blood plasma/serum) giving off hydrochloric acid gas fumes and SO2, billows off in great big, stinking, satanic sulfurous, corrosive clouds of toxic gases.
So one hand looks like it ended up the same way as my feet. But in that case no, its pompholyx, but now they suspect tendinitis, in the form of plantar fasciitis, and possibly of the achilles tendon. 50-50 percent chance per foot of sharp bone-spurs (calcaneal spurs) growing out of the fucked up bone beneath and jabbing into the foot from the inside.
I'd already been using a pretty potent corticosteroid topical cream for the pompholyx, which when it flares up it clears up in no time with the strong-ass steroid they give me, which is fortunate, since I already had access to it when the damn tendinitis began. Its whenever I rest my feet on even a soft surface like a quilt that makes it kick off and start screaming, though, which is pretty odd, given that plantar fasciitis is almost always due to repetitive strain/sports injury etc. and there is no way in hell I'm likely to be running about playing sport. Always hated sports anyway to begin with, and my knee and hips would REALLY not be forgiving of me if I were to try and start liking it now.
It just kinda.....happened, really. Started for no apparent reason. So due to get an ultrasound done. Good news is that if there is a calcaneal spur on either foot, then ultrasound can, in a more powerful and focused form be used to destroy the excess bone with minimal invasiveness.
Although I'm still not taking wikipedia's word for 'minimally invasive' etc., and am definitely going to be telling them to pump me full of something strong in the way of painkillers if they are to be using ultrasound to pulverize bits of my bones or pound up tendons. Fuck yes I am
Because it SOUNDS invasive enough to me. Minimally is relative
.
For all I take that at face value it might mean minimally compared to having a shark rip your face off and then be skinned alive, nailed to a tree and doused in a flaming mixture of bleach and petrol.
Sooner they find out exactly what the fucking cause is the better. Because its NOT pleasant. Hurts like a real cunt when it flares. Especially if I've just woken up, my pain med levels are low, and I've had my foot lying in some position for a considerable time. Then is the worst, when I wake up, after the feet have been in a position that sets it off all damn night. Then its bloody murder. The steroids help, and I've been using lots of diclofenac gel on my heels and the bottom/side of the heel area and arch of the foot. And thank bloody christ I'm already on pain meds and strong ones, because otherwise the pain is quite unbearable, even WITH the shit its unbearably intense, but it does at least calm it down and actually make it go away if I lift or move my feet completely off of any contacting surface.
And it does tend not to flare up at its worst, when I'm using the steroid cream and topical NSAID (oral ones are out for me, stomach says NO!) and I want to keep my stomach, since god knows too many other parts of me ain't working properly. I kinda need that particular part :spazz: and of course immediately after I've taken my pain meds, once they've kicked in. Although that does necessitate first taking a low dose (a capsule or maybe two for each nostril, 10mg per cap) of oxy, nasally so it works fast, and squirting some H2O up my hooter-holes to make sure its absorbed. fast enough to allow me to hobble towards the stairs and go and prepare a shot of morphine sulfate (not into my foot, shit no, just the side of my leg does just fine, or bicep or ass cheek) which then covers as much as can be done before I see the specialist ultrasound technicians etc. and get it checked out structurally. And potentially get something done to remedy the issue itself. I hope so at least, because it is really, really painful. Not constantly, its intermittent, comes and goes, depending whether the heels of my feet have been either resting on the sofa without a cushion under my ankles to elevate the heels and rest of the feet off the ground. Even then, sometimes its better sometimes its worse, sometimes no pain at all, all too often though it fucking shrieks and howls like a damned soul being dragged back to hell by the devil himself after climbing all the way up and getting his very hands on the earthly ground again.
All I know for sure, though until I see the ultrasound techs and get me a look at the scans is that it isn't the pompholyx doing it on its lonesome, since that simply causes skin to thicken and harden, almost like plates of insect chitin, but the steroid creams soften it up real quick, within hours sometimes, sometimes within a day maybe two of repeated use, and it causes the affected appendages, in my case just feet, to form loads of relatively small, deeply seated blisters under the skin, that itch like a whore's snatch after the yeast is fucked out of her with an asbestos dick; and given half a chance would turn into weeping sores. Although the steroids nix that potential nastiness and the whole feet on fire thing, with the blistering, and corticosteroids also as a side effect on the skin cause skin-thining. Which is often a bad side effect, of course, but given that in this case the skin is excessively trying to thicken and over-grow and eventually just dead skin surface falls off in plates. Although the steroids in this case help thin it down. As well as my using a very sharp knife blade, to jam beneath the skin, staying within the dead surface layer, and making a cut, then basically peeling it back away in one piece (if I can, as few as possible at least) like peeling an orange.
Only..its a foot orange. A foot orange that hurts. Although the peeling it bit doesn't since thats only slicing through the dead skin surface layer, which has overgrown and paring off several millimeters (about the thickness of a pound coin at its worst) although thats a last resort, when the corticosteroid cream doesn't cause it to grow thinly enough so I don't have to slit across it and peel it away as a...a..a..well...a sheet-of-feet, which then just goes into the bin. Once removed, the fucking fuckers harden like chitin almost. As if my feet were turning to toenail/fingernail or insect chitin.
That doesn't hurt, but it doesn't look good if its allowed not to be beaten back by the strong-ass steroids. And it is seriously uncomfortable, and can overgrow so much its difficult to bend my feet etc. since its like...as if they were covered on the bottom in epoxy resin, slightly flexible but not very. Although at least the damn things are hard-wearing if I have to walk barefoot, on stony ground etc.
What am i doing now...watching a horror movie, starring some sort of govt-mutated genetically altered fish bioweapons that escaped and are now, predictably slaughtering a big beach party at night, whilst a couple of scientists go diving with explosive charges to set; like when fishermen in some places, use the immensely destructive to wildlife and habitat technique of dynamite fishing. Basically chuck in explosive charges into the water and have them go off under water, killing fish en masse and just scooping up the floating bodies. Downright fucked up thing to do, but they do it for profit. Only in this movie, its to wipe out the area where these fuckers, bred, it seems part from flying fish, that go launching after people and killing 'em off; are breeding and blast the swarm of killer flying fish to hell.
That, and A-munching some donuts, ring donuts with caramel sauce inside and caramel bits on top of chocolate covering one half of the donut. B-smoking a stogie and C-playing fallout-tactics. Decided to redo a mission after by chance finding out that in the raider camp, that I've sent in a 4-man assault team to both rescue a scientist, retrieving an artifact of some kind, some sort of cybernetics for the brotherhood of steel, rescue the scientist who got waylaid by the raider party and taken back to their main base in the area at the time he was trying to bring it in to the BOS base, and assassinating 4 specific top-ranking raider gang leaders, with a side mission I've discovered that was unknown in the briefing, they'd also kidnapped and some whore bitch raider female was using them as a sex slave, to clear the area around the tribal guy, after first gunning the bitch and a couple of her bodyguards down.
Found out there is a fuel depot. First time, completed the mission then read online that its actually better NOT to blow the fuel depot up. Which last time I didn't know, and deciding to shut the base down permanently, with extreme prejudice walked round and casually put a pistol bullet into each and every fuel tank. Result-BOOM!
But, hadn't realized, hadn't been briefed that the brotherhood planned to move on in and take over the fortified position for their own use. Hopefully, since I had a save from before I finished the mission and was about to head back to base for debriefing etc, and flogging the loot taken from the cold, dead, bullet, laser-bolt and buckshot-filled, knifed, chainblade-gutted and occasionally blown up and/or set on fire raider crews and their attack dogs' carcasses. (well not the dogs. Since one's average dog doesn't tend to pack a czech skorpion automatic pistol (based on the real world firearm, its a compact design of automatic pistol from czechoslovakia, intended to be able to be used by tank crews firing from gun ports), lower damage than the MP5 9mm automatics I typically issue my troops as sidearm submachineguns and the range is a little lower. But in a bind, well then if some dozy git drops his uzi or skorpion after forgetting to hold on to it once someone sneaks up behinds him and blasts his skull into pate dripping down a wall, and there are other buggers firing, and a loaded weapon is needed, then its getting grabbed and emptied into the shooter trying it on. And of course there is a lot of ammo and guns to be looted from them, and other goods, grenades now and then if I can snipe any wouldbe grenadiers from too far away for them to toss one, and that make great little nasty surprise tools for sneak attacks on grouped enemies. Lob one in and run for it, any survivors give chase, and run straight in face first to the gun barrels of 3 shotgun/scoped hunting rifle, laser pistol/submachinegun or assault rifle-wielding troopers waiting in ambush just ready for the scout to come leg it and then hit the deck as the rest open fire and blow any survivors away. Assuming of course a surprise frag or incendiary antipersonnel grenade or molotov cocktail doesn't send them to hell straight away to begin with.
And as soon as I've got a good enough safecracker, and trap/explosives expert, I'll be back to harvest a minefield plus crack a safe that is bound to have plenty loot in it. The mines can either go for sale, or else at least a few I think I'll keep in reserve, lest I ever want to run my team behind a door if they are being chased, and quickly rig it to blow with an antitank mine, for quite the unsuspected and most definitely unwelcome nasty little surprise :LOL1:
