Journal

Woke up in the middle of the night with bad chest pains on the left side. And my feet/ calves are aching/ swollen again. I'm too afraid to go back to sleep because I feel like every time i start to fall asleep i stop breathing. Like my body forgets to breathe when I lay down. I've been living with that sensation for a while and often wake up with palpitations but now the chest pain is scaring me. 

Not sure if it has anythign to do with the magnesium supplements I took the last two days but it is worrisome no matter what it is. I am going to try to stay awake until the doctors office opens. 

I spent a lot of time yesterday doing research online to develop a plan of action toward feeling better. I really don't enjoy feeling depressed and negative and sick like I have been increasingly over the last few months. I am pretty sure that I have a really good magnesium defficiency going.

I remember a few years ago a doctor recommended I take magnesium. Magnesium deficiency is common in women period but expecially likely if you have anything causing you to not absorb food properly like I did for so many years. I took it daily for about 6 months and remember feeling really good around that time too (although I was also not eating cheese then). Took them until I choked on one then I couldn't get myself to swallow them anymore. 

Well, I think its' time to go back to taking them. I found out that magnesium supplements can help with anxiety, depression, ulcers, insomnia, tooth grinding, OCD (so I'm figuring it could help w/ the trich), fatique, poor memory, confusion, heart palpitations, chocolate cravings, irritability, and migranes. Somebody even said it helped their dizziness but that wasn't from a medical site so I'm not sure if its true or not. Actually I don't care if the dizziness stays, if all this other stuff gets better then I will be a very very happy person. Heck... if 3 of these things get better I will be a very happy person. 

So I took a couple magnesium glycinate tablets yesterday afternoon. I could have been imagining it but throughout the afternoon and evening the tightness in my chest seemed better and i could breathe easier than i am used to. Then around 9 i started to get really bad cramping in my legs... mostly the calfs and the feet. It felt like they were swelling and my socks got really tight. Lasted all the way until the morning, eventually my hands had it too. I was getting pretty nervous there for a while because i had a few chest pains while it was happening but I stuck it out and nothing seemed to come of it. Pretty scary though. I'm not sure if the pills caused this but I didn't eat anything else out of ordinary.  I am about to take them again and if I get the weird swelling again I'm going to talk to my doctor.

Hopign the pills help 

I joined the website today because my husband has been bugging me about pulling my hair out. I definately have trich he says (he's a therapist so he can technically diagnose me, well he could if we weren't related - HAHA). I don't have it nearly as bad as lots of people do, but I do like how it feels when I am stressed out. It got a lot worse when I came off antidepressants which I was put on just to be safe when my mother killed herself about 8 years ago.

I did a bunch of reading today that said I wouldn't be able to conquer trich if I didn't get my emotional issues and stress coping under control. Yeah that's probably true, but now that I really think about it - I am probably more messed up than I like to pretend. Currently I am stressed because 6 months ago I was "let go" from the job I had for 10 years for financial reasons. I worked in the home remodeling industry and there are no jobs in my field right now. I am finding that I am either over qualified for worse... underqualified for all open possitions. My unemployment checks are running out next week, hoping i qualify for the extension. Anyway, I brought home 2/3s of our income and without my checks we are falling way behind. We don't have much savings left because our puppy got really sick last year and ended up on dialysis and it cost us over 20k. We lost her anyway but at least we can sleep well thinking we tried to save her. But now it looks like it could cost us our house. 

I relocated to this area 2 years ago at the urging of my employers who when the economy slowed chose me as the first person out of 5 to let go. The first few months I was very very bitter. I was not the least productive person on staff (by far), I was not the only one without children, I had the best client satisfaction rate out of everyone etc. So why was it me? The stress of was unbearable at first. Then i found stuff to keep me busy and was almost happy for a few months. But now that unemployment is possibly going away the stress is back again. The hair pulling is back. My ulcer is bugging me again. I am grinding my teeth more than i have in year. 

I am pissed off. I now live in a town 40 miles from any friends, I am very very lonely, I have no money, facing bancruptcy and I have 6 pets to take care of. My husband hates his job and resents me for being home and I have no idea what I can to do make it better. 

I have a few really bad food allergies and spent many years being very sick and malnorished. I have been great for a few years on the new diets. But  now I don't care about myself enough to stick to my alergy diets, its making me sicker, more irritable, anxious and depressed.  I don't kwow what to do but I though maybe starting a journal here could help.