Whenever I change temperature too quickly, my body tends to freak out in odd ways. When I’m exposed to cold, I tremble uncontrollably. When I’m exposed to heat, I break out in a painful, swollen, red rash all over my face, ears, and arms. So here is a .gif of my heat rash. Fuck you, heat rash.

I wear a heavy duty, all-day lasting foundation to cover my rash in public. I don’t always need it, but a rash can come on suddenly, for any reason, and it’s hard to make it go away once it’s there. When I’m tired, when I’m tipsy, when I get into my hot car after the cold beer cooler, when I get out of the shower, when I have a curling iron near my face, when I do laundry, etc. I get a rash. And to make things worse, I’m like a cartoon character in that I also get flushed when I’m embarrassed or angry. So if I’m embarrassed when I feel my rash appearing, it makes it more intense. And then I can feel my embarrassment making it worse, making me angry. Vicious cycle.

Having Fibromyalgia and Endometriosis means that I deal with random, senseless symptoms like these that don’t have very much obvious correlation. This is one that affects my daily life, and there are others that are more/less severe. On the lower side of inconvenience, for example, I have trouble feeling what temperature my showers really are. Often my hands and feet will be close to numb or just unresponsive to temperature extremes (like ow this water is bowling lava hot, do not put your body in this). It also works in the opposite direction, that being slightly more disturbing. I have reached out to touch the water and I recoil instantly, thinking it’s in the “extremely too fucking hot” range, and I’ll even hold my hand in pain. I turn the cold water higher, thinking that will be just right so I get in…only to then jump out screaming because the water is freezing. Random, irritating, 2-minute episodes of stupid, senseless symptoms. On the higher side of inconvenience, I stutter when I’m stressed out or fatigued. It’s unavoidable and very obvious. It makes social situations awkward at time, especially at work.

Despite many people in the chronic pain community having these random and quite frankly rude symptoms, we all find our routine ways of coping. Everything from the contents of my purse to the food in my pantry (and even the material of my clothing!) has been carefully selected to make my life as comfortable as possible. It’s a full-time job maintaining my good health and I know fellow chronic pain sufferers can relate. So the next time you see someone doing something strange, just remind yourself they they probably have chronic pain.

Kidding.

But they might 😛

-Ellen