not a pleasant day at all

i was in a car accident this afternoon. We were stopped at a toll booth, and the woman behind us seemed utterly unaware that either there was a toll booth or a car in it, so she slammed into us.

We are both relatively ok, but I dont know if the shock of impact or anxiety set
me off rather badly. Tachycardia, impending doom, gi symptoms, obvious increase in vasculitis on my stomach, my up were more obvious...it was terrible. That's all before dealing with the pain of the actual accident.

Ended up in the Brigham and Women's ER to make sure i had no skeletal damage (since I have osteoporosis and all) and it turned out the resident dealing with me, while not having SM, had UP! I thought that was sort of random. He also had some lovely tattoos which made me jealous. who knows, maybe in a few years.

So now I'm on a 30mg course of prednisone for the next 4 days to avoid "latent anaphylaxis" as per Dr. Castell's orders.

So my questions:

1) Does it seem incredibly odd that a car accident would set off a mast cell episode? We were hit pretty badly from behind, so my whole body lurched forward and slammed back into the seat. I don't know if it was the physical or emotional trauma, but within minutes I could feel my heartrate accelerate, my bp drop, and my stomach get very
upset.

2) How do y'all tolerate prednisone? When I took my first dose in the hospital, I flushed in my chest (which seems to be where I always flush).

3) Is a 5 day course of 30mg prednisone common to ward off this latent
anaphylaxis?

To say the least that has been a dramatic downturn for the day. It's been a while since I've been in the ER, and didn't really want to be there for shocking due to car accident since I already knew to avoid those.

general update and asprin?

In a stroke of genius, about a month ago I stopped taking my Ketotifen, as I was certain it was doing nothing for me...and at first my cessation of the drug and the lack of side effects seemed to prove me right. Then suddenly I was flushing, my blood pressure was dropping (i have a blood pressure cuff at home) and I felt terrible. I grudgingly went back on the Ketotifen, and surprise surprise, I felt somewhat better.

One thing I have not had a reprieve from, pretty much ever, is the soul crushing fatigue. Now I feel this is a two pronged issue.

1. like it or not, I am probably physically depressed about all of this. I had all these grandiose plans that got obliterated post-diagnosis. Not that life stopped necessarily, but it slowed down more than I appreciate.

2. The masto and my meds. Both can cause fatigue. It's apparently tricky to get the right balance.

I saw my masto specialist this week and she suggested that I try a different therapy to combat the fatigue. ASPRIN. I love how I have this disabling disease that is primarily treated with over the counter drugs. In the process of applying for disability my lawyers asked me for my prescribing doctors. Now, I've got like, 10 doctors saying I need to be on disability for the time being, but they wanted prescribing doctors, which is so much harder since so many of the meds (claritin, zyrtec, zantac, benadryl, calcium, vitamin d) are OTC.

So yeah, my new line of defense against this painful fatigue is going to be baby asprin. I had to do a 24 hour urine histamine to get a base level for some hormone levels in my blood, and once that is sorted out, on to the asprin I go. I'm kind of scared since asprin is usually on the "do not want" list, but I'm trusting my doctor and the experiences of others on this one.