Treatments and Triggers - Timing

Once you have lived with chronic illness, certain things quickly become habits.
Keeping a journal of foods, activities, medications, appointments, treatments - patients are as responsible as doctors for keeping track of their own health.
Because so many diseases are not completely or properly understood, as well as the fact that each patient suffers in their own unique way, these patterns that we find ourselves are vital.

If you start a new medication, it is important to isolate that treatment. If you wind up with improved symptoms, adverse effects, or strange side effects, you want to know which source it is coming from. If you begin two or three medications at the same time, it is more difficult to differentiate between the sources.
The same goes with triggers - if wind or snow is a trigger, you don't necessarily want to add in another suspected trigger at the same time, because if something happens you may not be able to tell which one actually caused the problem.

I made that mistake today.
This morning I felt pretty decent... mostly because I didn't eat anything. I was able to run one errand before needing to come home and rest.
Food is an obvious trigger - especially lately.
Heat and direct sunlight can also be triggers, and have seemed to be so this year already.
When I got home, I was feeling pretty alright, so I decided to eat something. Right after eating, I went outside to spend time with Decker and read a little bit on a chair with my legs out in the sun.
Within five minutes of being outside, I experienced uncomfortable urgency followed by a race to the washroom.

So was it the food?
Was it the heat?
Was it the combination?

What I should have done is waited an hour after eating before going outside to read. If I raced to the washroom two or three times before going outside, it would have been evident that the culprit was the food. If I continued to race to the washroom after only a few moments outside, then perhaps the heat is a significant trigger this year.
As it is, I am *guessing* that it was the food starting the problem and the heat exacerbating it and making it an immediate problem.

Who knows?

This is why it is important to remember to stagger your medications and your triggers - especially if they are new. Then you can know what to avoid and how to manage your time and activities!