The strangest thing happened on my way to pneumonia…

To start at the start, I have Primary Immune deficiencies.  These started at 6 months, with jaundice, recurrent infections and by age 2 my eyelashes were falling out, I bruised from touch, my gums bled and then came Tourette’s followed by Rapid Cycling Bipolar by age 3 and OCD by age 9.  In between were constant antibiotics, a tonsillectomy to allow me to swallow without severe pain, autoimmune chaos, and then more merriment and mayhem as it all collapsed into relatively predictable antibiotic resistance in my 20s.

Saved by allergy specialists and immunologists, here I am, my brain recently glued together with Seroquel for the co-morbids which are part of an inflammatory state, a messed up blood brain barrier and too many bugs and undigested proteins which walked into my brain because the guards had gone AWOL.  C’est La Vie.

I accepted it all, diet (GF/CF, low salicylate, low sugar), the supplements, the immune boosters, the medication, after all, I was 46 which is 75 in Immune Deficiency lifespan.  But what I didn’t figure on was a bug which would actually start eating up Strep.

Enter Haemophilus Influenzae.  A nasty little beast most adults are immune to but it lives up their noses where they sneeze it into the air so people like me can nearly die from it.  But… whilst my 4 month battle took 7 antibiotics, a load of steroids, daily jugs of nasal irrigation, expensive immune boosters and the patience of a Zen master to finally overcome (the immune deficiency remains) what happened in that 4 months was the monkeys that had always lived on my back began to diminish.

Not only was I ticcing far less, and OCD seemed to have gone on extended vacation but Rapid Cycling Bipolar stopped being rapid, stopped being cycling and largely cycled its self away.  I managed to halve my Seroquel and not have ideas of how I’d save all ducks in the world from ever eating bread again (it makes them sick) or how circling dog feces with chalk and writing ‘is this yours?’ would change humanity.  I stopped having compulsive thoughts about driving in front of trucks.  I was sane… like not just in between the mad parts, but the mad parts seemed… well… gone.  How could it be?

Well, it seems Strep has long been associated with Tourette’s and more recently implicated in OCD.  Could it be linked with autoimmune related versions of Bipolar too.

Could it be that when Haemophilus met Strep the black widow ate her partner and left me relatively co-morbid free?  I’d love to think its not all coming back.  Perhaps too much to ask for someone with Primary Immune Deficiency.  It’s like wishing for the moon.  Best not bother.  But if….

Donna Williams, Dip Ed, BA Hons.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com