My life with HAE

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I have been dealing with HAE approx. 24 years I was officially diagnosed 21 years ago at the age of 12. I've had bad years and worse years I don't get a break from it. The first 18 years I had really no treatment I was like a test patient I was on all kinds of meds the worst being high dosages of prednisone which I was on for years and rarely helped. I had terrible reactions to being on that medication it caused a lot of problems in my life because of the way it made me act. In the past few years there has been a few good medications approved that really help. For me the miracle medication being firazyr. Before I was introduced to firazyr I never had a break from it. I had attacks one after another nonstop a lot of them being serious. I'd say I had 12 serious attacks a month (throat and tongue swelling) and if I had to guess I'd say I had 300 incidents a year it was probably more. Now I still get it but I can take te firazyr for the worst ones and it will go away within the hour. Most of the time it won't come back although I have had it return within a few hours of treatment. It's been a long and rough road but with the newer treatments and awareness of HAE I can see a better future in sight. Unless you have HAE you'll never understand the affect it has on your life. The pain it causes the fear it causes and the metal stress. I have to watch everything I eat although there is no proof I am aware of I feel certain foods make me have attacks. Using certain tools like saws or drills for long periods of time make me have attacks. And the biggest cause STRESS! I know when I have a lot of stress in my life I have non stop attacks and also the worst attacks! Any kind of trauma to my body also causes attacks which makes for a difficult time knowing if I am really hurt or is it swelling from the HAE.