I tried and tried to get up, but my body was still incompetent.

The recovery was very very slow.
First, I could never go out of my house, then I could go out from the evening, from 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I kept sitting in car, could walk and ride a train, longer walk on foot and could operate a bicycle again-
a little farther and farther by my own body power.

Now I sometimes did a few exercises in my house or in the garden.
Everyday, after bathing I slept again in the morning and got up at about 13:30.
Then I had lunch, studied, and did housework.

Such boring days made me depressive, so I went some recreations once in a while, like theaters or urban theme parks, always at late times in the day.
Though they made me worn out and spend certain money, they poured into my mind new power to live through.

I felt sorry I took my small daughter around until late at night. I was a bad mother.
However, it was the only measure I sought some amusements for her.

I was thinking then, "I couldn't help to do so now, but I also know it's not good to continue. I have to find a way to change this situation."

The essential aim I had to fulfill next was "to get up and act from the morning like ordinary people do".
It was necessary for me without question to come back into the society, to do something with other persons and to restart working.

I wondered why this condition lasted so long.

Many people said it was only a habitual problem.
They said if you just forced yourself to get up early for several days, your inner watch would be adjusted and you would become to get up more easily.
Bright lights in early morning would be a help.

I tried and tried repeatedly as they said.
But to my sorrow, I never succeeded.
In addition to hard skin itch and pain, I felt quite dull, I had no power, as if my body was not mine.

I thought about circadian rhythm of our body.
In a textbook of physiology, they said like below.

"Like most of other creatures, a human has a system of inner watch.
It establishes an about 24 hours cycle human body function runs, as to help maintain a properly controlled dynamic situation, i.e. the homeostasis.

Sleep-wakefulnes rhythm is one of this rhythm system, but other systems are also known.

Body temperature rises in the day and falls in the night, blood pressure(representing circulating function) also changes similarly to suit vigorous action in the daytime.
Digestive function does well during the day, too.
Moreover, hormonal and immune system have definite 24 hours rhythm.

Main hormones here are melatonin, relating sleeping rhythm released from pineal gland, and cortisol, stress-managing hormone regulating various systems like immune or glucosic metabolism released from adrenal gland.

Cortisol secretion begins to increase while sleeping to the peak of 10 A.M. and decreases thereafter.
High level of cortisol in the early morning elicits stored glucose and prevents downfall of serum glucose after long starvation of night time.

Body temperature, melatonin and cortisol rhythm systems seems to be distinctively regulated to sleep-wakefulnes rhythm system ..."

These scattered keywords like body temperature/blood pressure, hormonal, cortisol and immune systems sounded so meaningful for me.
The words in the book floated up to my eyes, giving me a inspiration that I got a rational answer to my long-holded suspicion.

Body temperature/blood pressure were essential functions to keep our bodies alive controlled mainly by autonomous nervous system.

Cortisol was of course a very important hormone which can ease inflammation (as all of you know, the outstanding effect was applied to medical use; synthesized corticosteroids).

About autonomous nervous system.
Severe orthostatic hypotension and wrong bowel indicated that my autonomous nervous system were quite out of control.

About cortisol.
In case of bronchial asthma, low cortisol level throughout night time was considered to be one reason why asthma attacks occurred more likely at dawn.

I thought AD patients suffer more itch at night because in the same way less cortisol during night was not sufficient to suppress skin inflammation.
(Had anyone referred to that? I didn't know...)

In reverse viewpoint, AD patients needed more cortisol at night in order to manage itchy hard skin inflammation.
Normal secretion dose of cortisol might be deficient then.

As a result, cortisol might exist sometimes(late morning) enough and sometimes(night and early morning) not enough in AD patients' bodies depending on time in daily cycles.

So my conclusion was,

「The reason why I cannot get up in the morning is not only itchy and painful feelings of my skin, also of course not only habitual keeping late hours.
Some parts of my body's physiological function involved in making adequate daily rhythm are in an uncontrollable condition and hard to recover probably related AD.」

AD, autonomous nervous system and adrenal dysfunction were all linked each other in my body.

Though the expression differed variously as skin inflammation, low blood pressure, irritated bowel and general malaise, I thought we could not reach out the true meaning if we analyzed them respectively.

Again I reached the firm belief,
"AD is not just a skin disease."
I thought we also had to consider AD from another angle that skin might be just a place we could see the expressed outcome.

I had been thinking so far that I could have hardly move because my skin had been so itchy and painful, so in someday when my skin got well, I would have been able to move freely.

There was no doubt that hard itch and pain brought about sufferings.
And it was still true that my main agenda was this allergic immune response causing my skin AD lesions.

However, now I thought my recovery process would not be "Skin first, others second", but "all together".

This discovery might not be new.
I might have known this already and just got alert then.

But the reasonable explanation based on modern physiology put my mind at ease.

For, it was very hard to stay in continuous unsolved problem of unknown origin for years.

In such time we could not help dropping in a terrible thinking as
"Isn't the origin ME?"

Merciless people said like "If you tried more hard, or didn't take the wrong way, you ought to have been improved already.
You are just fooling around, shameful, lazy one."

Left outside of ordinary social lives of working people, I sometimes felt myself to be defective.
The feeling might be forced or originally come up with, anyway, was a hopeless torment.

If I could admit my process to be necessary or valid, I could accept it more easily.
The idea decreased my anxiety.

Neither being anxious nor blaming myself were no good for my cure, I knew.
I wanted to advance forward step by step - I reconfirmed my decision.

Now I was taking the second year of the correspondence course of an alternative therapy.
It was chiropractic, a bone-rearrangement method.

Chiropractic approached body structures mainly muscle-bone system occasionally including internal organs by hand touching, improved nerve system function and elicited potential spontaneous healing power.

The motive was I wanted to find a possibility it might be able to do some supplementary work where modern western medicine lack the ability.

The correspondence course was for two years.

There were 8 practical class in Tokyo in the course.
I exerted all my strength to attend them.
Though I couldn't go by all means in winter, in other seasons I hardly got up at 10 A.M., ate a meal taking rests, drove my car to Tokyo and attended only afternoon parts.

The end of course was a license examination.

(As there was no public certified license of chiropractic in Japan, this was a nongovernmental license.
The correspondence class intended to establish a national license unsuccessfully.)

The starting time of the test was at 9 A.M..
If I couldn't participate in it, the two year's study effort would fall in vain.
An enormous strength in an emergency was needed.
Luckily the season was spring when my skin condition got better.

I could be present in the examination.
Although I didn't get dizzy, I had diarrhea and attended enduring abdominal pain.

To be honest, I had to stay long in lavatory during break time.
I was very sorry the woman who used the room next to me would feel so smelly.

I didn't know why once I could do a thing, I might became to be able to do the same thing more easily thereafter.

Because I could have some self-confidence about it or it was about the time I could do that or my mind got ready to do that.....probably all of these would be right.

If it was too early to do for me, I would have felt like "No next time for a while, please!" or "Won't do it again."
I did not feel so which maybe meant that the time I could do it had come.

That is to say, it became the beginning I could get up in the morning.

The next step forward to be an actual chiropractor was to study chiropractic practically.

I began to attend classes of an chiropractic school Ikebukuro, Tokyo; Universal Chiropractic Collage attached to Pacific Asia Association of Chiropractic .

I started from once a week.
The class was limited 2.5 hours in A.M. which was short enough for me to bear.

On the class day, I got up at 6 in the morning and took a bath, smoothing my skin in bath water after night time hardness.
Then again rest in bed having a breakfast.
I spent over 1.5 hours until the skin got somewhat stable and itchy exanthema caused by bathing faded away.

I went out home on foot to take a train.
I stood in a line and waited a train starting from my station to sit in the train.
Keep standing about 1 hour to the destination was impossible load for me.

I sometimes went to additional Sunday seminars.
Though it was longer as 5 hours from A.M to P.M., the later starting time was a relief.

All of those were substantial rehabilitation for me to recover.
I could conquer them because of my strong interest.
The urge for studying chiropractic moved my body.

After I came back at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I did housework.
No class days were for reviewing.

The new life going outside and regularly meeting and talking with other people was revolutionary compared to the past lonely indoor days.
Surely it was a good change for my mental health.

Such direct communication should be definitely needed for human.
It gave me another vigor I could not have caught from the older days of communication limited via internet, phone, or sparse meetings.

That was the meaning of attending the society.
Now I was only receiving, but someday I would return to the providing side of the society.

I knew certainly the day was to be come
and it was not yet the time.

My body condition left the bottom and was continuously improving so that I regained some composure to develop deeper thinking.
On the other hand, my body health was still not sufficient to use the thinking for daily social activity.

So I did use the time for another act.

That was to open a website of this "MIO'S WORLD" at May, 2005.

I had been in lonely contemplation for these 10 years since burst AD threw me out into a world of grim foresight.
I intended to record the days to be a target of public attention.

As a case report how a severe AD patient, who was a dermatologist herself, managed her AD under a choice of no corticosteroids or tacrolimus and progressed.

I thought it was my mission instead of serving as a real physician now.

And I add that thanks to this site's, I got a fateful acknowledgement with doctors who had reasonable suspicions against steroids-depending AD therapy in Japan.
I really appreciate it.m(__)m

By the way, although I thought once I could get up early it would be my custom soon, it was unrealizable.

The day I got up early, I was worn out in the evening, or I had to sleep longer in the next morning.
I also went to bed earlier the previous day, but could not sleep earlier at all.

In conclusion, I continued the habit of long morning nap except school days.

Since it was very hot since late June in the year, I stayed indoor saving from even going shopping.

Nevertheless, I visited various palaces in summer holidays.
Because I became to be able to do so at last!

I went to see friends I couldn't have visited for these lots of years.
Or I took my daughter to an aquarium and an amusement park located a little farther.
The theme of the year was whole day trips to places about 2 hours far from my house.

I carried out such plans about 2 times a week.
I was immersed in pleasures but it seemed to be an overwork.
I got to feel my body so heavy anyway in the latter half of August.

And I lost my wallet during a visit!

Oh goodness, I did it again.
I reminded two similar past experiences.
Both were small traffic accidents I caused while driving my car.

The first one was meeting another car at a crossroads.
Though my way was prior, as view was obstructed and there was no signal, drivers should be careful while going in.
Nevertheless, in the day I went ahead just blankly and touched another car which appeared from right road.

It was a day about 1 year since I started hot spring therapy.
I was so tired because of long time bathing every day but I underestimated the tiredness and said to myself consciously that I was still OK, I still had enough power to hold out.

The second one was about 1.5 year before.
I could not avoid noon-time promise by no means, which was too early for me, so I forcedly got out to go for it.

While I went out the garage and stopped for a little rest, a car silently came to my back and parked.
I didn't notice the existence of the car until I moved my car astern to bump into it.
I couldn't understand why I backed my car before I checked my back.

They were the only car accidents I brought about in these fifteen years, since I had become sufficiently skilled in handling a car.

Exhaustion deprived me of carefulness.
Conscious efforts could not supplement it.
I recognized deep exhaustion had a power to draw us to do such poor mistakes.

Now I noticed all of these were signs telling me,
"You cannot do it, it is too much for you for the time being."

Lost wallet bothered me so much that I could not sleep at that night due to stomach pain induced from the stress.
And it reawakened my calmed irritated bowel again.

Moreover, another circulating problem like palpitation, heavy head and sense of deep nose occlusion also occurred after this episode.

It seemed autonomic nervous system failed to readjust circulation of blood and other body fluids fit to the new sleep cycle which was still irregular.
(Now I suppose these were symptoms of high brain pressure due to maladjustment.)
I bore the suffering with the help of chiropractic treatments.

It looked haste made waste.
I planed rearranged progress which should go ahead slowly, little by little.

After schooling once a week for 6 months, I decided to go to school twice a week from October.
It was a suitably upped pace for me.
Though I couldn't stop my frequent yawn during the classes, I commuted missing no class I had committed to attend.

In some school days I got very sleepy too early at night, in the other days I could not sleep at all until late.
In no school days my squeaked skin and heavy body prevented me to get up in the morning.

Sometimes I pushed me to avoid nap or get out earlier at 10 or so in the morning.
But then my head became heavier and my mind had no power to do anything.
Or I fell down asleep in the evening inevitablly and reversely awake at midnight.

It just caused more irregular sleep cycle and made me feel worse and sink into self-hatred.
So I could not help giving up the trial, acceptably continuing morning naps.

Though I was tense to fulfill and did not recognize, my body was making a lot of effort for the schooling activity.
In winter and spring holiday, I slept and slept day after day.

When I finished the first year class, I caught a terrible cold.
Suffocating stuffy nose was too annoying to endure without help of medication.
I used nasal decongestant, medicated drops and oral antihistamines after a truly long interval.

This was an anniversary year I became to be able to go out somewhat in the morning in case of necessity.

・・Ten years and eight months have passed since the aggravation.