Suffering from various symptoms.

[leharris06]

Hi- I've been dealing with several symptoms for the past few years, but in the recent weeks it's escalated to unbearable (hence I'm looking for help now!). I can't afford health insurance right now, so I'm trying to at least narrow things down before I figure out what to do next.

Symptoms include:
-numbness (over the years the numbness has moved throughout my body, but currently it's been my entire left side. The left hand and around the left rib cage is the most numb. I can move my left hand still, but it is tingling 24/7 and feels 'tired' and 'sluggish'. The left rib cage has been numb for about six-seven months, but only recently became soar if you touch it. For the past few weeks the backside of the rib cage has had this 'pulsing' pain- much like abdominal cramps. Really uncomfortable but I can generally breathe through the pain and bear it).

-Can't taste on the right side of my tongue. (My whole left side of the body is numb, but the right side of my tongue is numb and I can't taste on that side). This has been going on for 2-3 weeks.

-Breathing/swallowing hurts. Sometimes this is accompanied by sharp chest pains. The most accurate description I can give is it hurts behind my collarbone- especially when I breathe in deeply.

-Extreme back pain around my neck and shoulders. In the past week the pain got so bad I couldn't lift my arms above my shoulders. While all the symptoms bother me, the back/neck pain has been interfering the most. I saw a chiropractor for awhile (about a year), but didn't see long-term improvement.

-Migraines (I'm not too worried about this. I've had migraines a lot through out my life- but the only difference now is instead of lasting about a day, they last for 3-5 days and are weekly. Before all of this, I only had 2 a month for as long as I can remember, lasting a day each time).

-Insomnia. I get maybe 2-4 hours of sleep a day, and never in a consistent schedule. Sometimes I fall asleep at 4am for a few hours, other times I get to bed at 5pm (trust me, I try every night to sleep! The pain just keeps me up, and when I do fall asleep it's generally lucid dreaming. Not too restful).

there is a buffet of other physical issues going on, but these are the ones that have been making it impossible for me to function normally. All of this has been going on for a few years, but like I said, it was only a few weeks ago when it became unbearable. On a scale to 1-10 for pain, I'm at a 7-8 consistently.

I'm 24, female, I don't smoke, occasionaly have wine with dinner (once a month). I'm 5/8 and 215. I don't take medication other than the occasional bynadryl or excedrin.

Any suggestions would be appreciated! I'm starting to get on the scared side while the symptoms have been taking over my life. Like I said we don't have health insurance and the last thing I want to do is compromise my husband's college year to pay for medical expenses.

thanks!

[donjoe341]

One thing you should look into is lyme disease. My husband, son and myself have this terrible illness and it has put our lives at a standstill. Lyme disease can cause all of the health issues you have and we all have what you have in varying degrees. Lyme disease is often overlooked and usually doctors will diagnose you with conditions like MS or an autoimmune condition. This is what happened to me. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and told by a rheumatologist that I would likely develop rheumatoid arthritis. I am so very thankful I didn't listen to him and went searching for answers. My rheumatologist couldn't explain all of my symptoms or why my husband and son had almost the same symptoms as me. We went to see an endocrinolgist and had testing done and she said that all of our testing came back with the same abnormal results and suggested we see a disease specialist. Lyme disease she said can cause all of our problems so we started there. My husband came back positive, my son and I did not. We went to a lyme literate doctor and my testing finally came back positive. My son we feel was born with this disease and only has a few markers for lyme showing up on the test. The doctor said this was enough to get started on treatment for him because he has so many symptoms of lyme. The testing for lyme is very inadequate. This is why doctor immediately want to diagnose you with MS or autoimmune conditions. If you want to find out how to look into going to the correct doctor for this condition, just contact me. You can read my journal pages and find out more about our condition. Please use the internet and look up lyme disease. It is being ignored by the medical community and people like yourself are seriously ill. I wish you the best.

[OriginalKatie]

Fibromyalgia is when you get pain in at least 15 different spots in your body - to me it doesn't sound like you have that. Your issues are more sensory nerve related.
It sounds like you may have some sort of progressive nerve disease. An example I can think of is Multiple Sclerosis. This is a very serious disease in which the "insulation" on nerve fibres can start to degenerate and you also get lesions in the brain. This disease can cause problems with sensation and also motor function. Its a very serious disease that progressively gets worse.
I'm not saying that this is what you have but its an example of something to think about. I'd be interested to hear about what other health issues you are experiencing as this might help paint a more detailed picture of what's happening to your body.
Please go and see a good doctor ASAP as you have difficulties with swallowing and breathing, and this is very serious...

I wish you all the best :)

[augustsunbaby]

While this is certainly out of my depth I would be willing to give u a few ideas.
Some of what u mentioned sounded like fibro myalga (spelled wrong I think).... I have a close friend that experiences some of what u mentioned..... It also kind of reminds me of lupus which is also auto immune related. And scarily and I hate to say it but if u would have a growth either on your spinal cord or in your brain- those can affect everything you stated. No matter what before it gets worse or before you have difficulty swallowing or breathingN you need to write it all down that u mentioned and take your butt to a dr. My thoughts and prayers are with you......