Circulation promblem?

[Shadowmum]

About 4 weeks ago my daughter complained of odd sensations in her left arm, leg and across her back - she had difficultly describing it but now says that it is the feeling you get just before your arm or leg goes to sleep from lack of circulation.  She says it isn't the actual numb feeling but that feeling just before.  At the time she couldn't explain the feeling but related that several hours earlier she had a head ache.  My daughter has also had issues with recurrent and increasing stomach aches.  At the time she had the strange feelings we took her to the local hospital and sat there half the night. There was no other symptoms and they did ecg, blood pressure, tempurature and some basic neurolgical tests - all normal. They couldn't explain any of the symptoms and said it was either nothing or something rare and told us to go to the gp.  The gp gave us a referral to a  neurolgist - we have an appointment in 5 months time.  My daughter said that she's had several attacks like this before but they only lasted minutes - this time it went for more than 24 hours and she found the feeling quite disturbing and couldn't easily sleep through them. Since then she has had futher attacks that last several hours to days and currently has had the sensations for 5 straight days.  
With the stomach aches we've had xrays done and they reveal a lot of faecal residue, which we find concerning because historically she has always had constipation issues and we have her on a relatively high fibre diet and now have introduced metamucil to the already high diet per gp advice.  Stomach aches still continue.
We are wondering if our daughter's lifestyle is the problem.  Our daughter is in yr 12, but due to the odd sensations and stomach aches  3 - 4 days a week she missed on average 3 days a week from school and when she's home she sits in bed on her lap top communicating with her boyfriend and playing games.  Her average day now for 5 days a week is that she gets up around 4-5pm, has something to eat, has a shower and goes to bed and sits on the computer till 7 when she gets up eats dinner and goes back to bed until around midnight when she gets up and gets something to eat and then goes to bed and sits or lays down and keeps playing games or communicating on her lap top until around 2am then goes to sleep.  No surprise is that she has glasses already.  All up I'd say she gets out of bed 5 days a week for only maybe 3 hours each day.  2 days a week she's at school for 3 hours and when home she resumes the bed lifestyle.

Clearly this isn't a healthy lifestyle but could the sitting or laying in bed on her laptop for so many hours be causing massive circulation issues that now won't go?  What do we get checked and what do we do to get her help.  Unless some doctor/specialist sees her and can explain what 'it' (eg these feelings are caused by) we have no way of getting her to change this lifestyle as she then sees it as us 'picking on her'.

[LivingInHope]

You say your daughter's GP referred her to a neurologist- but what about a GI specialist given her gastrointestinal motility issues evidenced by diagnostic testing she's had so far?  

Activity in spite of pain, even if limited, can help produce pain fighting endorphines and stimulate bowel activity- you might encourage your daughter in this regard.  Also, if she has any other interests from the past that are more active in nature than computer games and chatting w/the boyfriend via computer, you might encourage her in those activities as well.   If I may offer this suggestion, how about your daughter talking on a wireless and walking about while doing so instead of utilizing the computer while in conversation with the boyfriend?

This weird feeling she gets- when they checked her blood pressure and I assume pulse as well, was it during an attack?  If not, what do those numbers look like during an attack?  If she does not have an orthostatic intolerance issue causing the weird feelings keeping her in bed, she should know that her body is getting deconditioned from lack of activity and it is likely worsening her bowel trouble.  Has the doctor ever recommended trying miralax?

[Shadowmum]

Thanks for replying Goodgirl,

Sorry but 'First off she is 12 and still  lives under your roof so you  are going to have to provide some discipline.  NOT  SAYING YOU HAVENT OR SAYING ANYTHING ABOUT THE WAY YOU PARENT."  Try reading it properly.  She's going to be 18 soon  and is in year 12 (that makes her 17-18 years of age - not 12 years old) and the issue isn't related to not enough or too much sleep, infact all she's done is reversed night sleep to day sleep.  She gets 10 hours + and she hasn't a problem staying awake.  It's just that when she's home and awake she's sitting in bed on the computer and she has these strange sensations + there's a bowel issues (probably related to being to inert).  I don't know I'm not a doctor.  That's why I'm writing.

But...certainly you haven't gotten the grasp of this.  She is 18 and is reversing things.  She has weird sensations and a stomach ache issue and xrays reveal faecal matter in her intestines and bowel - more than should be there according to the gp.  We don't think there is a correlation between stomach aches and strange sensations.  We do think there is a correlation between stomach aches, inertia and faecal matter.

Also, "NOT  SAYING YOU HAVENT OR SAYING ANYTHING ABOUT THE WAY YOU PARENT."  At 18 see how far setting boundaries and limits go with you though I acknowledge you hadn't read this properly before you attacked my parenting in 'CAPITOL LETTERS'.

Additionaly, she can't attend school 2-3 days a week because she's in so much pain and has the strange sentations - we have however pointed out that she manages to go online - but she highlights that when she feels the worst or is in the greatest pain she's either trying to sleep through it or on the toilet.

[Goodgirl24769]

Sorry I read that wrong.  She is sitting in bed, not sleeping.  She really needs to be more active.  I can assure you she is just becoming a couch potato.  I think there might be some more issues going on.  Why is she not at school?  She should not be missing that much school.  Maybe something is going on at school that she does not want to go?  If she is staying home from school she shouldn’t be playing games.  If she can play games and play on the computer surely she can go to school.

[Goodgirl24769]

Sounds like some problems I have.  You say she sleeps a lot.  Is this because she feels she cannot stay awake and has extreme fatigue or is it because she is not doing anything and her sleep schedule is off?  I would be more concerned about her sleeping habits.  See I have a problem that even if I am up doing an activity like shopping or cooking cleaning that I cannot function because I am so extremely tired.  My eyes will start to droop and I will fall asleep if I stop moving like if I bend over the counter to read something I will fall asleep with my hand on my chin to support my head.  I cant drive when I am this way for being afraid of falling asleep while driving.  I have fallen asleep numerous times while on the toilet.  But I also have extreme constipation.  Today will be day 15 without having a bowel movement.  I could take a stimulant laxative but they give me extreme pain and make me sick to my stomach for a couple days and still doesnt work.  I've been taking the metamucil and gave myself an enema and still nothing.  I also have trouble concentrating and memory problems.  i havent gotten any tests done last i went to the doc they told me to take the metamucil.  but anyway i am not a doc nor know much about medicine but i do have a suggestion.  First off she is 12 and still  lives under your roof so you  are going to have to provide some discipline.  NOT  SAYING YOU HAVENT OR SAYING ANYTHING ABOUT THE WAY YOU PARENT.  I am not a parent and cannot imagine how hard it is.  But first you are going to have to get her on a regular sleep schedule and that might mean taking the computer away at different times and limiting the use.  Maybe put a password on it and make sure she doesn’t find out what it is.  You are going to have to take away the day naps in order for her to sleep at night.  It’s hard to do especially since she is 12 and she might not want to listen to you.  I think that is going to be really important and the doctor will tell you that too.  She needs a regular sleeping pattern in order to find out if anything is wrong with her.  And then another thing I would suggest is logging her symptoms, like her sleeping patterns, headaches, and her bowel movements, when and where she feels these sensations and maybe what she eats and anything else you think would be important to log.   Then you will have this for when you guys go to the doctor and maybe by looking this over you can find out maybe what is causing all these problems.  Try to keep her away from sugar and carbs because if she has a yeast overgrowth in her intestines or is becoming diabetic that will help her also.  Try to see if some foods that she eats might trigger some of her symptoms.