Looking for answers

Greetings
I am finally having decided to take to the Internet to see if I can get help from the community with the hope of getting some answers. I have been experiencing some health issues over the years and been finding that my symptoms are getting worse and worse, to the point that it is causing stress on my marriage, my work, and overall quality of life. I am a male in my early 40’s. In the last six months to possibly a year, I have been experiencing extreme attacks of fatigue combined with a shaking feeling and a tightness of my chest and lower throat (almost feels like someone is sitting on my chest, a bit more on the right side).  In addition, for about the last three years, I have been experiencing this ongoing throbbing or dull pain in both the left and right side, just above my hip bone and below my ribs. The pain is mostly on the left, however is also sometimes on the right and sometimes, although rarely, on both the left and right side. The pain is generally a constraint dull throb however I occasionally shooting pain for a second or two. This pain also moves around. Sometimes it is closer to my back and sometimes it is in the middle of my waist. I have also been experiencing an ongoing issue with a throbbing left eyeball. The throbbing is almost constant, however the level of throbbing can be a very low dull throb to the point where my eyeball feels like it wants to pop out of its socket. In addition to all of this, I have been experiencing an ongoing and daily clicking in my left ear.  I have also have been experiencing digestion issues since my early twenties. In the past I have linked my diarrhea with eating greasy food, however in the last five to ten years, I seem to get random bouts of diarrhea regardless what I eat. The diarrhea has always been a quick but sever attack. I’ve never been diagnosed with IBS however I’ve experienced IBS like symptoms for the last twenty years. I also have found in the last year that I have become sensitive to alcohol.  My wife and both enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, however I find that after attending a dinner party where we would drink more wine than normal, or have a cocktail or two, I feel like absolute death the next day, and all the above symptoms are magnified. Last Christmas Eve, I had a situation where before I ate or drank anything, I was sitting at the dinner table and everything around me was almost in slow motion. I couldn’t comprehend the conversations.  It was like the feeling where when you stand up really fast and you get a dizzy, out -of-it feeling.  After I ate I had to lie down for a while. The feeling lasted about an hour. These episodes are becoming more and more common, and can happen even after I have eaten food. I have been visiting the same doctor for the last three years. I have had many blood tests, ultrasound on my kidneys as well as an MIR on both my abdomen and head for my eye issue, nothing out of the ordinary has come up. My blood pressure is also good. My doctor has recently put me through a sleep test to rule out sleep apnea and I am scheduled to be tied to a heart monitor for 24 hours next week. These ongoing symptoms are greatly affecting my way of life. It is affecting my marriage as my sex drive is very low, and I find that I have no energy to socialize with friends and family. I fear that this will go on for years like this as my doctor cannot diagnose these issues. If anyone out there has experienced any of the above symptoms and have any ideas as to what the diagnosis could be and suggestions as to steps I should take, recommendations I can make to my doctor, I would extremely grateful.

[Ricobord]

Have you been tested for Lyme Disease (borrellia)?  I believe all of your symptoms are on the comprehensive list of chronic Lyme symptoms. If you have had it for a long time, you might test negative in a screening test.  See if your doctor will run a Western Blot for Lyme, but know that you could also be neagtive on that test and still have Lyme.  It takes a doctor with experience with the disease to make a clinical diagnosis.  You can try getting tested at IGeneX, even if you're not in the US, as they have advanced testing standards that find more infections than other labs.  Check out www.ilads.org to see if you can find a referral to a Lyme Literate Medical Doctor (LLMD) in your area.  There is much misinformation and ignorance out there about Lyme, including significant disagreements about treatment. Short term antibiotic treatments have a high failure rate.  My doctor will treat me until I'm well, which could be 9 months or it could be multiple years.  It's worth it to get my health and my life back!  Also, search for Dr. Burrascano's 2008 paper on Lyme.  It has a symptoms list and gives a great overview of the disease, common coinfections, and treatments that work.  Good luck!

[mkh9]

Some of the symptoms sound like a heart problem. So it is good you are getting the heart monitor done. It is good your bp is normal. I don' t know if all the symtoms (symptoms) are related but some may be. Such as the chest pain, eye issue, dizzyness could be related to a heart issue. I would rule that out first as you are, Perhaps you are also allergic to wheat gluten? The wine issue could be migraine or seizure. Seizures (not grand mal) can give you an out of body like feeling, strange smells etc. If the heart monitor is negative, I might also do a follow up echocardiogram for structural problems. Also, see a neurologist to get an EEG for the migraine/seizures.Then an allergist. I am sorry I can't give you a definite answer. Also, sorry for all your problems. I have a migraine variant where if I drink a glass or two of red wine I will get very sick and throw up with abdominal pain all night. Stress will do this too for me. So, then they did an EEG and it was abdnormal. I wasn't getting a migraine headache or aura. I was put on an anti anxiety/seizure drug (Klonopin) and it solved my problem after 8 years trying to get diagnosed. Now in my 40's I have other problems in addition to now getting the migrane (migraine) headaches. Did they do a brain CT? It sounds like of neurologigal too. I think you are just going to have to go through a bunch of doctors to try to get diagnosed like I did.Ironically, I thought I was going crazy because I went to  all the doctors and had all the tests they gave up and I sent myself to a psychiatrist. He diagnosed me with this somewhat rare migraine variant which is now more understood. So, I hope you can find out what it is but those are my thoughts.

[revelveteen]

I had a lot of the same symptoms late last year...so fatigued, in pain & dizzy I could hardly get out of bed for a month.  Felt like someone punched me in the stomach, it was just a knot all of the time, and then I'd get vertigo too. Had many of the other symptoms, sudden hearing & vision changes, sudden sensitivity to alcohol, also an itchy rash on my back. I had all sorts of blood tests, stool samples, went ahead and got a colonoscopy since I was due for one and it would clean me out.  They didn't find anything, and could not come up with any diagnosis for me AT ALL.  Drs. just kept telling me to take things out of my diet, everything from dairy, nuts, cooked fruit, raw vegetables, deep fried food, alcohol, meat, etc. etc. and had me take Florajen for probiotic digestive support & an over-the-counter remedy for dizziness. Finally, I was just fed up as I was leaving the office & went to Culver's for a beef sandwich, fries, & a shake with walnuts in it [all stuff they told me not to eat] and I swear, I felt better the next day and it never came back.  I live in fear that it will. I do think it may be basically allergy-related but that can be so difficult to track down definitively.  Good luck...

[torbuk]

I had a lot of the same symptoms late last year...so fatigued, in pain & dizzy I could hardly get out of bed for a month.  Felt like someone punched me in the stomach, it was just a knot all of the time, and then I'd get vertigo too. Had many of the other symptoms, sudden hearing & vision changes, sudden sensitivity to alcohol, also an itchy rash on my back. I had all sorts of blood tests, stool samples, went ahead and got a colonoscopy since I was due for one and it would clean me out.  They didn't find anything, and could not come up with any diagnosis for me AT ALL.  Drs. just kept telling me to take things out of my diet, everything from dairy, nuts, cooked fruit, raw vegetables, deep fried food, alcohol, meat, etc. etc. and had me take Florajen for probiotic digestive support & an over-the-counter remedy for dizziness. Finally, I was just fed up as I was leaving the office & went to Culver's for a beef sandwich, fries, & a shake with walnuts in it [all stuff they told me not to eat] and I swear, I felt better the next day and it never came back.  I live in fear that it will. I do think it may be basically allergy-related but that can be so difficult to track down definitively.  Good luck..

I do think some of my issues are related to either digestion or allergies. I used to have really bad eczema as a child. If I ate certain foods, I would break out in rashes (IE shrimp, peanuts, chocolate). By the time entered into my late teen years, the eczema issues subsided however possibly my allergies are still there, just now more of a digestion thing rather that an external rash. Maybe I should visit with a nutritionist and/or allergist? I think I will ask my doctor to test me for Lyme disease, just to see if we can rule that out (I’m willing to try anything). I have had thoughts that these symptoms could be blood sugar related (maybe I’m becoming diabetic?).  Some of the symptoms that I experience seem to fit a diabetic when an insulin shot is required. In some situations, where I get the extreme fatigue/dizzy feeling, after eating some food the feeling does goes away. I have been focusing on snacking throughout the day, however I still seem to get these episodes regardless. Last evening, we were at a family friend’s house for dinner. I had some snacks (apple, cheese and some nuts) prior to leaving. When we arrived, I continued to snack on some offered bread with cream cheese and smoked salmon. When I sat down for dinner, I could feel that same disconnected\dizzy feeling as well a very tight feeling in my chest.  I could feel my heart beating and a ridged feeling in my throat. To add, for most of the afternoon that day, I had that throbbing feeling in my left eye and also weird involuntary twitching in my right eyelid & brow. The dizziness and chest stiffness did eventually subside about an hour after dinner although just prior and during dinner, I did start to get a bit worried that I was going to need to visit the ER. I figure if this is a blood sugar\glucose thing, my snacking should help but doesn’t seem to make much difference.  My doctor has also suggested that I am experiencing a “silent” migraine.  I never really get headaches, other than the eye pressure problem. I have had a few instances during the spells of extreme fatigue where I get weird auras, to the point where I can barely see.  I get this shimmering effect all along the left side of my peripheral vision. I have experienced this maybe three or four times in the last five or six years, the last time being maybe about a year ago. I have had my eyes and optic nerve checked twice in the last five years, everything has come out normal, other than a bit of dryness in my eyes which some drops were prescribed.  I do not wear glasses or contact lenses.
I appreciate all the feedback. I am hoping that from tips from others that are experiencing similar symptoms will assist me in the right path to determining the cause and hopefully figure out a cure.
Best Regards

[mkh9]

The shimmering eye thing on the periphery of your vision definitely sounds like an aura.Usually, they start in the middle and you see a little blurry and they wiggle then the get bigger and then end up on the periphery.  You may want to get that EEG I mentioned above. Well, it can't hurt test your fasting blood sugar and get a hemoglobin A1 C . But you could also be hypoglycemic. But it also sounds food allergy like. The migraines I get hurt in one eye and right side of my head. They can be mild to severe. Also, I have had the auras without migraine headaches many times. Right now I see a yellow light that zips across my vision and it isn't always there. I had an eye exam and it was normal. Weird. I also get eczema but haven't traced it to food rather than seasonal and dry skin and too much hand washing etc.