West Nile Virus? Please help me!

[bowlegged_caterpillar]

I AM SCARED!  

I went to the doctor for these headaches I've been having for about a week.  It hurts in the front part of my head, cheekbones, eyes, eyebrows, jaw and teeth.  My ears keep popping and hurting just behind them, or deep inside of them.  My neck is also very stiff on one side, then it switches occaisonally and sometimes feels very uncomfortable.  I take tylenol and it seems to help.  If I sit in a certain position the pain in my neck goes away.  My legs have been a little shaky and so have my arms.

I have had no fever, no chills, no runny nose, no nausea or vomiting, but my tonsils were swollen and painful for a while.  The doc gave me 875mg of amocollin.  I want to know if any of this sounds like West Nile, because I will go get an ELISA test.  I am very scared.  Please help. Please, please.


Jessika

[_andy_]

This sounds like it possibly could be West Nile... In very very rare cases a person effected with West Nile may have West Nile encephalitis..which is a good warning something is wrong. West Nile encephalitis includes symptoms such as headaches, high fever, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, and paralysis. You possibly may have the WNV because neck stiffness, muscle weakness/tremors, fevor, disorientation, and headaches are present in your case. West Nile encephalitis is a rare case with these conditons...but it possibly could be something else. It may be a good idea to get tested before more serious conditions occur...but im no doctor, so I could be wrong.

[giddychic]

Hey---I just dealt with a similar situation-----I had severe headaches, stiff neck, lymph nodes swelled ect, etc-----I had to stay in contact with my doctor for at least 2 weeks---he put me on some antibiotics and we finally decided it was a severe bacterial infection----the lymph nodes were a way to help fight it off-----they are still little swollen but he said that it would take a while for them to go completly down-----we did discuss the issue that it could be "mumps"---but finally ruled it out-----

Good luck-----

[challena]

I had West Nile Virus. I woke up one day in  early Sept 2002 with swollen parotid glands and I looked like I had the mumps. I had a weird purple rash down the front of my body. I then had diarreah and vomiting. I developed a high fever 102-104 degrees, weakness, fatigue like I never experienced before or since, cold sweats--soaked sheets, lymph nodes throughout my body swelled, neck stiffness and I was hallucinating. These symptoms lasted like a week.  The doctors thought I had Mono, strep, mumps, syphillis, lymphoma, cancer, AIDS...but these were ruled out. Then I got worse. I developed photo-phobia--could not tolerate any light and I could feel my heart beat in nerves in the back of my eyeballs, low blood pressure and my blood work ups were abnormal. I was so weak I could barely walk and my spleen swelled.  I saw 12 doctors and the last one sent me to the ER as soon as he walked into the exam room.  I was suppose to have a spinal tap at the ER per an infectious disease doc consult but I was discharged on accident.  The next day I saw an infectious disease doc who took blood and tested me for everything.  I was off the chart for West Nile.  It took nearly 6 weeks before I was diagnosed and began to get better. Nearly 6 months before I was feeling reasonably normal.  I have scarring in my parotid glands and they remain large causing me to have stones develop in my salivary glands occasionally.  Other than that I am grateful I can still walk with no lasting serious effects.  BTW, I was more prone to WNV because I am diabetic and I live near a river but I was only 32 yo at the time.  I wish they would add a West Nile survivors community to this site.

[challena]

PS:  I also had a severe headache for nearly 6 weeks.

[TrishaT]

I had WNV 5 yrs ago and am still having a lot of problems that the Doctors can't figure out my symptoms now are more like MS and I am trying to find out if is MS (If WNV can cause MS) Anyway WNV affects everyone differently so just to be safe have the test!

Good Luck
Pat