Sick of Doctors!

[frustrated64]

I was a very healthy man until around age 30 I was involved in an accident that seems to have been the beginning of my medical downhill slide (though I know the accident didn't cause it all).  Even after hearling from bruised ribs, muscle spasms began to mount up and keep me in heightened state of frustration and confusion.  My hereditary essential tremor became exponentially worse, and mild, manageable ADD became severe.  In 1996 I had double pneumonia with collapse of my lung.  Steroids caused significant weight gain and my body rejected penicillin (rash and itching).  Months of Cipro finally got control of the disease, and I began to recover, but the coughing produced unrelenting muscle spasms that required physical therapy. That same year I had a pinched nerve in my T spine and passed 3 kidney stones.  More wrenching and many hours of PT!  For several years my back would "go out" resulting in hospitalization and PT.  The battle with spasms, disorientation and a severe tremor continued. Just to make things complicated I became obsessive about weight loss and exercise.  I lost down to 170 lbs (and I'm 6'2").  I was gaunt and still convinced that I needed to lose more. Health problems drove me to a huge change in my career.  I began to see specialists for various issues.  A neurologist put me on multiple drugs for ADD and the tremor, but my nervous system couldn't handle stimulants.  He put me on Inderall for the tremor, and doses have increased to 240mg to make it manageable.  My heart rate stays in the mid-50s, my BP stays under the 120/80 most of the time, but I have gained more than 100 lbs in 8 years, and my libido is "challenged."  A childhood problem with nosebleeds and sinus infections became a problem in 2000.  Multiple courses of antibiotics didn't kill the terrible infections, so I had my first surgery in 2001.  Infections continued, drugs continued, more surgeries (9 all total).  Doctors at Hopkins have decided that I have no active cilia and that I will live out the rest of my life with pseudomonas and/or staph growing all the time.  I was under the care of an ID specialist and blew through several of the most powerful drugs with no positive results- rather my body began to reject the drugs one after another (Fortaz, Gentimycin, Clindamycin, Levaquin, Cipro, and so on).  All of them produced some type of negative reaction- allergy or side affect- we don't know, but doctors are hesitant to treat me with antibiotics.  I irrigate 3-5 times daily just to keep my throat myself cleaned out.  I have passed several more kidney stones (calcium oxalate), the "fibromyalgia" spasms have kept me in and out of PT (and various alternative approaches to pain treatment), and I lost my gall bladder in 2004.   Ibuprofen was my biggest help, but it got me into trouble with ulcers, so now I take Prevacid to go along with my Lipitor 40mg, and I have very little to help manage headaches, fatigue and muscle spasms that come with the tangled mass of symptoms.  They found a liver lesion in July of this year.  Biopsies say that it is benign, and a follow up MRI indicates no change, but I have unexplained upper R quadrant abdominal pain that my Gastro doc can't explain.  During my most recent sinus surgery I got a nasty UTI, blew through 3 antibiotics to find something I could take.  I also had a strange occurrence of sudden/severe inflammation in my R foot that my family doctor says was either cellulitis or gout.  More drugs, and that's gone, but I feel incredibly fatigued.  I have been tested for everything- In addition to my primary care doctor I have a gastroenterologist, a neurologist, an otolaryngologist, a urologist, an immunologist, an infectious disease specialist and I keep around a psychologist to help me make sense of it all.  I travel monthly to Johns Hopkins, and I've spent every extra penny my family has to try and get well.  I love life and want to live for a long time, but it's really hard to manage.  Friends teasingly call me Job, but it's not funny any more.  Why does my side still hurt?  Is there a connection between the problems?  Will the second half of my life be spent in a constant battle of incurable conditions?  Is this all in my head?  Where do I turn next?

[nicole31]

Try to manage it as long as you can. Maybe some of it is in your head..I don't know..but believe me sometimes I feel like I am going into a downhill slide too at 32. I just have to will myself to stop it and believe in medicine and if you can hang in there the medical miracles are coming soon..everyday...they can grow new fingers now. Go to www.curingdeath.com for hope.

Take care...keep me posted on how you are doing.

[wishforchange]

Can't take in all your symptoms so sorry if advice not quite right.  It sounds to me that you are a good candidate for tradditional acupuncture.  It is one of the best medicines for treating multiples symptoms.  It just seems your whole system, body and mind, is struggling with too much.  This type of medicine treats symptoms as indications of blocked energy in the body, and with a good practitioner the blockages can be undone and the body can start to do what it does best, i.e. look after itself.  Homeopathy works on similar principles, but from personal experience accupuncture has the upper hand.  It has been used successfully for over a thousand years and is based in credible medical research.  When parts of you start to break down, you can easily become absorbed in everything that goes wrong and stop trusting your own ability to heal.  Doctors feed into this anxiety, by convincing you that every problem is their problem, and for them to treat or dismiss or  whatever.  This is nothing to do with your doctors, it is to do with you.  People turn to complementary medicine because its founding philosophy is wiser.  Practitioners show humility in the superior knowledge of the body.  Keep your doctors as you need them, and lose them as you don't.  You, like all of us, are built to last.  Your entire system breakdown is giving you a message, you need an entire system form of medicine.  Modern medicine struggles with this concept.  If you are acutely ill, and need urgent drugs or surgery, go to your doctor.  Otherwise, in your case, steer clear of them, and find more holistic practitioners.  I am biased, I am utterly dependent on pharmacy drugs and doctors, who I despise, and they don't relish my visits either.  The day I can break free of their nonsense diagnoses and treatments (I am now dependent on painkillers and partially disabled from their efforts) will be a happy day for me.  Get yourself out of their grip while you can, and get the treatment you need from highly qualified alternative doctors (research carefully).  I hope you find good health soon.

[darlingdivatx]

I won't go into all my history and symptoms but I can relate. It's not in your head. Don't let thoughts like that enter your head. Two things you mentioned stood out. The stones and spasms. Please check out info on www.parathyroid.com. Docs told me for years I've been tested for "everything." I looked back over my records and could find where I was ever tested for my PTH levels.  This might account for a lot of your ailments. It's possible that it might account for all of them, but some of the things you mentioned aren't really associated with this disease. You may have more than one thing going on. Please check out the website, it's run by the lead doc on the parathyroid gland. It's very comprehensive and easy to understand. I think it'll help you a lot. Good luck.