I don't know what this is, and I need help.

[Kaldera]

I need to go to a doctor, but I don't have medical insurance, so I'm kind of putting it off. I'm hoping that someone can at least tell me what is going on, or anything, really.

I'm a 20 year-old female, in good shape, and typically very healthy. That's why this is concerning me, because it seems my health is rapidly deteriorating, and I don't understand why or what's wrong.

For the past months, I have had a reoccurring problem with the vision in my right eye that seems to happen completely at random. My vision will slowly start blotching and fading to black. Once black, it will stay that way for 5-10 minutes, and then blotch and fade back into color. My mum has suggested that this may be attributed to stress, but I'm not sure, because of how randomly it happens.

For the past few weeks, I've been extremely tired, no matter how much I sleep, and I'm prone to dizzy spells.

Last night, I was waiting for a friend to get out of class. I was sitting on a table and reading the bulletin board in front of me when the left side of my chest near my shoulder and underarm seized up. I have an extremely high threshold for pain, yet this was complete agony. It lasted for about 10 minutes, even though it felt like forever. During this time, my hands were blotchy and wouldn't stop sweating profusely, I was going from hot to cold repeatedly and I was so dizzy and lightheaded that I felt like if I even moved my head that I would pass out.

I didn't want to panic or draw attention to myself so I just sat stock still for a half an hour. It took about an hour for the effects to mostly diminish.

Can someone please give me any insight?

[PaulMD]

Hi there.

It is very hard to come up with a good explanation without the benefit of a physical of neurologic exam but here are my ideas.  Taking all your symptoms as a whole, you maybe having at the worst, an early form of demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis.  This may explain your eye symptoms as well as the rigidity and pain episodes on your left shoulder.  Your symptoms may also be unrelated to each other, with your eye problem being caused by some vascular or blood vessel problems with the eye (in which case you may have to have this examined by an eye doctor).  The seizing up of your chest and left arm can be due to musculoskeletal stress, or uncommonly for your age, a heart problem (accompanied by the sweating episodes). A condition called chronic fatigue syndrome with fibromyalgia can also explain your symptoms.  This is related to stress coupled with non-restorative sleep. I suggest you have yourself evaluated by your doctors since from what I have discussed, there could be several possibilities.

Regards and God bless.