PLEASE HELP I'M SO SCARED HERE

[SMTOOOOO]

Hi,

I'm a 24-year-old male, (6 foot 2/163 lbs) I'm healthy I workout from 2-3 hours 5 x a week. For the most part I'm extremely health conscience with the foods I eat and pick and am "partial vegetarian" as my friends would call it (I eat fish and Chicken). I'm not perfect. Sometimes at night to do go on wild binges that typically occur if I can't sleep at around midnight. Generally, I will have 3-4 bowls of cereal with 2 cups of 2% milk. Not good seeing as how I'm lactose intolerant. This can also be factored my inhibitions are non existent around this time because I do smoke Marijuana at night to relieve my anxiety, but like I said, these "binges" only happen 1-2/week so weight wise not concern and it's healthy cereal Whole Grain stuff (just a lot of calories that's for sure!). I am a light smoker, as well, and take supplements for weight loss (the caffeine based ones, Protein Shakes, low amounts of Creation, Multi Vitimans, Vitiman b-12 have been for 2 years now). I think the fat burning pills I've been taking for a year and a half are caffeine based. Finally, I suffer from chronic anxiety (have since I was 4) as well as brutal insomnia. Insomnia is something I have suffered from as a child, too.

Anyway, I thought I'd give some medical history. I also had 2 seizures last year in relation to something called hydrocephalus (sp?). The Neurologist said I was fine and there was no need for medication or concern saying a return of seizures if highly unlikely this was confirmed by the Neurosurgeon that we saw and looked at my MRI and a EEG test done 1.5 months after Seizures and Cat Scan. I was taking Lorazopam, Xanax and Halcion at that time and it's believed the abrupt discontinuation of the Xanax and drinking diet redbull like water and lack of sleep and abuse of fat burners is what caused all this. As the Neurologist put it "a perfect storm". Oh, and the 6 hour workouts. **Happy to note I no longer take Xanax or drink Red Bull since then.

In August I caught a cold. I was pretty sick for a few days but nothing out of the normal from when I catch a cold. Stayed in bed and the cold itself went away within a week. Of course the allergies persisted because I have seasonal allergies. However, around (Aug 19th?) I began to notice a very tender pain on the right side of my neck and upper shoulder. This could be because I carry a lot of weight on this shoulder. However, the pain got worse and then I noticed in the first week of September a swollen gland. I showed my parents and they seemed to think nothing of it (but they never do, not even when I got Steven Johnson syndrome (it wasn't until I couldn't breath that my parents to me back to the hospital and this was diaginosed and took me off all the anti-epileptic meds), in addition the glands around the sides of my neck where slightly swollen as well. I had also not been feeling like myself. I had been feeling dizzy and getting headaches on one side of my head from time to time but nothing real bad. My parents wrote it off as allergies and I continue to workout, take my supplements and prescription meds, as well as smoking marijuana before bed.

Then I got depressed. Very depressed with life in general (Late Aug/Sept). This might of been the worst I've had it. I read some self help books and managed to apply much of what is in there in my life and was able to get out of that dark hole.

Throughout September things got worse. My glads swelled up more, dizzy on and off, minor headaches. Finally in October I couldn't take it anymore the glands where not going down but getting worse and my breathing was starting to concern me. I went to a walk-in Dr. who wrote it up as Nasal allergies but I wasn't satisfied with that because he said glands 'just swell sometimes because it's early October and that's allergy season.' (I live in Toronto, Canada)

That week I saw my family Dr. He inspected the swollen gland on the neck that is located just around the left side at hair line. He said it was under a certain CM that they use as a basis to see how to ***** how bad things are. He inspected my neck, arm pit area and said he believed I was fine but wanted to do blood work anyway. The following week things just got worse and worse. There where times where I was having trouble to breath and I was talking to my brother who suffers from asthma and he said kinda sounds like some kind of asthma attack. The glands under my jaw swelled up and fast and that was what seemed to contribute to my breathing problems. Then just above my Adams apple (last week) I noticed a cyst or something. It's the size of a pea maybe its very movable and feel kinda rubby. It's been there since (this one not painful). The glands have not gone down, in fact the ones under my jaw seem to be getting worse. The one at the back of my neck is still there and tender. I'm having major Anxiety attacks about this and my Birthday just passed and i did nothing because I was so scared I aggravate this. This cyst is not going down and seems to be progressing? am I crazy? Sometimes at night especial 7pm (?) I get cluster like head pain and experience breathing problems so I breath in and out real heavy on count of 7 and exhale and it seems to help. I have not changed anything from my daily life.

Please..Can anyone shed some light on this for me? I haven't had dramatic weight loss or loss of energy. This is scaring me so much I can't sleep at night even and I have some big auditions coming up.

Please anyone help me!

Medications currently on: Lorazopam 2mg X 2 Daily (believe me, I need it with this going on), Nitrazopam 10MG 1x bed time and over-the-counter "fat buring pills", Multi-Vitimas, B-12 supplement, Protien Shake w/2 g of Creatine. Workout 5 times/Week 2-3 hours, Work 9-5.

I'm desperate for any kind of answer I've spent hours on end on the net look for something and it seems like Lymphoma, Lyme Disease, HIV, Throat Cancer, Thyroid, all come up or Allergies but heck isn't allergy season over? Oh and recovering from a bacterial infection!!?? that was in August lol Geez...It's interfering with my work because all I do is research this stuff.

[SMTOOOOO]

Daisy, thank you so much for taking the time to respond to me. It is so much appreciated. I will be seeing my family Dr. tomorrow for to take a look at all this again. It's tough because Generally my allergies, actually all the time, my allergies have gone away once the redness and itchiness and soreness in my eyes goes away and that went away in September.

I'm just scared. I've had so many bad health things happen to me and I'm just so upset because I feel it's so unfair. I don't want to throw a pity party for myself but I just feel enough is enough. I think perhaps my binges and fat burners can play here and have perhaps finally taken a took (I'm hoping this is it). I will find out everything tomorrow and be sure to let you know. I have a great family Dr. When I went to him the first time he said if it got worse or the blood tests showed anything he would refer me to a ear nose/throat specialist.

Hoping that's all I'm about to walk into tomorrow.

Thanks so much for your reply!

[daisy958]

I'm wondering what the blood you had done showed.  Also, remember you had a CAT scan, MRI, and EEG, so you know all of those areas are in normal range. When we have anxiety issues, we tend to go off the deep end more than usual when something of the unknown nature happens, as anxiety meds can only do so much unless we want to be zombies.  Firstly, stop looking up scary stuff on the internet. Someone with anxiety issues needs real anwswers, not possiblies from the internet.  From someone who like myself suffers from chronic allergies symptoms, I can tell you the range of symptoms becomes enourmous the longer it goes on.  This summer has been particularly difficult for many allergy/asthma sufferers, as you can see from the allergy forum.  Your are your own best advocate for your health.  As you will note from other peoples posts, most of the time these people have had to continue to push their way through the medical system to get answers.  I don't know what your insurance situation is, but I think you difinitely need to see an ENT (ear, nose, throat) specialist, or a head and neck specialist.  I would bet anything this has to do with chronic sinus/ asthma complications, because you are not losing weight, you sound like you're still able to exercise, which further tells me that it's a localized problem.  As far as the cyst in the adams apple area, I had thyroid cancer and before this scares you, let me quickly say, thyroid cancer is one of the most easy cancers to take care of.  As a matter of fact I like to call it the 'not so cancer' cancer.  Cysts on the thyroid gland are not uncommon and they don't always mean cancer, but if it is, it's really not that bad.  Mine was 15 years ago.  I felt a small cyst, they biopsied and found it to be cancer, the doctor even told me that if he had to have cancer, this is what he'd choose because it's so treatable. They removed my thyroid, I went on synthroid, I get checkups every year, and I've been fine ever since.  So don't let the fear of thyroid cancer bother you.  If it is, it's not a really big deal.  An ENT or head and neck doctor and find this out for you.  Most of all, get brave, get out there to whatever it takes to get answers, and don't stop until you have found a doctor that will keep working with you until this is resolved.  I know how frustrating this can be and time consuming when you have to make a living and get doc appts. in between, but relief is out there when you find the right doc who will take the time to listen to everything and do the necessary tests as well as send you to the right docs to further help you.  Only you can push this through, so keep at it until your better.  Also, you may want to really go over the meds your on with a doctor and see if any may be complicating your situation.  I understand you need the Lorazopam, which is really important right now for you, but maybe some of the other things might be contraindicative to some of the other things your using.  Also, I have found a psychiatrist is great for giving me the real lowdown on what anxiety meds are most helpful and what else may interfere with it.  They have to know this stuff more so than a general practitioner (I was amazed how much more I knew about drug interference that I learned from a psychiatrist than my GP even knew!), because they are the main prescribers of these particular type of drugs.  So, once again, you are your own best advocate, and someone out there can help you.  If you even slightly feel like your not being listened to or taken seriously enought, move on to someone else, don't waste your time.  Good luck, and I'll be checking to see how you're doing.