Hey Arthritishater.
It's a typical event at the doc's office, what you just described.
You have the right to request another doctor, but chances are it won't make a huge difference as getting a doctor to really listen to everything you are saying is becoming rather scarce.
Did you mean high ANA and rheum. issues? If yes, how high was it?
You can ask for a referral to see a specialist, but it's unspoken protocol that it should be his own decision, after having exhausted all the possibilities within his own investigation. Internal rules and procedures, that often leave the patient hanging.
To rule out lymphoma, the only sure way is to have a lymph biopsy.
Your symptoms are consistent with an underlying infectious condition or a lymphoma.
As for your HBP, you might be better now than before, if you do a liver,kidney and lung detox, which will help lower you diastolic pressure
a little. Jon Barron has a good tutorial on detoxification and you don't need to buy anything. There are lots of natural ingredients to make your own detoxification remedy. Just do a little research.
Look into the "Pulse Pressure",a different way of evaluating systolic and
diastolic numbers that make sense. The greater the difference between the 2, the greater the risk for damage over time. Just like a water hose that gets deflated and inflated constantly, its walls are going to start cracking
earlier compared to one where the degree of inflation and deflation is less.
So once your systolic and diastolic pressures are closer to the lower and higher recommended ranges respectively, your Pulse Pressure gets optimized. I would prefer to see 120/80 vs 120/70, as the a 40 point differential is much healthier than a 50 point when your young age is factored in.
Another thing to consider is the fact that EBV being a viral infectious condition cannot be controlled by meds as antiviral meds are not effective.
The only possible way to limit its potential to get activated is to strengthen your immune system to the max, but only by natural means.
Then only your immune system will be able to deal with EBV effectively.
The other suggestion to help prevent re-activation is consumption of organic virgin coconut oil, a natural anti-viral, anti-microbial, anti-parasitic
and anti-fungal agent. For more details you may visit the coconut research
center website. It would also help with arthritis.
Do you perhaps follow an anti-arthritic diet?
If your budget allows for a few visits/consultations with a holistic or naturopathic doctor, this would be the way to go, to my opinion,
but please take the time also to look at the information I mentioned in my original reply.
Best wishes.
Niko
Thank you LightSeeker, I will certainly look into that. At the moment I am incredibly frustrated. I finally got to my general care doctor, and after mentioning all of the symptoms and also telling him I have had a high ADA and rheumatoid issues, this doctor only focused on my mild chest pain and previous infection. I brought the respiratory infection up during the visit thinking it could be related to my immune problems and that is the only thing he focused on. He did not even order a more recent ANA test until I walked back in his office and asked for one.
He ordered a referral for a chest X-ray and took some blood, but only added ANA after I asked him to. I thought I had made it very clear that I was coming in for problems with my lymph and immune system and sudden intense wrist pain. After speaking with him again he said, 'because of insurance, we can only look at one thing at a time' so now I have to wait and go back.
I'm not really sure what to do. I don't have much faith in this doctor after today, I feel he is not competent after ignoring ALL of the main symptoms I had came in for. My intense wrist pain, my lymph node swelling, back pain, night sweats, weight loss, etc.
I'm not really sure how to proceed, I really feel like I need a CT of my lymph nodes to rule out lymphoma. Can I just demand a referral to see a specialist?
One other symptom I seem to have now, is high blood pressure. Which is strange. 1 year ago my blood pressure was 'good' to 'low' if I remember it was something like 121/70 with a HR of 50BPM (rather low) The nurse asked if I was a long distance runner, because my numbers looked so good. Now, after eating a healthy organic diet for about a year my BP was 120/90 which is very high for my age. I received a cardiogram. So I guess I walked away with something. I am still very irritated that this doctor had ignored a majority of my symptoms, and they were the main reason I was visiting. This is literally the second time, the doctors have ignored my lymph systems, as I had brought it up when I went to the doctor for the respiratory infection, which is the only thing they treated, completely ignoring the my other symptoms, the ones that I am actually concerned with.
Hey Arthritishater.
Welcome to the forum.
Look into underlying pathogenic infections like pathogenic mycoplasma and
co-infections.
You may want to do a search here in medhelp for Dr.Garth Nicolson, the world's expert in this field,where extremely few doctors know anything about it.
He is a part time expert contributor in medhelp and he also has a very good website with tons of info on this.
Your symptoms and general condition are fairly consistent with these very difficult to detect, by standard medical testing ,infectious conditions.
Note that this is not intended as a substitute for medical advice.
Love & Light
Niko