For the past three years i have been plagued with an illness that has practically incapacitated me. I have been to 16 doctors now and have yet to find a solid diagnosis, had a thousand and one blood tests and up until a week ago barely any lab findings.
I'm a 21 year old male, caucasian, with native american and european descent. My father's side has a history of arthritis and scoliosis, but no other medical conditions i'm aware of. my mother's side has a history of heart disease, breast cancer, and kidney stones.
My story starts 3 years ago in my very first week of college, i had just turned 18. around this time i was a picture of health, played sports, went out with friends had decent grades things were great. but every time i went to the bathroom the first 3 seconds or so would be this thick, white cloudy substance. it didnt smell it wasnt an infection and i was not sexually active prior to this. it didnt really bother me so i thought nothing of it. several months later all of a sudden i woke up one day and my jaw had been completely locked close. i had to pry it open just to eat. it gradually locked more frequently until eventually it stayed locked (i see a TMJ specialist for this) a few months after this i had a freak accident where my shoulder completely dislocated doing a very minor activity, this was 1/1/06. since then my shoulder has refused to heal properly and required surgery. i woke up one day with my right shoulder hurting me with almost the exact same tears except this time with no injury. a few months afterwords on 3/3/06 i had an abrupt.. life altering new symptom. i woke up this day completely fine, got ready headed out to class, but half way to my class a sudden, abrupt, and terrifying feeling swept over me. the only way to discribe it is the sick feeling you get when you're completely depressed, like someone died, or girlfriend broke up with you. except this was a thousand times more intense than anything i'd ever experienced, and nothing had happened. it went away after about 10 seconds. and ten minutes later it hit me again and this time it never went away. my life completely changed that day, my personality, mood, behavior, thinking, everything changed. i'm still having cloudy urine daily by the way. i finally went to the doctor and after a long time an MRI of the brain revealed Dandy-Walker Variant. i had surgery on 4/9/07 to place a shunt for the hydrocephalus. this shunt has had no effect on any of my symptoms however. i saw a urologist soon after and he noticed that my urine consistintly changes between Cloudy, normal, dark red (NO blood), dark brown, orangeish? and clear . i have gradually developed GI problems including extreme constipation (i had to go to the emergency room, and i'm pretty sure i tore a muscle from straining so hard) extreme gas pains, and migrating pains in my abdomen, typically lower right area where my cecum would be, upper right area just below or inside my rib cage. some muscle there frequently gets tight and i cant breathe. my muscles have begun to twitch and tremor, especially recently, typically i'll have spasms throughout the day, maybe 5 minutes apart (especially my eye lid). my ligaments in my legs feel extremely tight and i have been diagnosed with iliotibial band syndrome on both legs, and snapping hip. my hands have gradually turned pale white, with the fingertips and knuckles a DARK brown. my fingernails recently have turned purple almost blue (regardless of temperature).
The only abnormalities in my lab tests so far are:
consistently borderline high Calcium
elevated Iron
24 hour urine of Oxalic Acid was 49
MRI: Dandy-Walker Variant / Hydrocephalus
my heartrate is typically very fast, around 100 even at rest, blood pressure has gone up slightly as well
also cloudy/dark urine has become intermittent, and i see no correlation with diet
i was not on any medications when the symptoms began.
i'm currently taking Pristiq to manage depression and started taking multivitamins daily last month
any ideas are greatly appreciated.