Posted 3/22/2014 10:49 PM (GMT 0)
Hello everyone,
I'm new to this forum. I hope you can help me
figure out this health issue I have...
For most of my life, I've just felt like there was
something "wrong" with me. I love writing and drawing, and I remember
when I was quite young, I tried to write a book many times, but it always ended
in me just giving up because I felt confused and numb and depressed. I've always been unnaturally physically weak. I was also
diagnosed with OCD when I was in kindergarten. However, I didn't worry about
these things too much, because I figured that it was "just the way I
am".
Then, in grade 5, I noticed that I was becoming
more emotionally numb, obsessive-compulsive and depressed. I started having
panic attacks in the middle of the night, I experienced stomach bloating, and I
got strange rashes and eczema.
By the time I was in grade 7, I didn't care about
having friends anymore (I couldn't relate to people); I had all sorts of different "rules" I made myself follow;
and I found that after eating certain foods (especially fruit), I felt really
"weird". I went to the doctor to get my blood sugar checked, and it
was fine.
It was in grade 8 that things started to become
serious. I lost all my friends except one, started dressing sloppily (partially
because I didn't notice what I looked like anymore, and partially because I had
become overly-sensitive to the feel of denim and stretchy shirts), I started
experiencing severe brain fog that made it difficult to read and focus, and I
developed a compulsive exercise routine that prevented me from doing what I
wanted to do with my time. Soon, I started also having
"depersonalization" (feeling that oneself isn't real) and
"derealisation" (feeling that the world isn't real) symptoms. I
became depressed, and I had severe social anxiety.
I entered grade 9, and my stress levels spiked. I
couldn't keep up with my peers. It took me a long time to finish schoolwork, in gym class, and at my locker, even though I was trying
as hard as I could to keep up.
Finally, my stress levels had
gotten too high, and then I learned that I had gained a pound. Although I might
have been able to cope with that if I wasn't so stressed, the minor weight
fluctuation was "the straw that broke the camel's back", and, as a desperate
coping mechanism, I dramatically reduced my caloric intake to lose it off
again.
I lost so much weight that I
ended up in the Eating Disorders Unit at the children’s hospital. There, I told
the staff about my immense fatigue, brain fog, etc., but they told me that
those were just “eating disorder symptoms” and “depression symptoms”. I
believed them when they told me that my symptoms would go away as I gained
weight and did therapy.
Boy, was I wrong! My symptoms
became even WORSE upon entering that program. After gaining all the weight I
needed to become “healthy”, my brain fog, dissociation, OCD, social anxiety, and
depression had become so bad that I ended up on the Psychiatric Unit of the
hospital. Around this time, I even started having delusions. They weren’t able
to help me on that unit, so eventually, they ended up letting me out of the
hospital, forcing me to go to school, because they were simply unable to “cure”
me.
I went to school for a while. I
was paranoid and totally shut off from other people. I began having a tingling
in my head, but my doctor didn’t seem to care much. Eventually I had to stop
going to that school, and I switched to an alternative school, but, at the end
of grade 11, I had to stop going to school entirely—I was too tired,
and my mental/cognitive/emotional symptoms had become too extreme.
Around this time and throughout much of grade 12, a
strange thing started happening. I started to experience fatigue SO severe that
it was hard to walk across a room. My metabolism was sometimes really slow (at its
worst I only needed to eat about 900 calories a day to maintain my weight). I
got so cold I spent much of my day sitting on the floor of my room in front of
my space heater. And, above all, I had this strange, strange sensation in my
body. It was kind of like a “sick” feeling, but it felt insidious and evil—I know
that sounds extreme, but that’s how it felt! I experimented with different
foods and supplements to make the symptoms go away. Certain things helped for a
time, but then my symptoms would come back even as I continued taking the foods/supplements.
The things that helped somewhat include the following:
Sunwarrior Protein Powder Eating a wider variety of grains (instead of just rice cakes, which is what I used to do) Leafy Green Vegetables Seaweed Tempeh Digestive Enzymes
At this time, I am still very sick. I am in grade 12, but I don't go to school. If I recover soon, I will be able to graduate from high school in June 2015-- a goal of mine! My current symptoms
mostly include:
Fatigue Severe brain fog The sensation that my brain is rotting Inability to properly express myself verbally Coldness Tingling in head Memory problems Depersonalization/Derealisation Bloating
I have gotten many tests to help determine what is wrong
with me. Here is a list of some of my tests to date:
Blood work (fine) Candida test and stool analysis (I don’t have candida, but I have low levels of probiotics and elastase, a pancreatic enzyme) Lyme serology (1 time; negative) Food allergies (none found) Celiac Disease (negative) I feel at the end of my rope. I am going to get tested for Leaky Gut Syndrome, which could be a possibility. Does anyone have any ideas of what could potentially be wrong with me or what I could try doing to feel better? Any musings are appreciated!
Post Edited (Mangaka) : 3/24/2014 9:30:46 AM (GMT-6)