All my worrisome symptoms, help!

Okay, so I'm going to try and make this concise.

In addition to my ridiculous abdominal pain that caused me to seek treatment for my pain originally, the following has developed:

Constant tingling/pins and needles in my hands and feet

Feeling like the world is slightly 'tilted' a little to the right

Sudden muscle contractions that last a few hours and feel like my muscles are being squeezed together

A couple episodes of feeling a really severe tightness in my chest, like someone was sitting on my chest

Having trouble with short-term memory and word recall

Rapid, extreme mood swings ( this is the worst last night I had to walk away from my kids and hide for a while because I was yelling at them for no reason and I couldn't stop myself)

Urinary hesitancy (I've had this since I was about 19-20, and it seems to be really bad for about 3-4 months, then it gets better, then worse again, etc.)

Yesterday I felt like I was about to pee my pants. I felt this like sudden "drop" in my bladder like something pushed on the top of it and then went down, trying to push the urine out. Thankfully I was able to contain it because I was standing in front of a whole room of people giving a presentation

I talked to my psychiatrist today and told her about all of this. She reviewed all my meds and said it is very possible this could all be medicine related, but she wants me to have a full neurologic workup. Lots of these symptoms sound like MS to me, but some of them are kind of generalized and could be representative of many different nerve diseases.

What do you all think?

Back2life.... Remind me again... Do you have a cervical injury?? You described all my symptoms and they thought it was MS or ALS at first.
It was do to spinal cord deformity and a ruptured disc. My disc is HNP and the fluid is leaking into the canal and causing inflammatory response.... I have muscle spasms all day from the chest down and urinary urgency as well as shortness of breath. Like I can't catch a full breath....

I was on the same track as your P doc before I read what they were thinking. All symptoms of adverse effects of meds. Also close to straight up stress! We have watched you swing between worried about everything going on with your health to almost out and out panic! You have to find a way to calm all this down, it excaberates your symptoms, intensifies your pain, works against your meds, and all of that's got to come out and unfortunately those closest get the drop.

Coping mechanisms are extremely vital to us and one of the most valuable tools for fighting and treating CP we have. Your being too hard on yourself!! Chill out nothing's going to change your CP until you learn to control it and not vice versa, you can't do that until your totally in control.

Your doing all you can, searching for answers and right now that's your best shot.

Ok now Lisa will be glad to know someone else is the boot recipient today instead of her.

You have been having some cognitive issues for awhile right? You tried figuring out whats causing those issues without much luck. I simply am trying to do likely what your husband's doing and get you to back away from the panic edge because I am not a Dr but want you to be able to think clearly before I mentioned something I and I think maybe someone else saw and mentioned in a previous post.

If you look closely at your meds, all of them, check the list for possible signs for Seratonin syndrome. Go see how many apply here and then call your Dr.

It just keeps getting worse and worse ... I yelled at a coworker on the phone today in front of a bunch of other people, I couldn't stop myself. It was awful, awful, awful.

If it IS my meds, then I have to get off of them ASAP because I cannot take this anymore. Now I just have this weird sensation all over my scalp and forehead ... UGH. So much fun while I'm trying to take care of 3 kids and work full-time (sorry to whine).

Turns out my ins won't cover the Lyrica so I'm going to start with Gabapentin. If the gabapentin doesn't work then the ins will cover the Lyrica.

By the way.... I was on gabepentin for awhile. It didn't help me much personally.... They switched to lyrica and it made a big difference in the nerve pain.... I hope you figure this out.....

I did have a doctor say he suspected it, so, I have been doing a few things that will help it that are just good things to do, regardless, like taking B12 and Vitamin D.

BTL...I'm sorry girl, but you need to BREATHE.  In my opinion, you have worked yourself into a frenzy of a downward spiral.  I'm no doctor, but I recognize stress-induced symptoms when I FEEL them or witness them in your posts.  Please hear me when I say...I'm not dismissing your pain in any way nor do I mean to be condescending.  I am (and have been) concerned about your posts of grasping for any and all possibilities for diagnosis/prognosis.  I understand your anxiety, but common sense must prevail.

Firstly, you are post-hysterectomy.  Your hormones are possibly HAYWIRE.  Believe me, if your hormones ain't happy, then you ain't happy.  I say this with love and understanding.  I've said before to you that there is a strong likelihood that your abdominal/back pain is related to your endometriosis, even though surgery has been performed.  Wasn't your surgery just done in August?  Babygirl...Do you KNOW how long it takes your body to heal from such a traumatic procedure? If memory serves me that you are indeed only 2 months post-op...I question why even your therapist hasn't done the math.  It's TOO SOON for your body to have adjusted.  My oncologist told me before my hysterectomy with removal of ovaries, "Prepare for a minimum of 2 years of pure HELL post surgery!".

IMO the doctor who prescribed Butrans for you not only jumped the gun, he drove the armored tank over you and left you for dead.  I'm sorry for that, but I think you can only move forward with a clean slate.  I've only been in PM for 8 months, though I'm 20 years post hyst with a laundry list of health issues from stage 4 endo.  My PM is a certified nut case.  However, I agree with him whole-heartedly on 2 points..."Let's try one med at a time, so we can know what works/doesn't work" and "If you jump to the top of the ladder, you've got nowhere else to go".  I understand your desire for a definitive diagnosis/treatment and your need for pain relief.  I also know from whence I speak...There is no easy answer with this disease and its ramifications. 

As others have stated...STOP GOOGLING...STOP SELF-DIAGNOSIS...SLOW DOWN and BREATHE, then BREATHE some more.  Be still and quiet your racing thoughts. It's going to be okay.  You're going to be okay.  I promise.

Hugs~~Dixie

You are not an idiot.  You are riddled with anxiety, understandably.  Whether you did or did not have endo or adeno, you had your uterus removed, correct? In August, correct? Even with ovaries remaining, there's no guarantee that hormones are stabilized. When the female anatomy is "re-arranged", to whatever extent, support mechanisms for surrounding organs are breached. 

I just want to help

Dixie

Backtolife have you been diagnosed with Polymyalgia Rhuematica or Giant Cell Arteritus (probably neither spelled right). My girlfriend is going through the same things and has just been diagnosed. She has been getting nerve blocks and more recently Epidurals to try and help. She was just put on high dosages of Prednisone for the PMR and Giant Cell and most of the pain has gone away. They are also looking a Lupus but are in the early stages of diagnosis. The nerve blocks are nothing to be afraid of as she gets them weekly and I am there every time she gets them and she doesn't complain about them at all

Now that you have come down please go to one of the drug sites for interactions and plug in all your current meds as well as any supplements,vits,herbal treatments to check for interactions as they will increase the risk for seratonin syndrome and I really believe that is somewhat that is going on in some degree. I know that all your symptoms are not in your thinking and reacting program and something is causing this occur and all indications I can see is that your meds are playing some role.

I think your going to find that you have several with contraindications for reactions to happen and those need to be adjusted or changed to something else. Are you still on the tramadol? This med has a history of causing psychosis in brains that already have chemical inbalances such as bi-polar. Pay special attention to those side effects and the symptoms of SRS.

You sound so much better this morning!!

You guys are awesome. And please know that I also am not sensitive to being offended, it takes a lot, LOL.

Vicki thanks for the tip on checking my interactions. I haven't done that in a while.

The only one that came up as 'serious' was that taking tramadol and opana together isn't recommended because tramadol can cause opiate withdrawals - which I haven't really experienced lately, and I do know what it feels like. ;-)

Everything else was about just increased sedation due to the combinations.

I have another PM appointment on Monday to follow-up on my procedure (more on that later - let's just say, OUCH). I'll talk to him about the tramadol as the ER med. Our plan was to see how much of the Opana IR I need and then base my dosage of opana ER on that, so hopefully what we will do is change my meds from tramadol to Opana for both ER/IR. I would feel better about that, I think.

Come to think of it, I don't recall having heard a lot of people saying they take the same formulation of meds for ER/IR. Does anyone do that? Opana ER has worked the best for me out of any med I've taken (outside of toradol ... ) So like I said, I was hoping to have Opana ER for my long-term med and then Opana IR for my short-term med.

Is that reasonable?

My p doc is helping as best she can to figure it out, too, she started off by reducing one of my anti-depressants, and she said if that doesn't help we'll move to another one. She wants me off the tramadol, too, so we're on the same page on that one. I take lamotrigine off-label for depression (it's an anti-convulsant). I asked her if I could get off that one but she said no (well, she said "most likely not" - she doesn't usually just out and out say NO) because we're pretty sure it helps my mood a lot

Post Edited (Backtolife) : 10/10/2014 12:53:19 PM (GMT-6)

Thanks for checking, Vicki! I appreciate you're looking in to it.

I am definitely talking to the doc on Monday about the tramadol.