My body is falling apart, one bit at a time

It's my right arm now and, to a lesser extent, my skin. The latter has never been the same since my first surgery and extremely unpleasant oxycodone withdrawal. Think the cold is exacerbating it, but if I make the bed too warm, my feet and lower limbs overheat to the point they feel like they're boiling. Anyway, last night I could not fall asleep as usual - my skin was itching and prickling all over like nobody's business, and my arms and hands were even more sore, numb and tingly than normal. The right arm/hand is by far the worst affected, and last night I developed an excruciating pain on the upper part of the arm.

Woke up this morning to an intensely burning/numb arm all round. It's faded now but still there. I had similar problems with this arm over a year ago. My old GP diagnosed me with brachial neuritis, something I just think he pulled out of his hat to be honest. It took months to get better and it never really completely healed - it got about 95% better I reckon, but not 100%.

So sick and fed up of this. God knows what I'd do if I got a really horrible disease like Motor Neurone Disease, or something. Just can't imagine. This is miserable enough.

It does kind of make me wonder if you have another auto-immune syndrome going on. How is your thyroid doing? I'm wondering if your thyroid is off if it could cause these symptoms? My daughter gets these repetitive allergic reactions....either she brakes out in hives or her lips and eyelids swell. They have done tons of testing and the allergist suspect she has an auto-immune disorder, but as yet it isn't a specific diagnosis. She has been on steroids too many times, and it does worry me. If your thyroid levels are fine, then I'm wondering if a decreasing one week dose pack of steroids might help a number of your symptoms??

Sounds typical with inflammatory bowel disease, I have new aches and pains all the time that are transient. For a few days I could be hurting so bad and think I've injured, strained or fractured something, only for it to move on to another place in my body. I hate these immune related surprises.

I agree you should be tested for other conditions. I think you should ask for B levels again.

Urgh, I'm drawn to the UC board like a fly to doggie do. What's the point, why do I even bother with these futile arguments?! :/

My arm was better last night, but I put that down almost entirely to amitryptiline. My GP prescribed me some a few months ago for insomnia but I hated the groggy feeling the next day, so I quickly stopped taking it. Anyway, last night I remembered that amitryptiline was sometimes used to treat nerve pain. I took 10mg and, amazingly enough, felt it work about half an hour later. It didn't get rid of the arm pain entirely, but it dampened it down a lot. It also made my skin less prickly/tingly/itchy. Unfortunately when I woke up, I still felt like I had been hit over the head with a chemical cosh - I'll try taking it much earlier next time.

It's early days, so I'm not going to get my hopes up too much yet. My mum also gave me an old pillow yesterday, as my one was absolute cack and probably was making things worse. I'm gonna buy a better pillow, but have to decide whether one of those fancy orthopaedic ones are worth it.

I've got an appointment with my GP at the end of March so I'll speak to her then. Hopefully she'll agree to run a few tests, like B12 and thyroid. I'm not really happy with all this numbness and tingling in my limbs.

@Habs - I'm the same. I'd rather know what is causing my symptoms, even if there is no treatment. Not knowing drives me round the bend.

@F27 - I'll be sure to ask for an awesomeness test :p

Also, I'll look into taking a regular vitamin D supplement. My bones are probably in dire straits too.

NCOT funny that you should mention amitriptyline. My sister picked up shingles or reactivated a dormant virus she had. She went to the doctor which prescribed amitriptyline and gabapentin for the nerve pain.