Let me start by telling you this will be a very long and tedious post for others to read. For those of you who stick around to read this all, I greatly appreciate your patience and hope you can give me some input. To tell my story, I'll have to start from the beginning. Which was almost seven months ago.
January 5,2014. My son had been dealing with a bout of the flu. Diahrrea and vomiting. He's only two so at the time I was staying up late with him, cleaning up after him and easing as much of his pain as possible by holding him till he fell asleep. It took about
two weeks, but he finally got better. A week later my sister (who had been pregnant at the time) gave birth to a little boy. I decided I would stay the night at the hospital with her so she wouldn't be alone. It was eight o'clock at night when I arrived. Around five the next morning I was feeling unwell so I handed the baby back to her and decided to call it a day.
That night, my son had been throwing up again. I was so tired an exhausted I just wanted to cry. My daughter was also not feeling well and was crying up a storm. I was practically in tears before my husband told me to lay down in bed. He was going to help take care of them for me so I could get some rest. I tried to lay down but noticed my chest was literally shaking from how fast my heart was accelerating. I rolled over and tried to get comfortable. I've never had any health problems so I chalked it up to severe stress. After about
five minutes of attempting to get comfortable I realized I couldn't feel the whole right side of my body. The pain in my chest just became so tremendous that I sat up and told my husband he needed to take me to the ER immediately.
The ER doctor ran an EKG, said it was normal and that I probably had a panic attack, or costocondritis. I took his word for it and went home. From this point on my health seemed to decline. Three days after my attack I found that when I tried to sleep at night I'd get "electric shock'' pulses that would go throughout my body that made me feel like I was literally about
to die. I ran to the ER, they said that my blood work came back clean (even though they only tested me for the basics like Potassium and Calcium). They sent me home with muscle relaxers, 800 mg worth of muscle relaxers. Now I'm no doctor, but a woman of my height and weight should never take that large of a dose. I'm only 22, 5'4 and 110 lbs. I threw away my script
in frustration.
A week later I developed strep throat. My tonsils became so inflamed that even antibiotics and steroid injections couldn't get rid of it. Finally after two months of several antibiotics it went away. But another disease was lurking in my gut from the use of all those antibiotics. Clostridium Difficile, or better known as C Diff.
I went to the ER ten more times before they finally figured out I had it. They put me on two weeks of Flagyl which I thought had cured me.
Over the next few months, from February to May my symptoms progressed. They were always worse at night but consisted of this:
Dizziness
Nausea
Heart palpitation s
Urine Inconsistency
Extreme Hair Loss
Swollen Tonsils
Visions Disturbances
Vertigo
Dry Mouth
Excessively Dry Skin
Hands and feet always cold
Sun Sensitivity
Numbness in hands/feet/scalp
Low Energy
Chest Pain
Extreme weakness upon waking
Trouble sleeping
Pressure in head
Skin rash on face (but not often)
Dry Mouth
Trouble swallowing
Tremor
Heavy menstrual cycles
Brain Fog
Shortness of breath
The symptoms seemed to get worse and worse as the days drew on, yet everyone kept telling me it was all in my head. That was the worst part, when my husband would look at me like I'd become something he detested. He would look st me like I was crazy, like I wasn't the woman he married. And in a way, I wasn't anymore. I went from being a young mother of two children, who was always on the go who never got sick, to this frail, psychotic lunatic who thought she was dying. I couldn't help it, some days I still can't.
June 6,2014. Went back to the ER after having several bouts of diahrrea. I was told I had C Diff again. I broke down a bawled like a baby. I was already dealing with so much! I started back on the dose of Flagyl again. Four days into it I got the worst pressure in my head. It literally felt like a giant was squishing my head between his massive hands. I went to the ER again to get a different medication and was prescribed Vancomycin. I assumed the flagyl had given me an allergic reaction so I took the script
to Walgreens and paid $430.00 out of pocket for this, praying it would cure me.
It didn't. It made me so violently ill that I returned to the ER. After running tests an amazing ER doctor asked me if I'd ever been tested for Lupus. I said no and that all my specialist said I was too young so they never bothered. I asked why? I was just worried about
my c diff I said. He told me that the c diff was the least of my worries and that he suspected by my lab work that I had an autoimmune disease. I was so confused but thankful that someone had finally made me feel like I wasn't crazy. He gave me a hug then sent my files upstairs. I thought I was going to get help, little did I know it was going to get worse.
I was admitted to my room on the sixth floor, I asked if I could see my labs.
I was told that the ER had had down time so my files wouldn't be seen till later that night. After twelve hours of waiting my doctor came in. She said she wanted to keep treating my c diff, but I explained I couldn't take the medicine needed to cure it. I said I'd rather die. I then asked what the young ER doctor had told me hours before. Do I have an autoimmune disease. She said she had no idea what he was talking about
, handed me my paper work and left for the night. For the next two hours I scoured over my labs and finally came across my TSH level. I was 6.2. Not extremely high but enough for me to realize I had a thyroid problem.
The next day I asked my doctor about
it, but she dismissed it! She said it was because of the C Diff! I couldn't believe the idiocy of this woman. All she wanted was to treat my C Diff with medications I could not take! After refusing to look into my thyroid problem I discharged myself and went straight to my Endocrinologist. After looking at my blood work he confirmed that I did indeed have a thyroid problem. I had Unspecified Hypothyroidism. He prescribed me 0.025 MCG of Levothyroxine, gave me a script
to get my TSH and free T4 levels checked and said he'd see me in two weeks.
I finally breathed a sigh of relief! I finally had gotten an answer from somebody. I finally felt less crazy, less obsessive.(luckily after being tested three Timex I found d out my c diff was gone. The reason I got sick on the medication to treat it was because people with Hypothyroidism are supposed to stay away from it!!) But even after a month of starting my meds I felt worse. I went to the ER again July 8,2014 with what I thought was a heart attack. It woke me up out of a dead sleep. They said my EKG came back as abnormal, with a normal sinus rhythm/ sinus arrhythmia a incomplete Right Bundle Branch Blockage, Trace Mitral regurgitation and Mild Tricuspid Regurgitation. But since i was young they were not concerned! Well, I sure as heck was! They discharged me saying possible anxiety and constocondritis.
I'm still waiting to get into a Rheumatologist to treat my possible autoimmune problem, but in the mean time I am wasting away. I literally sleep twelve hours and wake up feeling like I've been hit by a car. I wake up numb, dizzy and disoriented. Sometimes two times a week I get these heart attack feelings but keep trying to tell myself I'll be okay. I go to sleep with tremors, numbness and horrible electric shock sensation s just ripping threw my body. I did extensive research and found that most people with thyroid disorders can have severe vitamin b12 deficiencies that cause a lot of the neurological problems s I am having. It also just so happens to run on my fathers side of the family. Just hours ago I had another one of my attacks at my mother in laws. It feels like my body is being drained of all the blood in it, followed by the erratic chest palpitations. I'm a complete wreck!
Has anybody else experienced anything like this? I really need some input, even some small glimpse of hope that this has happened to someone other than me. Most doctors think I'm just crazy, but in my heart I know when something is wrong with my body. I will continue to fight for my answers. I will not die because I've been thrown into the ''too young to be sick'' category. It's ridiculous. I may not seem that important to all the doctors I see, but when it comes down to it I am a human being and I deserve to be listened to. Because at the end of the day I have two children who love and need me and I need to be there for them in the long run.
For those of you crazy enough to read this all, I applaud you and appreciate the time you took to read this. Please, feel free to throw any information my way if you can. Thank you.
Post Edited (BFogg) : 7/22/2014 7:03:50 PM (GMT-6)