|
Hello!
My name is Catherine - I'm a 20 year old college student.
I actually became severely ill fairly recently compared to many of the people whose posts I have read on here but am very scared and so glad to have found this source of support online. The only long term medical problem I've had has been chronic daily headaches for the past 5 years although they have been somewhat controlled with medication.
This past January I began feeling excessively tired despite a good amount of sleep, my headaches became worse, and I began getting sporadic joint pains and sore throats. I thought I was just overworking or stressed. Then, at the beginning of May, the joint pains became constant and debilitating, along with double vision and black spots, loss of balance, extreme fatigue, stomach and chest pains, muscle pain and weakness, heart palpitations, trouble with speech, and muscle twitches. Figured I might as well include all of them!
I went to the doctor after exams who thought mono, me being a college student and took blood. Then three days later she called me back in because my ANC level (a type of white blood cell) was a 1/15 of the normal level. She sent me to a hematologist/oncologist, but then my ANC level started slowly coming back up again, back to almost normal in four days, so I was spared a bone marrow test - thankfully no cancer. They did so many other tests, I was surprised I had any blood left! But nothing came up more than slightly raised or lowered, nothing diagnostic, as my doctor said - she said she thought it might be a post-viral autoimmune reaction that would go away now that the WBCs were back to normal. The pains kept getting worse to where I couldn't sleep and I started developing rashes. The doctor put me on a tapering course of steroids which helped with the pain a lot.
That was just under a month ago. Now I'm back at my university doing a summer research program. Many of the symptoms had somewhat abated after the steroids although I was still really tired but now they've started coming back slowly - the joint, muscle, and stomach pains along with intolerance to any level of cold, especially in my hands. I've lost my appetite and places on my skin randomly turn bright red for short periods of time along with the rashes. I am really afraid that it'll come back full scale - I did really badly on my two finals because I was in the middle of my first set of symptoms during them and my grades, which were previously very good, have lowered considerably, which really depresses me as I want to go on to do a PhD.
I have an appointment with a general doctor next Monday but they couldn't get me an appointment with a rhematologist until the beginning of August. I've been getting pretty down lately with all the symptoms starting to come back - I'm just so frustrated that I have no idea what to expect. Whatever this is may well affect next semester and my job this summer. I feel like I've lost control of my body and a lot of the rest of my life with it.
Sorry for the long post - I guess we all have quite complicated stories. I hope to hear from some of you!
~Catherine
-------------------------
|