I can't live

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My problems all began with my last period. I took an aspirin for menstrual pain and the next day I was bleeding so heavily I had to leave work. Thats never happened in the 12 years I've been using aspirin.

I was tired all week but attributed that to teaching every day, which I rarely do.Then on the last day there appeared to be some dried blood in my urine and I was utterly exhausted. I slept all saturday.

On sunday, March 30, I felt quite a bit better and went to uni to work. Four hours later i was exhausted and had only done about 5 minutes of work so I stood to go home. Immediately i felt a dull pain in my stomach, I was dizzy, disoriented, forgetful.

I called public saftey. An ambulance came within minutes and said my blood sugar was fine. I went to the hospital and had an EKG, CBC with differential, and CT scan but they had no explanation for what happened. They told me to see a neurologist because my childhood epilepsy might have returned.

Well since then I've been exhausted and have no energy. I can't even walk downstairs without getting out of breath - just before this happened I could spend 10 minutes walking up a steep hill without my breathing getting heavy. For the firs 2 weeks I needed a 6 hour nap every day but now i can get by on just an hour or two (provided I don't do something like walk or stand for more than a few minutes at a time during the day). Last week I walked around slowly for 45 minutes and ended up having to sleep for 15 hours to recover from it- it was so bad I couldnt even move over in bed when bf asked me to, and in the morning it took all my effort to walk the 10 steps or so to the table for breakfast.

To make matters worse I have a research project that needs to be finished. I'd planned on working on it friday night. I had a meltdown in the afternoon due to frustration with computer problems - I rarely ever get to this extent. I was too tired to cook but felt safe enough driving so i went to mcdonalds. They accidentally gave me sweetened ice tea. i drank a little of it and ate my food than I was just crazy - crying, frustrated, panting if I stood up. My roommate checked my pulse a few minutes apart and it was 100 beats a minute, then 80, 75, 88. I would have went into a meltdown but I didn't have the energy to - I felt the uncontrollable urge to scream but I couldn't scream because that involved more energy than I had.I do wonder if the sugar in the ice tea caused that.

He also checked my pulse on saturday when i felt the best I had since this all began. It was 100 beats per minute. When I am awoken by my alarm clock I can feel my heart pounding rapidly - I think its from being startled by the noise. When I awake naturally I don't feel my heart. Any negative emotion makes my hurt phsyically hurt

Last week I had an MRI and on friday I had my blood drawn to check for mono and a thyroid problem. I'll have an eeg next week. If those don't show anything I'll be checked for sleep apnea. The doctor doesn't know about my heart racing because I've just started noticing it after my last apointment. (I also have a heart murmur which no doubt makes the situation worse)

but in the mean time I just have to suffer. I am paying attention to what i eat, but I don't see any patterns in my regular eating habits that would cause this (mcdonalds is not a regular eating habit).

I can't handle this. I'm already borrowing money and frequently calling off from subbing. I can't get a summer job because I don't have the energy to work. I'll take out a loan to cover me for the summer so I'm not upset by that, just annoyed. What I'm upset by is the fact that I can't move at all unless I want to spend the next several hours sleeping. I get exhausted watching a movie.

I wish I could help you, but I can do nothing from where I am.

Do you have a good general medical practitioner? You need a good physical examination to resolve some of the medical issues
you are experiencing.

Do you have a good Gynecologist? You need to bring your female medical problems to his or her attention. Aspirin causes bleeding which is why doctors do not recommend patients taking it for any medical problem. Tylenol will not help with mentrual
pain...but any NSAID product will... such as Motrin or Aleve.

When feeling overwhelmed, step back and take a big breath...do some breathing exercises and you will be surprised that how much better and less anxious you will feel. Don't try to do everything all at once...break things up into smaller, more manageable tasks.

Best of luck to you!

Sounds like you're having a really awfull time! Poor thing

It's good you're getting everything checked out - I take it they've already ruled anemia out? (CBC? - don't know the English terms for blood tests and stuff) And pregnancy/miscariage? (no offence meant)
You know it could "just" be stress and anxiety - if you have a lot of work at the moment. This would explain the high pulse, exhaustion ect. And, yes, TLE would do the same - but I guess you know what to be looking for when it comes to seizures.

I wish I could be more helpfull.
I think you should take one thing at a time, and forget about financial problems for the time being - get better first. It will all work out - try to sleep as much as you need to, even if it means missing some stuff.

((((((((big hug))))))))))

(and tell us how you're doing)

A CBC means a complete blood test with differential (obviously I'm missing a little something in the meaning as I don't know what the final C stands for). I just had my blood drawn to repeat that test to see if it shows anything this time around. I'll know in the next few days if its anemia or a thyroid problem. If its neither, it may be a month or longer before I find out the cause

They did a pregnancy test but since I'm asexual it wasn't possible for me to be pregnant in the first place. Not unless I've immaculately conceived a child, and being as I'm atheist I doubt god would choose me for that

I was trying to work on my paper when this all started, but if not for this problem i'd have had done with plenty of time to spare. As it is it took me about a month to write the final pages. The professor said my graduation isn't in jeopardy though and I've come to accept it won't be the end of the world if I get my first non-A grade in a class. I don't have the energy to be upset about just missing graduating university with straight A grades for the the second time

Ask if they've also checked your iron levels...ask for the results on the CBC and any other testing.

I went for almost a year getting tests and all the Dr. would tell me was my CBC was "a little low" but he wasn't concerned, finally I asked for the results and requested my B12 & iron levels tested...iron levels were rock bottom. I had no energy, my heart would race if I tried to climb the stairs or do anything, and by then my hair had started to fall out at an alarming rate.

It pays to be as pro-active as possible, because Dr's are human and sometimes things are overlooked.

Another thing I thought I'd mention...I am sensitive to aspertame (sweetner), not allergic but it does seem to make me very jumpy and hyper for some reason...took me awhile to figure it out. You may just want to keep notes for awhile on any reactions and note what you did or ate prior to them occuring so you can see if there is a common thing that sets things off.

Good luck, hope you find some answers soon.

I did find out I have a candida infection (yeast infection.) The nurse who told me this told me it wouldn't be causing me to be out of breath, having a racing heart, and be exhausted but looking online those are all signs of a yeast infection. I'll bring it up when talking to the doctor about what I should do tomorrow.

The interesting thing about this is most of the foods you shouldn't eat while you have a yeast infection, ie most fresh fruits, sweet potatos etc are foods that have become a regular part of my diet since I decided to eat healthily. I remember in the past telling my bfs dad that I felt much worse when I ate healthily and him saying he didn't believe me and that even if I felt worse at first I'd soon get better. Now it appears the reason I felt worse was because the healthy foods I was eating promote the growth of yeast.

I think its tomorrow that I'll find out if I have a thyroid or clotting problem. I really hope I don't also have a thyroid problem because between the foods you have to exclude for the yeast infection and the foods you have to exclude for the thyroid problem there is barely anything left you can eat. I'm going to print out some of the lists of foods you can eat while you have a thyroid problem and go grocery shopping tomorrow.

I've never heard of a local yeast infection causing problems like the ones you describe! Talk to the doc about it.
I do think you can be more prone to yeast infections if you're immune system is down - stress, another infection, taking antibiotics ect. Often they also tend to crop up due to hormone levels (ex. just before your period). Sugar in food shouldn't in theory be a problem, if it is natuaral (fruit and veg). Diabetes can cause reoccurring candida infections.
You can get pills that keep the local pH in check "down there".

I wouldn't worry about your grades right now, either.... good for you with all those A's ! !!
Is graduating worrying you?

It sounds a lot like a sudden onset/worsening of lurking thyroiditis ( hypo/hyperthyroidism as result of auto-immune thyroid disease). Check out this site:

http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com

I have just been reading it up for myself because beginning to suspect a number of things I'm suffering from are hypothyroidism/"auto-immune"-thyroid disease, ( aswell as adrenal exhaustion ), and even that some of what I thought was AS/aspieness is actually chronic thyroid disorder.

A page that I found particularly illuminating is at:

http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/long-and-pathetic/

especially the symptom: "inability to function in a relationship with anyone"! !

I spent most of yesterday reading an online textbook on thyroid disease but was confused by the fact that I kept ticking symptoms on both lists. ( for hypo and hyper), but this site makes clear that can veer between the two "expressions" of thyroid disease if it is the result of auto-immune attack on the thyroid.

I should know whether or not I have a thyroid problem tomorrow. However alot of women in my family have had to be tested for thyroid problems in the past and it was always determined to be something else

Today has been a pretty bad day.First I went down to talk to the doctor about the yeast infection. I told the nurse about all the symptoms I've been having the past few days. As soon as I told her that any surprise caused my inner sternum to hurt all the lights in the building shut off unexpectedly. Since she thought I had been coming about these problems, and I was worried about them, I didn't bother to correct her and say I was only there because they called me. So she let me see a regular doctor who did a physical examination but didn't notice anything

I asked for a copy of the report to give my general doctor - It had all of my data on it, but someone elses social security number. So I've no idea if its my test or someone elses. They're going to call the hospital that ran the test to see what happened, but if they mixed up my test with one other person whose to say it wasn't mixed up with 3+ people, so even the one that has my soc on it might not be mine.

Then I decided to go fill the prescription for my birth control pills. First they couldn't fill it because they needed the physicians license number. They called him and got that and then the pharmacist came out to see me and said "This comes in a lotion,cream, or gel. Did he tell you which one it was?" Very confused, I replied, "last time I was on it, it was pills." "No denisen doesn't come in pills." "Its desogen."

I think desogen was written relatively clearly on the scrip. Wasn't the best writing, but you could definately see that it stared "des" and ended "gen,," and from what I heard afterward one of the other pharmacists had told this guy they thought it was for desogen.

We finally get all that taken care off and he submits for the insurance and it comes back "prior authorization required." He calls the place I saw the doctor at but since it was a clinic they don't do prior authorizations. The clinic said they'll call that doctors office to get the authorization. So at the moment I don't have the pills. I wouldn't be starting them for a week anyway though so I'm not upset, just very annoyed. And I definately don't plan on using the medicine shoppe to fill any more of my prescriptions

The doctor/nurse I saw at the university today said they'd call my general doctor to get me an appointment for today. Well they called and said that my general Doctor isn't in the office today so they made the appointment for 9:45 am tomorrow and asked if that was alright. I said that thursday would be better and they told me I shouldn't wait that long. Its beginning to make me think that they have some speculations they don't want to worry me about in case they're wrong.

If I'm not happy with what the doctor decides to do tomorrow, I'm going to make an appointment with a cardiologist. There was also a few things the nurse today told me I need to tell the neurologist which was interesting because they weren't all things I'd associate with the neurologist

The site I linked above refers to the countless women, ( because it's mainly women with thyroid disease; they out number men by 10 to 1), who are misdiagnosed, sometimes for years, partly perhaps because the pharmaceutical companies make far more money from the more expensive treatments for three or four separate problems rather than the relatively inexpensive treatment for the underlying cause of those conditions, partly because medicine in general much prefers to divide illnesses up into organs and parts of the body, but also because many doctors still simply don't understand how thyroid disease has multi-effects throught many systems including the brain, ( psychiatry is only just starting to wake up to thyroid as a factor in mental disorders), and tend to trust lab test results over patient's symptom reports.

I'm only just finding out about this myself, but apparently thousands each year are wrongly diagnosed, tens of thousands spend years taking drugs/pills for other conditions and with only partial or completely useless results, before discovering years later that it was thyroid all along.

Check the site out; it looks pretty good/reliable, and almost the first thing it says is not to take the lab results as word of god, that they are not accurate, especially if you have auto-immune thyroid disease, ( Hashimoto's particularly), because the levels can swing wildly, and also the levels which are considered "qualifying" change from lab to lab, and from year to year, a bit like a Dx for aspergers.

The site I quoted says "look at your symptoms", read about thyroid disorders, and use your own head. You will probably know more about it after reading for a day or two than most general doctors, apparently.

PS: Stress can trigger a worsening of an already existing thyroid condition, because the balance ( in case of hypothyroid ) is often made up by the adrenal glands, and if they are suddenly called on for more adrenalin than usual then ... the malfunctioning thyroid becomes visible.

Good luck. I am going to try and deal with mine with nutrition, cut out soya, including soya sauce/tamari, aswell as all veg from the cabbage/broccoli family, because they are goitrogenic/thyroid "depressing", and eat small but frequent "doses" of fish.

Apparently exercise is also crucial to endocrine function, and i have definitely seen a worsening since not exercising the last 2 years. Grr, exercise.

My TSH is 3.26, Thats within the normal ranges listed on my paperwork, but above the range the american academy for endocrinologists recommends treatment for. therefore i'm going to try to stick to my bf's thyroid diet. I'm also going to do some research on the issue so I know what to bring up for my next doctors appointment (This doctor wasn't concerned about the thyroid but so far she's listened to all my concerns and ran every test I've asked for, even the ones she doesn't think will show anything).

i've never been exposed to the Epsteinn-Barr virus though I saw a note that I might want to repeat the test in 14 days.

Unfortunately i can't excercise right now - Half the time i can't walk to the mail box and back to the house without needing to stop and rest. There are quite a few indications that this is because of sleep apnea. I've scheduled a sleep test for May 30. If I get any worse, i'll have it moved earlier though that might mean having to an hour or furthers drive away for it.

Ounion, Does thyroid-depressing mean those foods could cause me to be depressed. Last week I was eating fresh or fried in olive oil broccoli most every day, and I was emotionally depressed. I deleted my face book and some of the numbers in my cell phone because I felt I was alone in life and no one would want to talk to me (I was somewhat aware that that probably wasn't the case, and my actions would be pushing away the people who would want to help, but the negative feelings won out in the end). My negative feelings did seem to go away about the time I stopped eating the broccoli though there are some other factors that could have contributed to that - ie Bfs dad called and asked me why I deleted face book, what was wrong, and said I needed to go back on so he could poke me (I doubt he even knows how to poke people on there so that was a pretty funny reason to give)

Muscle problems are quite often connected to thyroid disease. And sleep apnea is also a thyroid symptom, because hypothyroidism causes diminuition of breathing function, flattens it, makes for shallower breathing at night and waking with feeling of suffocation.


Interestingly I had heard this about broccoli before in connection with food and mental health, that the cabbage family were implicated in depression. Now that read about its role in worsening hypothyroid conditions because it depresses its activity, i can see why, because depression is a very frequent symptom of hypothyroid. ( as listed on the page I linked above).

So, yes, although is my favourite veg it looks like I need to avoid it.

Good luck with your treatment. I hope you get the dried pig thyroid, that's supposed to be the best treatment.

Yes it does sound like thyroid problems.

Have your Dr. test both your T4 and T3. The second one is trickier to test but it can cause tons of problems.

Also have your Dr check you for PCOS, it can cause a lot of the problems you described.

I was diagnosed with PCOS like 4 years ago. The only ill effect I've ever had from it before is obesity - i gained 30 pounds in about 5 weeks and never got rid of the extra weight