Aa
Do all these symptoms lead to a bigger problem?
I'm a 35 year old female who for the majority of her life has been extremely healthy and active but suddenly within the past year has had a crazy run of medical issues and a long list of undiagnosed symptoms.
Right now I'm at the point where I don't know what is affecting what and whether I should be worried about an underlying cause or I'm just getting anxious and self projecting my worries into painful symptoms.
A quick history of the past year's symptoms, diagnosises and issues:
- Diagnosed with adult adhd 3 years ago and on vyvanse since then. Currently I'm on a 80 dosage.
- Went through an extremely stressful period because of work prior to this year and was also having marriage problems. Unsurprisingly got severely depressed and have seen both doctors and counsellors. I started out with an SSRI antidepressant which I took for three months then switched to Wellbutrin due to the undesirable side effects. The withdrawal period and adjusment period were hell. I'm currently on 450 Wellbutrin and have been for the last 6 months
- Developed a severe allergic reaction - I'm not allergic to anything - and got anaphylaxis. I now have to carry an epi pen.
- Due to the anaphylaxis, I got tested for every allergy under the sun and came back positive for only dust mites. I was told that a dust allergy does not cause anaphylaxis and so I did even more testing. Based on the nature of the tests it looked like they were looking for autoimmune diseases. Everything came back normal.
- My GP then ran a full blood picture. It came back normal in everything except my cholesterol which was insane, over 800. He wanted to start me on medication but I asked him to wait a bit and retest hoping that the crazy number was because of stress.
- Three months later I retested cholesterol and it had gone down to below 500. I had not adjusted anything; neither food nor activity level.
- I suddenly developed a back injury out of the blue. I had a huge bruise on my back that I had no idea where it came from. Since it wasn't painful I ignored it I started developing severe pain in my lower back and throughout the next two weeks, the pain started travelling down my pelvis and left leg rendering them numb and painful. I went to physiotherapist who diagnosed a back injury resulting in scar tissue that was pinching a nerve. After a few sessions things were back to normal.
- I fell down 6 weeks ago and got a concussion. They conducted a CAT scan to check for bleeding and everything came back normal. It took me at least two weeks to start becoming functional again.
Currently I suffer from the following symptoms. They are either new or have become a lot worse over the last year:
- Extreme fatigue. I now function at about 25% of my normal energy levels.
- Sudden body jerks. I have always done that just as I slip into sleep without even noticing (my husband pointed it out to me). But lately I will jerk awake violently and painfully after a few minutes. This can happen up to 10 times before I can sleep. I also now jerk violently and involuntarily while I'm awake if there is a loud noise or I'm surprised by something (which never happened before).
- Severe headaches. I rarely got headaches in the past
- Nauseous and dizzy a lot more frequent
- Periods of accelerated heart rate (over 120bpm)
- Severe fluctuations in blood pressure. My normal bp tends to lean to the lower side (110/70). But I have hit 155/94 on several occasions.
- Numbness in hands and feet that comes and goes. I have carpel tunnel though so when my hands go numb I assume it's because of that.
Some other maybe useful info:
- My brother was diagnosed with MS 8 years ago. My father has heart problems and sleep apnea. And my sister has a chronic Vitamin B deficiency.
- Around 8 years ago. My face and left arm+hand started going numb. Multiple testing including MRI could not find anything. The final verdict was stress and within a few months it was gone.
- I am not overweight and have high metabolism. But within the past year I have been gaining weight for no reason and been unable to lose it. I have gained over 30lbs. (Was 140 to start with)
Like I said I had been a relatively normal human before this year. Have had several stressful periods throughout my life and have been moderately healthy and active. I am not a health freak but believe in moderation so I eat with moderation and try to keep active. I had only been hospitalized twice in my life; for a c-section with my second and to remove my tonsils when I was 8.
This year has been awful, as much as I hate being sick what's making it worse is the debilitating fatigue. I don't normally over dramatize health issues but I guess I'm looking for something so I can work on fixing it and getting back to my normal self. I know it could all be in my head. Or it could be a jumble of lingering symptoms of all the medical problems and medication I went through.
But I'm hoping that someone could shed some form of light on whether I need to pursue this or just take it easy and try to ease back into life and it will all fix itself.
Thank you in advance
Right now I'm at the point where I don't know what is affecting what and whether I should be worried about an underlying cause or I'm just getting anxious and self projecting my worries into painful symptoms.
A quick history of the past year's symptoms, diagnosises and issues:
- Diagnosed with adult adhd 3 years ago and on vyvanse since then. Currently I'm on a 80 dosage.
- Went through an extremely stressful period because of work prior to this year and was also having marriage problems. Unsurprisingly got severely depressed and have seen both doctors and counsellors. I started out with an SSRI antidepressant which I took for three months then switched to Wellbutrin due to the undesirable side effects. The withdrawal period and adjusment period were hell. I'm currently on 450 Wellbutrin and have been for the last 6 months
- Developed a severe allergic reaction - I'm not allergic to anything - and got anaphylaxis. I now have to carry an epi pen.
- Due to the anaphylaxis, I got tested for every allergy under the sun and came back positive for only dust mites. I was told that a dust allergy does not cause anaphylaxis and so I did even more testing. Based on the nature of the tests it looked like they were looking for autoimmune diseases. Everything came back normal.
- My GP then ran a full blood picture. It came back normal in everything except my cholesterol which was insane, over 800. He wanted to start me on medication but I asked him to wait a bit and retest hoping that the crazy number was because of stress.
- Three months later I retested cholesterol and it had gone down to below 500. I had not adjusted anything; neither food nor activity level.
- I suddenly developed a back injury out of the blue. I had a huge bruise on my back that I had no idea where it came from. Since it wasn't painful I ignored it I started developing severe pain in my lower back and throughout the next two weeks, the pain started travelling down my pelvis and left leg rendering them numb and painful. I went to physiotherapist who diagnosed a back injury resulting in scar tissue that was pinching a nerve. After a few sessions things were back to normal.
- I fell down 6 weeks ago and got a concussion. They conducted a CAT scan to check for bleeding and everything came back normal. It took me at least two weeks to start becoming functional again.
Currently I suffer from the following symptoms. They are either new or have become a lot worse over the last year:
- Extreme fatigue. I now function at about 25% of my normal energy levels.
- Sudden body jerks. I have always done that just as I slip into sleep without even noticing (my husband pointed it out to me). But lately I will jerk awake violently and painfully after a few minutes. This can happen up to 10 times before I can sleep. I also now jerk violently and involuntarily while I'm awake if there is a loud noise or I'm surprised by something (which never happened before).
- Severe headaches. I rarely got headaches in the past
- Nauseous and dizzy a lot more frequent
- Periods of accelerated heart rate (over 120bpm)
- Severe fluctuations in blood pressure. My normal bp tends to lean to the lower side (110/70). But I have hit 155/94 on several occasions.
- Numbness in hands and feet that comes and goes. I have carpel tunnel though so when my hands go numb I assume it's because of that.
Some other maybe useful info:
- My brother was diagnosed with MS 8 years ago. My father has heart problems and sleep apnea. And my sister has a chronic Vitamin B deficiency.
- Around 8 years ago. My face and left arm+hand started going numb. Multiple testing including MRI could not find anything. The final verdict was stress and within a few months it was gone.
- I am not overweight and have high metabolism. But within the past year I have been gaining weight for no reason and been unable to lose it. I have gained over 30lbs. (Was 140 to start with)
Like I said I had been a relatively normal human before this year. Have had several stressful periods throughout my life and have been moderately healthy and active. I am not a health freak but believe in moderation so I eat with moderation and try to keep active. I had only been hospitalized twice in my life; for a c-section with my second and to remove my tonsils when I was 8.
This year has been awful, as much as I hate being sick what's making it worse is the debilitating fatigue. I don't normally over dramatize health issues but I guess I'm looking for something so I can work on fixing it and getting back to my normal self. I know it could all be in my head. Or it could be a jumble of lingering symptoms of all the medical problems and medication I went through.
But I'm hoping that someone could shed some form of light on whether I need to pursue this or just take it easy and try to ease back into life and it will all fix itself.
Thank you in advance
Have you noticed any, or do you wonder if you've experienced blackouts and/or fainting spells? (re. the huge bruise on your back with no explanation)
When you got that concussion from falling down, do you recall how/why you fell down so hard?
Height?/Weight?
While I don't doubt you're getting a decent quantity of sleep, I'm extremely skeptical about your getting any sort of good quality sleep. And after awhile, that sad situation can lead to a whole raft of esoteric and bizarre symptoms. Please ask your doctor about the feasibility of your participating in a sleep study (often done for those with sleep apnea, but I think that's unlikely to be your own issue).
You're coping (and are even medicated for) mood disorders. What are your destressing routines? How do you unwind effectively when stressed, or wanting to avoid getting stressed from being overwhelmed later?
When you got that concussion from falling down, do you recall how/why you fell down so hard?
Height?/Weight?
While I don't doubt you're getting a decent quantity of sleep, I'm extremely skeptical about your getting any sort of good quality sleep. And after awhile, that sad situation can lead to a whole raft of esoteric and bizarre symptoms. Please ask your doctor about the feasibility of your participating in a sleep study (often done for those with sleep apnea, but I think that's unlikely to be your own issue).
You're coping (and are even medicated for) mood disorders. What are your destressing routines? How do you unwind effectively when stressed, or wanting to avoid getting stressed from being overwhelmed later?
The back bruise was at least 6 months before the concussion. I'm a little clumsy and have a high tolerance for pain so I've had leg and arm bruises pop up suddenly without knowing why. But the back one was bigger than normal, in a spot that should have been it impossible to hit without noticing and took 4 weeks to go away.
The concussion came because I slipped on covers that were left on the floor, fell backwards and hit my head against the wall. Again my clumsiness in play.
Me not effectively managing stress is the main reason I got depressed in the first place. Since then I've adjusted a lot of my behaviours and expectations and thanks to counselling have been able to find healthier methods to destress as well as learning to say no and not needing everything to be perfect (which is a huge improvement for a perfectionist).
I agree with you about the far reaching effects of sleep deprivation and I know it could be a factor in all this. But again within the past year I have actually improved my sleep habits and am consistently getting enough hours of sleep. I don't wake up tired. And since I have always had issues with getting up in the morning (ADHD related), It has not been any more of a problem.
I used to function on an average of 5 hours of sleep. I had a house to run, two kids to manage, a stressful and physical job and maintaining a social life (perfectionist tendencies in play). So while the crash was no surprise, my life had always been fast paced and on average throughout the years has not been a lot less stressful than that.
So this past year with me going a lot slower than I've ever gone, I'm extremely surprised that it is the year full of all these medical problems.
The concussion came because I slipped on covers that were left on the floor, fell backwards and hit my head against the wall. Again my clumsiness in play.
Me not effectively managing stress is the main reason I got depressed in the first place. Since then I've adjusted a lot of my behaviours and expectations and thanks to counselling have been able to find healthier methods to destress as well as learning to say no and not needing everything to be perfect (which is a huge improvement for a perfectionist).
I agree with you about the far reaching effects of sleep deprivation and I know it could be a factor in all this. But again within the past year I have actually improved my sleep habits and am consistently getting enough hours of sleep. I don't wake up tired. And since I have always had issues with getting up in the morning (ADHD related), It has not been any more of a problem.
I used to function on an average of 5 hours of sleep. I had a house to run, two kids to manage, a stressful and physical job and maintaining a social life (perfectionist tendencies in play). So while the crash was no surprise, my life had always been fast paced and on average throughout the years has not been a lot less stressful than that.
So this past year with me going a lot slower than I've ever gone, I'm extremely surprised that it is the year full of all these medical problems.
Well, I think you're swamped with symptoms (and that's stressing you out all by itself and that may be adding a couple of symptoms to the mix).
To get unswamped, I urge you give meditation a good try. Simply a daily quiet time (10-30 min, 22 min's my own best duration) where you try to clear your thoughts away from anything other than focussing on slow, even breathing. I do this regularly, though I like to have something like a fireplace DVD playing in my field of view. I found it hard at first, took 3 or 4 tries before I got the hang of it and started getting serious benefit out of it. I find it's like investing in calm, and creates a notable buffer against the day's rough spots.
Your 80 of vyvanse is beyond the maximum dosage (of 70). I urge you to read ALL of rxlist.com's write-up for this med, and take note of any particular points of concern (yes, I know it's quite a bit), for sure do not just skim through the Warnings and Precautions.
You're at the Maximum dose level for Wellbutrin. I urge you to read ALL of rxlist.com's write-up for this med, too. You're at the six month point so I urge that you now review with your doctor the possibility of discontinuing the med through weaning yourself away from it. Six months is a typical point for such reviews.
I do think that most of your symptoms may be directly related to the high levels of these two potent meds you're on. How they're interacting in your system beyond their known individual side effects, is anyone's guess.
To get unswamped, I urge you give meditation a good try. Simply a daily quiet time (10-30 min, 22 min's my own best duration) where you try to clear your thoughts away from anything other than focussing on slow, even breathing. I do this regularly, though I like to have something like a fireplace DVD playing in my field of view. I found it hard at first, took 3 or 4 tries before I got the hang of it and started getting serious benefit out of it. I find it's like investing in calm, and creates a notable buffer against the day's rough spots.
Your 80 of vyvanse is beyond the maximum dosage (of 70). I urge you to read ALL of rxlist.com's write-up for this med, and take note of any particular points of concern (yes, I know it's quite a bit), for sure do not just skim through the Warnings and Precautions.
You're at the Maximum dose level for Wellbutrin. I urge you to read ALL of rxlist.com's write-up for this med, too. You're at the six month point so I urge that you now review with your doctor the possibility of discontinuing the med through weaning yourself away from it. Six months is a typical point for such reviews.
I do think that most of your symptoms may be directly related to the high levels of these two potent meds you're on. How they're interacting in your system beyond their known individual side effects, is anyone's guess.
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