Aa
7 doctors later... where is my severe leg pain coming from????
Allrighty, this one’s rather mysterious...
I'm a 25 yr old Caucasian male, who is normally perfectly healthy, no allergies and apart from mild asthma has no real medical history.
I've been living in the Cook Islands for the last month working as a scuba diving instructor. Three weeks ago (April 20th) I was diving the final dives with two Open Water students. The dives were very tame, in the sense they were quite shallow (the deeper being 15m), and also very short (around 20 minutes each). As soon as I surfaced from the dive however, I experienced an excruciating headache which stayed with me for the following few days. Also after surfacing it was my duty to pull up the anchor, whilst heaving it out, it managed to get jammed beneath a piece of coral an instantaneously became taut, knocking me with some force into the side of the boat, striking my right side abdomen. At the time this did not hurt at all, it was not until the following day that I began to feel pain on my side, this continued also for the following few days. I continued going to work over the next two days, ignoring the headache and side pain, during which I was required to do a Discovery Dive, this dive was extremely short and to a maximum depth of 10 metres (so if I had any form of decompression illness, the bubbles should have theoretically dissolved during this dive)
By the 23rd I was still in quite a bit of discomfort so the boss let me take the day off. I woke up with an annoying tingling sensation in my left foot, 2nd and 3rd toe. Throughout the day this tingling developed into more of a sharp, burning pain and by 10pm that night it was unbearably painful. I could barely walk on the affected foot and even the most gentle touch would make me contort in utter agony. Quite easily the most painful thing I've ever experienced. I made my way to the other side of the island where the only hospital was located. The doctors there first assumed it was some kind of insect bite so they gave me pain relief and antihistamines, a more senior doctor came in later and ruled out an insect bite, instead diagnosing it as some random outbreak of pain that we'll never understand. He sent me home with some 30mg codeine to get me through the worst.
By the 25th, it had become far worse. The pain in my left toes was making me unable to get out of bed in the middle of the night and I could feel it spreading up through my shin and into my knee. I went back up to the doctors where they took a blood sample, finding my Uric acid levels to be higher than usual. The doctor, as bemused as he was, assumed that his 25yr old healthy patient must have Gout. I was given dyclofinac tablets and advised of the dietary changes I should consider. These however did not make much difference. A few days later (28th) and the pain had spread to my right foot making it almost impossible to walk. I called up the same doctor I’d been seeing and he suggested I up the dyclofinac with some prednisone. I did as he suggested and had 40mg of prednisone each morning. Again this had zero affect, by the 30th the pain was now in my left elbow and right thigh, the slightest touch and I was in agony. When the area of most pain changed, I would still have residual pain in the previous spots, it was just that the new spot was so painful it made me somewhat ignore the lesser pain in the other spots. The pain, I can best describe as a very very bad sunburn with a stabbing pain that follows touch.
By Sunday 1st of May I’d decided to fly home to New Zealand where the medical care is much quicker and more developed (plus I’d be covered by NZ’s medical care) I went to the doctor as soon as I landed and he theorized that it was some form of infection due to slight redness, swelling and elevated temperature in the original source of pain (left foot). He gave me a script of antibiotics and ibuprofen and performed another blood test, which revealed my blood was back to being entirely normal. The pain continued over the following days with new spots in my shoulder and a cramp like pain to the upper-left of my stomach. I decided to stop the prednisone as it could have been the cause of the stomach pain, plus it was looking very unlikely that I had gout so it was no longer any use. By the 6th I had started to feel slight pain in my left thigh, so went to see the doctor (a different one now). She agreed to the stopping prednisone but was stumped as to what it could be, antibiotics were making little difference and it only seemed to be spreading. The doctor suggested another blood test, this time looking for a few different things and that she’d forward some of the info on my case to the Infectious Diseases gang to have a look over. The next day the pain in my left thigh became unbearable so I rushed to the hospital. Here I was having random bouts of pain, every 5-10 minutes a wave of pain would come through for minutes at a time. I was given a nice big stack of pain killers and tested for almost everything. They did two blood tests, a urine test, a chest x-ray and an ECG test, all showing no problems whatsoever. The doctor here had to get several others to come through and attempt a diagnosis. The best they came up with was that it must be diving related, the doc told me to stop the antibiotics. So again I was sent home with an unconfirmed diagnosis but this time I had some 60mg codeine.
I called up the local diving doctor and explained my dives / symptoms in more detail and he was very doubtful that what I had was related to my diving. A few days later and my pain is much the same so I decided to revisit the hospital. The doctor this time spotted something that no other doctor had mentioned before, my white blood cell count (he called it something different, but put in layman’s terms “WBC” for me) was progressively higher in all tests I’d done since Rarotonga. This meant he figured what I had to be some form of parasitic infection (eww!) he took a stool sample and another blood sample from me to send off to the Infectious Diseases crew.
Yesterday (12th) I was called up with results from the stool sample, they had found Campylobacter in it. After researching this disease though it doesn’t really add up to my symptoms, it’s more of a food poisoning disease, although there are people who show no signs or symptoms after contracting.
The pains are slightly better now (I guess) I still have the occasional wave of pain but am feeling more weak than anything now. Maybe because I have spent the last few weeks sitting around with my legs up.. I have had no other symptoms at all apart from an occasional headache and a very slight shortness of breath.
Does anyone out there have any idea what I could have??
I'm a 25 yr old Caucasian male, who is normally perfectly healthy, no allergies and apart from mild asthma has no real medical history.
I've been living in the Cook Islands for the last month working as a scuba diving instructor. Three weeks ago (April 20th) I was diving the final dives with two Open Water students. The dives were very tame, in the sense they were quite shallow (the deeper being 15m), and also very short (around 20 minutes each). As soon as I surfaced from the dive however, I experienced an excruciating headache which stayed with me for the following few days. Also after surfacing it was my duty to pull up the anchor, whilst heaving it out, it managed to get jammed beneath a piece of coral an instantaneously became taut, knocking me with some force into the side of the boat, striking my right side abdomen. At the time this did not hurt at all, it was not until the following day that I began to feel pain on my side, this continued also for the following few days. I continued going to work over the next two days, ignoring the headache and side pain, during which I was required to do a Discovery Dive, this dive was extremely short and to a maximum depth of 10 metres (so if I had any form of decompression illness, the bubbles should have theoretically dissolved during this dive)
By the 23rd I was still in quite a bit of discomfort so the boss let me take the day off. I woke up with an annoying tingling sensation in my left foot, 2nd and 3rd toe. Throughout the day this tingling developed into more of a sharp, burning pain and by 10pm that night it was unbearably painful. I could barely walk on the affected foot and even the most gentle touch would make me contort in utter agony. Quite easily the most painful thing I've ever experienced. I made my way to the other side of the island where the only hospital was located. The doctors there first assumed it was some kind of insect bite so they gave me pain relief and antihistamines, a more senior doctor came in later and ruled out an insect bite, instead diagnosing it as some random outbreak of pain that we'll never understand. He sent me home with some 30mg codeine to get me through the worst.
By the 25th, it had become far worse. The pain in my left toes was making me unable to get out of bed in the middle of the night and I could feel it spreading up through my shin and into my knee. I went back up to the doctors where they took a blood sample, finding my Uric acid levels to be higher than usual. The doctor, as bemused as he was, assumed that his 25yr old healthy patient must have Gout. I was given dyclofinac tablets and advised of the dietary changes I should consider. These however did not make much difference. A few days later (28th) and the pain had spread to my right foot making it almost impossible to walk. I called up the same doctor I’d been seeing and he suggested I up the dyclofinac with some prednisone. I did as he suggested and had 40mg of prednisone each morning. Again this had zero affect, by the 30th the pain was now in my left elbow and right thigh, the slightest touch and I was in agony. When the area of most pain changed, I would still have residual pain in the previous spots, it was just that the new spot was so painful it made me somewhat ignore the lesser pain in the other spots. The pain, I can best describe as a very very bad sunburn with a stabbing pain that follows touch.
By Sunday 1st of May I’d decided to fly home to New Zealand where the medical care is much quicker and more developed (plus I’d be covered by NZ’s medical care) I went to the doctor as soon as I landed and he theorized that it was some form of infection due to slight redness, swelling and elevated temperature in the original source of pain (left foot). He gave me a script of antibiotics and ibuprofen and performed another blood test, which revealed my blood was back to being entirely normal. The pain continued over the following days with new spots in my shoulder and a cramp like pain to the upper-left of my stomach. I decided to stop the prednisone as it could have been the cause of the stomach pain, plus it was looking very unlikely that I had gout so it was no longer any use. By the 6th I had started to feel slight pain in my left thigh, so went to see the doctor (a different one now). She agreed to the stopping prednisone but was stumped as to what it could be, antibiotics were making little difference and it only seemed to be spreading. The doctor suggested another blood test, this time looking for a few different things and that she’d forward some of the info on my case to the Infectious Diseases gang to have a look over. The next day the pain in my left thigh became unbearable so I rushed to the hospital. Here I was having random bouts of pain, every 5-10 minutes a wave of pain would come through for minutes at a time. I was given a nice big stack of pain killers and tested for almost everything. They did two blood tests, a urine test, a chest x-ray and an ECG test, all showing no problems whatsoever. The doctor here had to get several others to come through and attempt a diagnosis. The best they came up with was that it must be diving related, the doc told me to stop the antibiotics. So again I was sent home with an unconfirmed diagnosis but this time I had some 60mg codeine.
I called up the local diving doctor and explained my dives / symptoms in more detail and he was very doubtful that what I had was related to my diving. A few days later and my pain is much the same so I decided to revisit the hospital. The doctor this time spotted something that no other doctor had mentioned before, my white blood cell count (he called it something different, but put in layman’s terms “WBC” for me) was progressively higher in all tests I’d done since Rarotonga. This meant he figured what I had to be some form of parasitic infection (eww!) he took a stool sample and another blood sample from me to send off to the Infectious Diseases crew.
Yesterday (12th) I was called up with results from the stool sample, they had found Campylobacter in it. After researching this disease though it doesn’t really add up to my symptoms, it’s more of a food poisoning disease, although there are people who show no signs or symptoms after contracting.
The pains are slightly better now (I guess) I still have the occasional wave of pain but am feeling more weak than anything now. Maybe because I have spent the last few weeks sitting around with my legs up.. I have had no other symptoms at all apart from an occasional headache and a very slight shortness of breath.
Does anyone out there have any idea what I could have??
Thanks for the answer mate!
turns out it was the Campylobacter causing everything. I was just a real rare case of the symptoms being all pain related with none of the normal ones.
Should be on the up from now!
Cheers
turns out it was the Campylobacter causing everything. I was just a real rare case of the symptoms being all pain related with none of the normal ones.
Should be on the up from now!
Cheers
Not sure about the headache,but sounds to me (as I suffer from sciatica) that you may have incurred a spinal injury. It may go away with rest, however if it doesn't....get it checked out asap. Possible impingement on a nerve, which there are many alongside lumbar vertebra.Has nobody taken an image of your lumbar? Tips of toes are where my worst pain is. It may gradually spread depending upon the nature of the injury. The more I read, the more I am convinced you have some sort of lumbar injury involving sciatic nerve. It can spread and even affect your autonomic functions in worst case. Please go to orthopaedic doc and ask for MRI. maybe don't even mention the headache as it may be unrelated. I am not a health pro, but I have a great deal of experience with medical issues.Bet my bottom dollar seriously!
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