Friday, June 10, 2011

pt3. The weird symptoms, a little more explanation on how it started.

Other than the usual fibro symptoms I had symptoms that are now sometimes associated with fibromyalgia but not so much back then. When my symptoms get really bad everything smells more intense. I cannot stand the smell of perfumes and cleaning products. Sounds, especially repeated sounds or mixed sounds (ie several people talking, music and speaking or tv altoghether) really bother me.  All sounds seem louder. My skin becomes itchy and sometimes breaks out into a strange rash. I get an intense burning sensation in my muscles. I get so cold that nothing but standing under a really hot shower will warm me up, although I usually feel totally wiped out when I get out of the shower instead of feeling refreshed. I get these weird twitches under my skin on my ribs like some tiny parasite is crawling under my skin! I sometimes get short of breath, as if an elephant is sitting on my chest. My temper is of course shorter (whose wouldn't be when you are going through so much crap with all these syptoms?) In the first 5 years I would get this overload of symptoms more often. Now I usually don't get them all together that often.
Over the last few weeks I've had a lot of different feedback from all of you reading this blog (thank you, I really really like hearing from you, especially if you have some similar story or  even  if you just want to tell me part of your own experience) So I had a few questions and points come up so I'm going to go back to page one and elaborate on some things.
My digestive problems that started when I was 15 came on with upper g.i. pain. My doctor did an endoscopy and said I had a healing duodenal ulcer. Yup, only 15.  I constantly had  stomach pain, bloating and all the typical IBS symptoms. I could never figure out what foods made it better or worse. I envy people who say that they are intolerant to this or that foods. At least they know what they are allergic or sensitive to and to avoid that. Not knowing sucks! I eat certain foods one day and I'm fine. I'll eat the same things another time and I feel miserable.
The only things I've been able to find is that I am very sensitive to foods that aren't totally fresh. You know how some people leave food instead of refrigerating it fast.  I get food poisoning really quickly. It makes going to restaurants and traveling really risky.
I'm stubborn though. I love restaurants. I know, bad girl. But my pleasures in life are so few and in between with this illness.
Going overseas to Iran always gives me terrible food poisoning. EVERY time. None of my family go through that. I don't understand it. So even though I would love to go there to visit family more often, I do not go more than once or twice a decade.
I'm going to stop here tonight.
(next: Dr. St. Amand,  2nd baby, Dr. Holtorf etc...)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did they check you for Celiac's?? I am Gluten Intolerant and just found out that I have Fibromyalgia. I firmly believe that the 2 are connected.

foggy said...

Yes I was tested for Celiac's Sprue several times but the test, like almost all my tests came back negative.
I think you are right though. The gut is our biggest immune system and when things go wrong there, they go wrong in other places. Most western dr.'s don't even pay much attention to the small intestine.
I believe a lot of fibro patients also have Celiac's.