vividsailor7 said:Just write out your symptoms, blood pressure, and heart rate clearly in about five lines. Don't just make stuff up when the lab results look normal.
With pheochromocytoma—that's an adrenal gland tumor—adrenaline levels spike, so don't go imagining things just because the tests look okay.
I guess you’d probably be thrilled if they told you, "Sir, you have a liver tumor," so why would you be jumping for joy now?
It’s a long story. It’s been going on for two years.
So, these symptoms over the last two years: I get these shakes throughout the day quite often, and I sweat profusely even when I feel cold. Then there's the irritability, the inability to focus, and this feeling of just staring into space (kind of like how you feel when you haven't slept for two days straight after a non-stop coding marathon)... maybe hypoglycemia? My memory is bad, I deal with anxiety, and this constant, unstoppable negative loop of worrying.
Then there's the near-daily watery diarrhea that... well, it really burns, and even when it isn't full-blown diarrhea, it still feels weird and stinging... or sometimes it starts hard and then turns into diarrhea at the end... happens 2-3 times a day... and constant heart palpitations... I feel my heart pounding for about 4-5 hours on average every day... it’s never a fast rhythm, though..
And muscle weakness... it's not like the muscles themselves are weak, but more like the perception that they are...
Plus the lethargy, the lack of motivation, being totally wiped out, that "wired and tired" feeling, and frequent depressive episodes—and the anxiety just feeds itself because I can't concentrate to finish tasks at work, and since deadlines are looming, the anxiety just gets way worse...
Also, insomnia is pretty frequent—just from all the anxiety and worrying.
Then there's this extreme sensitivity to the cold that absolutely wrecked me all winter—I'll step outside onto the patio and start chattering my teeth within 30 seconds, before I can even take a breath.
I managed to regulate most of the symptoms through my diet—I cut out carbs and mostly ate something like the Optimal Diet (from that Polish doctor, Jan Kowalski... or something like that). Within two days, a huge chunk of symptoms cleared up, including the most important one—being able to focus.. also, most of those hypoglycemia symptoms vanished (I checked my sugar, my fasting levels are fine, and my A1C was good several times)... but after a month of eating just spinach and chicken, I had such a massive crash. I had to lie down, everything felt like it was swaying (like I was on a boat), and the brain fog came back even harder than before... I also started getting extra cold, so I began checking my temperature, and it wouldn't go above 99.8°F for a few days. So, I got my thyroid levels checked, went to a local clinic for an exam (the ultrasound just showed it was slightly enlarged, nothing crazy), and got a prescription for Synthroid, which I've been taking for 8 days now... To monitor things, I've been checking my blood pressure constantly and noticed it’s high—it was probably high before too, but I wasn't measuring it because the feeling is similar to the constant palpitations... I noticed my heart skips a beat if I hold my breath for just a second or so..
Oh, and yeah, over these two years, I've had all sorts of random symptoms... there were times I just cried for half an hour for no reason at all, like, I was just sobbing and wailing... and I also had one stretch of 4-5 days (all at once) where I had this unstoppable sexual energy—I've never experienced anything like that in my life... normally my libido has been low for these two years, but during those 4-5 days, something happened and I couldn't replicate it.. it was a miracle, honestly, something completely different, a different kind of orgasm and erection, just a miracle..
It all started, or maybe just got way worse, during a really stressful phase of my life about two years ago, and on top of that stress, I did a 1.5-month crash diet where I dropped from 220 pounds to 176—so, in just a month and a half... my daily calorie intake was averaging maybe 500, and usually not even good quality food..
My absolute top priority right now is just staying focused, keeping my head straight, and having enough mental clarity to get through work... because honestly, this current phase of the project is just incredibly intense. I actually managed to pull myself together through diet for about two days, but then, well, everything just fell apart again after a month... anyway, since these shifts hit me so fast, I’m pretty sure it’s all happening at a hormonal level—specifically something going on with my adrenal glands. The alternative, I guess, is that I might need to see a psychiatrist...
Oh, and yeah, when that brain fog rolls in, the tinnitus usually follows, though sometimes it shows up on its own too... and I should probably mention that if I do feel any better, it’s usually toward the end of the day... maybe somewhere around 2 or 3 in the afternoon that things start to clear up mentally, if anything...
And, despite people making me feel like an idiot, honestly, finding out I have an adrenal tumor would almost feel like a relief... the hardest part is being stuck without a diagnosis while deadlines and work stress are breathing down my neck (programming really demands focus, especially when you're building software for big banks like JPMorgan Chase) and I can't even remember what day it is... or when I'm totally confused and have to present something, I literally forget the rest of my sentence right in the middle of speaking... and it really gets under my skin when people tell me I'm just imagining things or that I'm fine because I look relatively healthy on the outside... so, with all due respect, I don't think there's any reason for those kinds of prejudices. This whole situation... it could cost me my job, my apartment, and maybe even my wife...