11 posts shown.
Matthew Bishop44 said:Do you see any logical flaws in here?
Or perhaps right here?
....maybe even here?
And then some sugar at the end...
rustypanther8 said:I haven't had an endoscopy yet, but I'm seeing an infectious disease specialist regarding those infections, so we'll see what his take is... my CBC is fine, thyroid levels are normal, urea and creatinine look okay too... I have this incredibly rapid metabolism, though I must admit I've eaten just about every kind of junk imaginable over the years.
Up until last fall, I was in peak condition, truly—built like an astronaut, practically... zero issues, absolutely none, save for these recurring colds over the last three years, which turns out were caused by a 3cm cyst in my sphenoid sinus that’s likely been growing for years, irritating the sinuses and triggering these infections... I'm heading in for an endoscopic procedure to clear it out this Tuesday, so that specific problem should be behind me.
As for all these other symptoms, I am almost certain they stem from some sort of cerebral dysfunction, though whether they're caused by that vertebrobasilar insufficiency in blood flow, or perhaps some inflammation, or a bacterial infection... I really don't know, and frankly, none of these doctors or surgeons I've seen, neurology-related or otherwise, seem to have a clue either...
rustypanther8 said:I feel like I’m repeating myself for the umpteenth time here, but I really must insist that this anxiety isn't some recent development... I have lived with it for as long as I can remember, and I certainly know exactly what it is...
What I am discussing here truly has nothing to do with anxiety...
Unless, of course, one might consider that what we're labeling as anxiety could actually be rooted in some sort of underlying neurological issue...
If you lack the actual credentials or specialized expertise required to offer legitimate medical advice, I would kindly request that you direct me toward an American medical forum instead... if such a thing even exists. It seems we are all simply squandering our time here, mine included, by persisting in this endless cycle of uninformed commentary... It is something that both neurologists and psychologists have already officially ruled out as the root cause... It really just seems like nothing more than a potential trigger for the symptoms...
By the way... back when I used to struggle with anxiety and those constant waves of nerves... I would find myself devouring one or two massive cheesecakes, maybe five or six chocolate donuts, and a giant three-layered Hershey’s bar all at once... Daily...
Because that would be the most effective way to finally extinguish the flames of all this internal agitation and stress...
Ever since I was diagnosed with that first stage of fibrosis, things have shifted quite drastically... It’s not even just that I can't stomach everything like I used to, it's that the very idea of eating feels exhausting. I can barely manage two bowls of soup, let alone force myself to gorge on food the way I once would have, especially when those waves of mental tension start creeping in...
I honestly don't know which approach would be more effective to explain this—it truly has nothing to do with anxiety or any such thing... if you simply cannot grasp the point, I suppose I could attempt to break it down like a children's picture book, provided that sort of simplistic imagery might actually penetrate... But really, one must consider that among a hundred people, you will find a hundred different wonders and a hundred distinct levels of intellect, and certainly not everyone possesses the capacity to properly interpret the written word.
rustypanther8 said:Hello there...
It’s been about three months now since this whole thing started creeping up on me... it wasn't sudden, just a gradual decline, I suppose. First, there was this persistent ringing and buzzing in my ears, a sort of constant drone in my head, and I found myself feeling increasingly lethargic, sleeping longer and more frequently than usual... until finally, toward the end of January, things took a turn for the worse. I ended up with a fever of 102.7 and acute bronchitis, which led to a ten-day course of doxycycline... but ever since that cleared, the initial symptoms haven't actually left me, and instead, a series of new ones have just kept trickling in... day by day...
Tinnitus, vertigo, this persistent throbbing sensation deep within the skull... then there's the constant, bone-deep exhaustion, coupled with those strange visual flashes and double vision that just won't quit. It leads into periods of unconsciousness, followed by sleep that is both heavy and utterly disrupted... facial swelling around the eyes and cheeks, digestive issues, and irregular bowel movements. My physical coordination has taken a hit—ataxia, really—making swallowing and even speaking feel somewhat labored, almost as if I’m hovering on the edge of some cerebral dysfunction. There is this localized coldness and tingling in the lower legs, along with a diminished sense of proprioception, or rather, a weakened psychophysical awareness of my own body... an intense sensitivity to daylight, and a body temperature that refuses to regulate itself, leaving me either shivering uncontrollably or drenched in sweat, regardless of what I've eaten or how the weather shifts outside...
An audiological assessment... Tidy...
The BERA test... it’s one of those medical procedures that sounds far more intimidating than it actually is, though I suppose the clinical setting doesn't exactly lend itself to a sense of relaxation... if one can even call it that... anyway, it’s essentially an auditory brainstem response test, designed to see how well the hearing nerve and the brain stem are communicating with one another... It’s quite a specialized bit of diagnostic work... mostly used when standard hearing tests don't provide the full picture, particularly in infants or when there's a suspicion of something more complex happening deep within the auditory pathway... One sits there, electrodes attached, waiting for the clicks and the data to process... it’s all very quiet and methodical... just a series of electrical impulses being mapped out to ensure everything is functioning as intended... nothing to fear, really, just a lot of sitting still and letting the technicians do their thing... tidy...
It seems we have reached a point where the conversation has stalled entirely... quite a sudden halt, really... though perhaps it was inevitable given the direction things were heading... anyway... tidy...
I suppose I should mention the EEG... I was looking over those neurological readings again this morning, and it’s quite a peculiar thing to contemplate how much our electrical impulses dictate the rhythm of our existence... It’s all just waves and frequencies, isn't it? A constant, silent hum beneath the surface of everything we think and feel... though sometimes I wonder if we can ever truly map the entirety of that chaos... anyway, I digress... Tidy...
The thyroid... one of those fascinatingly complex little glands that seems to hold the entire body's equilibrium in its hands, governing everything from our metabolic pace to the very temperament we carry through the day... It’s all a delicate dance between hormones and antibodies, really... A constant, invisible negotiation within the bloodstream that most people never give a second thought to until things start to go sideways... When those antibodies decide to misinterpret the body's own signals, the whole system can drift into such strange, unpredictable territory... It's quite a heavy thing to contemplate, how much of our physical reality is dictated by these microscopic chemical messengers... Neatly done...
I suppose I should mention the EKG... though why anyone would want to dwell on the specifics of a cardiac rhythm reading at this hour remains somewhat of a mystery to me... one could argue that the data speaks for itself, yet we find ourselves staring at the squiggles on the paper as if they held some profound, hidden truth about our very existence... It’s all quite clinical, really... just electrical impulses dancing across a strip of paper while we sit here wondering if everything is functioning exactly as intended... turns out, it's just another series of peaks and valleys in an otherwise predictable sequence... typical... Neat...
So, I’ve been thinking about getting an MRI of the brain... just one of those things that sits in the back of your mind, weighing on you like a heavy fog... it's a strange thing, isn't it, to have a machine scan the very essence of who you are, peering into the gray matter where all our memories and silly little impulses reside... quite a surreal prospect if you really sit down and dwell on it for too long... The imaging results came back, and it seems there’s a slightly more prominent cistern in the cerebellomedullary region... plus they picked up a 3cm cyst in the sphenoid sinus... quite a lot to digest all at once, I suppose...
I am currently looking into scheduling an MRI for my neck and lower back... just trying to get some clarity on what exactly is going on with the spine... So, I was looking over some recent medical findings, and it turns out there’s a bit of an issue with hypoplasia of the left vertebral artery... which basically means that particular vessel is just underdeveloped, quite a little thing really, leaving most of the heavy lifting to the other side... it's one of those anatomical quirks that you don't really think about until it shows up on a scan...
Neuropsychological testing... it’s one of those things that sounds much more clinical and intimidating than it actually is when you're sitting there in the office... though I suppose the sheer volume of paperwork involved could certainly make anyone feel a bit overwhelmed at first... It’s essentially a deep dive into how the brain is functioning, looking at everything from memory retention to cognitive processing speeds... almost like a diagnostic checkup for your mental machinery, much like how a mechanic might run a full computer scan on a high-end vehicle to see why it isn't idling quite right... It’s a meticulous process, really... and while it can feel somewhat tedious to go through all the various tasks and puzzles, the insights gained can be quite profound if you have the patience for it... Borderline cerebral dysfunction... it’s one of those terms that just hangs in the air, isn't it? A bit clinical, perhaps too precise for something that feels so nebulous when you're actually living through it... though I suppose that's the nature of these diagnostic labels, always trying to pin down something that refuses to stay still...
I suppose I should mention that I finally made it to my appointment with the ENT specialist... just one of those things you put off until you can't ignore the discomfort any longer... turns out, it was necessary to get everything looked at properly... So, I’ve been sitting here trying to make sense of this whole medical puzzle... I have a deviated septum, which is one thing, but then there's this cyst in my sphenoid sinus that they've scheduled surgery for in about twenty days... It’s all quite a lot to process. Interestingly enough, my ENT surgeon insists that the symptoms I've been dealing with actually have absolutely nothing to do with the cyst itself... A sentiment that seems to be gaining quite a bit of traction, as all three neurologists I've seen, the ENT, and even a radiologist have all echoed the exact same thing... It leaves me wondering where we go from here...
I’ve already cycled through three different neurologists and spent ten days in physical therapy... all based on the assumption that my symptoms weren't being triggered by vertebral artery hypoplasia, which the neurologist insisted could only be managed through traction and neck decompression exercises... yet, after all that effort, absolutely nothing has helped...
I went through the entire gauntlet of medical checkups and tests, just so I could end up being lectured by some nurse who decided to give me her unsolicited advice on going in for a so-called... I've scheduled some serological testing over at the microbiology lab just to confirm whether or not I've picked up toxoplasmosis... it’s one of those things that stays on the back of your mind, I suppose....
Will a standard blood panel actually pinpoint whether I’m dealing with toxoplasmosis or some similar affliction... specifically, will it be able to detect if it has reached the central nervous system? I ask because, frankly, I feel like it has... I am quite literally non-functional, both mentally and physically, at this point...
And if I find myself stuck with something like this... what’s the fastest way to just get rid of it? I have my SATs coming up in June, so I really need to pull myself together as soon as possible... I've been hoping things would start looking up for about three months now, but instead, I haven't had a decent night's sleep in two months... I just lie there for seven or eight hours, completely awake, fully aware of everything happening in the dark around me... my eyes are constantly swollen from the exhaustion, and I've become so hypersensitive to noise that any sudden sound feels like a literal electric shock hitting my brain... it's quite overwhelming...
I honestly don't know what to do anymore... I've even found myself spiraling into the darkest possible thoughts because sleep just won't come, and quite frankly, it hasn't for three months straight. At first, I was convinced I had caught some kind of viral meningitis—or perhaps a milder strain of encephalitis—but if that were the case, I assume things would have stabilized by now... and they haven't. Now, I am truly at my wit's end. There are moments when the idea of just ending it all feels like the only way to finally find some semblance of rest... it's become an exhausting cycle. I haven't slept properly in three months, and over the last few days, things have taken a turn for the worse; I've started experiencing mild hallucinations, psychotic episodes, paranoia, and several other secondary symptoms that began three months ago and seem to be steadily intensifying... likely due to this underlying illness I can't identify, compounded by the sheer, crushing weight of total sleep deprivation.
I am counting down every single second until those twenty days pass so I can finally undergo this sinus surgery... because being under full anesthesia is quite literally the only way I see myself getting any actual rest or sleep at this point in my life... I am truly at my wits' end and don't even know who left to turn to anymore... I have tried everything, even taking three or four Normabels at once, but nothing touches the pain, and I simply cannot sleep through this misery... I am right on the edge of breaking... please, if anyone out there has dealt with something similar, I am begging you to reach out or suggest someone I could talk to, because I am lost... I’m only 23 years old, yet suddenly I am struck by this illness out of nowhere—something even the doctors can't quite put a name to—and it has turned my entire existence into an absolute agony... honestly, in my current state, death feels like the only way I might finally get some peace and sleep... I just don't know how much longer I can endure another month of this...
Grace Davis77 said:Not a chance... I mean, if this ends up turning into serious chronic issues or even potential permanent disability, then absolutely not.☕
Matthew Bishop44 said:Whenever I attempt those stretching exercises for my cervical spine, I start getting these strange tingling sensations in my head... and naturally, when one turns to Google to investigate head tingles, the search results immediately point toward psychiatry. I’ve grown quite accustomed to managing chronic pain over the years—one simply learns to live with it, I suppose—but these sudden electric shocks are a rather unsettling new development...
Matthew Bishop44 said:I wouldn't put it quite like that myself... it feels more like a sudden surge... and that racing heart you're feeling is just pure panic, a massive rush of adrenaline, which isn't actually dangerous per se...
Robert Rodriguez2 said:Excuse me, I am not entirely certain if this is the appropriate forum for such an inquiry, so if I have misjudged the venue, I would humbly request that the moderators relocate this thread accordingly...
The matter at hand is somewhat concerning, as I decided to resume my physical training a few days ago after quite a significant hiatus... nothing fancy, just the basics like pull-ups and push-ups, utilizing nothing but my own body weight rather than engaging with any heavy gym equipment or dumbbells...
However, by the second day, I was struck by intense muscle soreness... I actually had to skip my subsequent session because the pain was simply too much, and I found myself unable to even straighten my arms, which remained stuck in this awkward, semi-bent position...
For the following two days, I applied various ointments to both arms in an attempt to soothe the discomfort while gradually attempting to stretch them back into a normal position...
While the acute pain eventually subsided, there was this persistent sensation of tightness in my left arm that hasn't really left me, even now...
I managed to complete another workout the day before yesterday, and the arm seemed to be behaving itself at the time, but today, during my shift at work, I’ve noticed some swelling in my left arm... my forearm is visibly swollen, perhaps about an inch wider than the right one, and the swelling seems to be creeping toward my wrist... it’s also starting to ache, accompanied by a strange tension stretching from my elbow upward...
I am currently at the office and won't be heading home until around 8:00 PM... Should I be genuinely worried about this, and what would be the most prudent course of action?...