I finally had my appointment with the immunologist, and his takeaway was essentially that this is all stemming from systemic inflammation—apparently, I’m dealing with some kind of rheumatic autoimmune disorder. It might be a bit premature to pin down an exact diagnosis just yet, I suppose, but for now, they've just handed me a mountain of prescriptions and told me I need to be patient...
Doctor, if we're looking at a combination of spinal pain and a fever—well, I suppose that might suggest something to him how severe would you say your back pain actually is? is it more of a muscular ache?
I’m struggling just to get through the day... but I have to keep pushing because life doesn't just stop—even if doctors seem completely clueless about what's actually happening...😠
The idea that a standard blood panel would catch everything is honestly ridiculous. If I've been dealing with systemic inflammation for three years straight and my basic labs look perfectly fine, then maybe those doctors should actually step back and ask themselves why... A simple CBC isn't the only indicator of inflammation. Everyone's body functions differently. People really need to seek out specialists—like an immunologist—rather than relying on general practitioners who, frankly, don't have a clue what they're looking at.
It’s almost like... I don't know, maybe two days out of every month, I'm just not feeling like myself at all. It happens enough that it's becoming a pattern—and honestly, most of the time things are fine, but this is different. Now they're starting to suspect some kind of autoimmune disorder—which is just great—because my spine has started acting up along with everything else. I have an appointment with an immunologist coming up soon, and I'm really hoping this whole ordeal wraps up quickly. It’s enough to drive anyone absolutely insane, I guess.
I suppose there are some people who feel perfectly fine even when their temperature hits 99.1 or 99.5—and they just shrug and accept it as their baseline—but for me, things are different. The second I cross that 98.4 threshold, it’s a disaster. I deal with muscle aches, exhaustion, and this general sense of malaise... it's been going on for two years now, and I know for a fact this isn't my "normal" temperature, because I feel absolutely terrible and completely drained.
Regarding this condition—how long have you actually been dealing with it? I mean, are we talking about a few months, or has it been years now? And just to be thorough—have you noticed any other symptoms or any sort of localized pain accompanying it?
I find it hard to believe we're actually out here... personally, I've been hovering between 98.6 and 99.5 degrees for nearly three years now—which, I suppose, remains a total mystery to my doctors. My temperature tends to peak in the afternoon, though it stays slightly elevated in the evening too; plus, during certain parts of my cycle, it’s noticeably higher than it is during the first half... and I know this isn't my baseline, since I sit at a steady 97.8 when I'm actually feeling alright. Whenever it climbs above 102, I deal with exhaustion, general malaise, and these nagging muscle aches—does anyone else experience something similar?