- Joined
- Jun 29, 2013
- Messages
- 1
I apologize in advance. This ended up being way longer than I intended. But I ended up having a lot more to say than I realized. I'm a 29/F and now that I've written all of this out, I realized I've probably been sicker for a lot longer than I've been willing to acknowledge. I've typed out a summary of my medical history to give a bit of an idea of what led me to my current situation.
For starters, I had an endoscopy performed when I was an infant because I threw up every bottle of formula given to me. They thought it was possible my esophagus wasn't attached to my stomach due to my frequent illness. The results found nothing out of the ordinary, though it was later discovered I'm lactose intolerant. So I've been off dairy 99% of my life and, for the most part, have been good about avoiding it.
But I still would get random bouts of diarrhea and sometimes vomit in the morning for no reason. But doctors couldn't find anything wrong with me. They kept saying I'm just "sensitive" or that I have a "weak" stomach. So I kind of just got used to it. After all, I also seemed to catch every cold on the face of the planet and always seemed to be sick with something. I just figured that's just the way I was. I had pneumonia 21 times before I was 18. I was used to feeling sick.
Flash forward to college. The constant upset stomach, complete with awful pain, and continuous morning sickness got worse. Then I started suffering from awful fatigue and didn't have the strength to get out of bed most days. They said I was depressed and tried my on several different anti-depressants. Which didn't work. I realize depression is a very serious illness for a lot of people. But I knew my body and just knew I was depressed because of whatever was going on with me. I had never been very convinced it was caused by some kind of chemical imbalance and that the SSRIs didn't do me much good, aside from making me kinda moody. Ended up leaving school on a medical leave for what I thought would be a single semester. Didn't make it back to that school at all.
So I got a full-time job. Lost it because I was missing too much time, and was too young to have the nerve to fight them over my medical issues. Ended up finding another job, one that was decent enough, until they closed down and I was out of work again. Found yet another job and tried going back to school online, and my constant abdominal issues hardly registered anymore. I'd had an ultrasound and was tested for H.pylori but they didn't find anything. It was the fatigue that was getting to me, though I was convinced whatever was wrong was all in my head. After all, no one could find anything wrong with me. Even though I could barely concentrate. I found doing my job nearly impossible. I've never been a big believer in the prevalence of adult ADD, I had myself tested anyway. Their only advice for me was to drink less coffee...
Then I developed an ovarian cyst. After it burst, while horrible in the short term, I started thinking maybe that's what was wrong with me all this time. I even felt kind of peppy (for me) for a couple of weeks. It didn't last.
I ended up losing that job due not long after that due to poor performance, plus quit school again because not only was I not performing well, I couldn't afford it anymore anyway.
It took me almost 6 months to find more work, all the while berating myself. I never considered myself a particularly lazy person. I started my first 40hr/week job the first Monday after high school. I worked while I was in school full time, then went to school part time while I returned to full time work. I've always had all these huge ambitions and goals. But I could barely handle getting up to get in the shower. I was so tired all the time. I told myself I must be lazy and should have just worked harder. I was probably causing my own problems and my stomach was just upset because I wasn't dealing with things like an adult and stressing myself out.
Less than three months into my new job, which was a pretty remedial job compared to my old work (could barely manage the work there, too), I had a sudden and weird ailment. It's known as Cornial Epithelial Basement Membrane Dystrophy, an autoimmune disorder. Basically, my cornea slid off my eye and caused the most intensely horrible pain I have ever known. They tried everything to get the membrane to reattach itself. Normally, an injured cornea can apparently heal itself in a couple of days. Mine too 8 months, following multiple treatments and procedures. I couldn't work or drive or do anything. I spend months in the dark doing nothing and getting more and more frustrated with myself.
Finally sorted that out and got a new job last November. And it's a job I actually like! But within a month of being there, I was already calling out because I had such bad diarrhea, I simply couldn't leave the house. A few weeks later, I had a nasty sinus infection. And a few weeks after that, I was sitting in bed one evening and lost total control of my bowels. Something like that had never happened to me before. Went to the doctor and, after ruling out that I didn't have the flu, said I must have just caught the Winter stomach bug going around.
But I just kept feeling awful and tired. Then my abdomen started swelling. My menstrual cycle also had gotten to the point where I actually felt like I was dying. I was taking 800mg Advil every 6 hours just to get through the day. I was throwing up every single morning, as opposed to only a couple of times a week with nausea the rest of the time. I had no appetite. From February to May, I dropped from 122lbs to 113lbs (I'm 5'5"). I came to realize perhaps I had gone too long with ignoring my symptoms. Maybe it wasn't all in my head. I'm sick of feeling this way, when I really do want to work. I do want to go back to school. Maybe I'm not the lazy chick who couldn't get her life together.
I started with my gyno to see if I had another cyst. While they did find a small one during an ultrasound, she didn't feel it was causing my issues. However, some of my hormones were really elevated. My DHEA was 449, when the max should be 380. SHBG was 142 instead of a max of 135. She put me on Beyaz (birth control) to try and regulate my hormones, though she felt these wouldn't be causing all my other symptoms either and ordered a CT-Scan.
The scan showed my small intestine has wall thickening of the jejunam. The GI doctor I went to see ordered more blood tests as well as a stool sample. It came back negative for ciliacs and my thyroid was fine. My CRP, which tests for inflammation, was elevated to .9, which while higher than normal, isn't considered particularly alarming. They did, however, find blood in my stool sample. That didn't exactly come as a surprise to me, as it was the stereotypical black, tarry stool known to be caused by upper GI bleeding.
I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy and endoscopy on 7/8 and I just want to know what I should expect to hear as a result. I'm tired of being tired. I want to feel like a "normal" person who can get up everyday and just have a productive day at work. I want to stop dreading I'm going to be spitting up bile in my sink before I've even had breakfast.
If you managed to make it to the end of this, any guesses as to what's going on with me?
For starters, I had an endoscopy performed when I was an infant because I threw up every bottle of formula given to me. They thought it was possible my esophagus wasn't attached to my stomach due to my frequent illness. The results found nothing out of the ordinary, though it was later discovered I'm lactose intolerant. So I've been off dairy 99% of my life and, for the most part, have been good about avoiding it.
But I still would get random bouts of diarrhea and sometimes vomit in the morning for no reason. But doctors couldn't find anything wrong with me. They kept saying I'm just "sensitive" or that I have a "weak" stomach. So I kind of just got used to it. After all, I also seemed to catch every cold on the face of the planet and always seemed to be sick with something. I just figured that's just the way I was. I had pneumonia 21 times before I was 18. I was used to feeling sick.
Flash forward to college. The constant upset stomach, complete with awful pain, and continuous morning sickness got worse. Then I started suffering from awful fatigue and didn't have the strength to get out of bed most days. They said I was depressed and tried my on several different anti-depressants. Which didn't work. I realize depression is a very serious illness for a lot of people. But I knew my body and just knew I was depressed because of whatever was going on with me. I had never been very convinced it was caused by some kind of chemical imbalance and that the SSRIs didn't do me much good, aside from making me kinda moody. Ended up leaving school on a medical leave for what I thought would be a single semester. Didn't make it back to that school at all.
So I got a full-time job. Lost it because I was missing too much time, and was too young to have the nerve to fight them over my medical issues. Ended up finding another job, one that was decent enough, until they closed down and I was out of work again. Found yet another job and tried going back to school online, and my constant abdominal issues hardly registered anymore. I'd had an ultrasound and was tested for H.pylori but they didn't find anything. It was the fatigue that was getting to me, though I was convinced whatever was wrong was all in my head. After all, no one could find anything wrong with me. Even though I could barely concentrate. I found doing my job nearly impossible. I've never been a big believer in the prevalence of adult ADD, I had myself tested anyway. Their only advice for me was to drink less coffee...
Then I developed an ovarian cyst. After it burst, while horrible in the short term, I started thinking maybe that's what was wrong with me all this time. I even felt kind of peppy (for me) for a couple of weeks. It didn't last.
I ended up losing that job due not long after that due to poor performance, plus quit school again because not only was I not performing well, I couldn't afford it anymore anyway.
It took me almost 6 months to find more work, all the while berating myself. I never considered myself a particularly lazy person. I started my first 40hr/week job the first Monday after high school. I worked while I was in school full time, then went to school part time while I returned to full time work. I've always had all these huge ambitions and goals. But I could barely handle getting up to get in the shower. I was so tired all the time. I told myself I must be lazy and should have just worked harder. I was probably causing my own problems and my stomach was just upset because I wasn't dealing with things like an adult and stressing myself out.
Less than three months into my new job, which was a pretty remedial job compared to my old work (could barely manage the work there, too), I had a sudden and weird ailment. It's known as Cornial Epithelial Basement Membrane Dystrophy, an autoimmune disorder. Basically, my cornea slid off my eye and caused the most intensely horrible pain I have ever known. They tried everything to get the membrane to reattach itself. Normally, an injured cornea can apparently heal itself in a couple of days. Mine too 8 months, following multiple treatments and procedures. I couldn't work or drive or do anything. I spend months in the dark doing nothing and getting more and more frustrated with myself.
Finally sorted that out and got a new job last November. And it's a job I actually like! But within a month of being there, I was already calling out because I had such bad diarrhea, I simply couldn't leave the house. A few weeks later, I had a nasty sinus infection. And a few weeks after that, I was sitting in bed one evening and lost total control of my bowels. Something like that had never happened to me before. Went to the doctor and, after ruling out that I didn't have the flu, said I must have just caught the Winter stomach bug going around.
But I just kept feeling awful and tired. Then my abdomen started swelling. My menstrual cycle also had gotten to the point where I actually felt like I was dying. I was taking 800mg Advil every 6 hours just to get through the day. I was throwing up every single morning, as opposed to only a couple of times a week with nausea the rest of the time. I had no appetite. From February to May, I dropped from 122lbs to 113lbs (I'm 5'5"). I came to realize perhaps I had gone too long with ignoring my symptoms. Maybe it wasn't all in my head. I'm sick of feeling this way, when I really do want to work. I do want to go back to school. Maybe I'm not the lazy chick who couldn't get her life together.
I started with my gyno to see if I had another cyst. While they did find a small one during an ultrasound, she didn't feel it was causing my issues. However, some of my hormones were really elevated. My DHEA was 449, when the max should be 380. SHBG was 142 instead of a max of 135. She put me on Beyaz (birth control) to try and regulate my hormones, though she felt these wouldn't be causing all my other symptoms either and ordered a CT-Scan.
The scan showed my small intestine has wall thickening of the jejunam. The GI doctor I went to see ordered more blood tests as well as a stool sample. It came back negative for ciliacs and my thyroid was fine. My CRP, which tests for inflammation, was elevated to .9, which while higher than normal, isn't considered particularly alarming. They did, however, find blood in my stool sample. That didn't exactly come as a surprise to me, as it was the stereotypical black, tarry stool known to be caused by upper GI bleeding.
I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy and endoscopy on 7/8 and I just want to know what I should expect to hear as a result. I'm tired of being tired. I want to feel like a "normal" person who can get up everyday and just have a productive day at work. I want to stop dreading I'm going to be spitting up bile in my sink before I've even had breakfast.
If you managed to make it to the end of this, any guesses as to what's going on with me?
