Undiagnosed, looking for answers

[cocowonton88]

:sign0085: Hello Everyone! I hope I'm posting this int he correct place, if not please let me know...I'm so desperate for help! I'm 22 years and was a perfectly healthy culinary student until 2 years ago when I started having weird things happen. First I caught a nasty infection in my eye lids that needed surgery, then I started having "breathing attacks" that I will still not call anxiety attacks, "the shakes" in the middle of my sleep that were so violent they would terrify my bf and wake him, migraines that would last for weeks....and now to top it all off starting 6 months ago TUMMY TROUBLES.

The pain is sooo bad in my lower abdomen I toss and turn and cry..I've gone to the GI who finally says I may diverticulitis, but after a million antibiotics and no relief, I don't think so. I can't keep running to every doc in the world so I thought it would be easier to try and match my symptoms with others and diagnose myself.(try and help the docs out to save time and money) So, I've been severely constipated, and then extreme D for no reason. Constant pain in the abdomen, occasional blood when I wipe, burning and itching at rectum, painful when I have a BM.

I'm sorry I'm so lengthy, but I'm itching for help, or at least support and understanding. My family, friends, and boyfriend cannot understand what I'm going through right now. This condition whatever it may b has changed my life for the worse.

Please Help!!!

Whitney

 

[Cat-a-Tonic]

Hi Whitney, welcome to the forum. I'm not a doctor, but your symptoms do sound like they could be IBD. Unfortunately, there are illnesses besides IBD that have similar symptoms, so your best bet is to get checked out by the doctor. Everyone with IBD has different symptoms, no two are alike, so it's really impossible to "match symptoms" and try to self-diagnose. Please do go to the doctor, and ask your regular doc for a referral to a gastroenterologist.

When you do go to the doctor, make sure to list all your symptoms - including the eye problems, migraines, etc. Things like IBD can cause extra-intestinal symptoms as well so make sure to tell them everything that's been going on, even if it doesn't seem related. You may also want to keep a food diary, so that you can track your illness over time and see if there are any patterns of foods that upset you or worsening/changing symptoms. There's an entry in the Wiki section of the forum that explains what to include in a food diary. Good luck, I hope you get some answers soon!

 

[countrycoffeehouse]

You need to go to a GI and ask them to do a colonoscopy or small bowel follow through. Crohns Disease can be tricky but they can do biopsys and confirm it that way. With Diverticulitis your white blood cell count would be high due to fighting and infection. If they have not done any blood work or scoped you its hard to just say yeah thats it. everyone here understands your pain. For your sake I hope its not crohns disease.. this disease is awful..
You do need to go back to your GI and demand ( nicely) some more invasive tests to get to the bottom of this.. left untreated it will get nasty..