hi - new and confused
hi! my name is melanie and i just turned 31 wednesday. woo hoo. ;)  
i have a lovely array of symptoms to share with y'all. i just hope somebody reads this and can give me any advice at all.  
  
ok - here are the symptoms:  
drowsiness  
fatigue  
terrible short term memory/concentration  
slurring words/ takes too long to say something  
irritability  
muscle pain (feels like touching a bruise)  
joint pain  
muscle twitches (all over body)  
sensations on arms, legs, hands, feet like a bug is crawling on me or biting me  
dizziness  
loss of balance/coordination (walking into door frames, falling to one side in the shower)  
brief vision interruption (everything goes black)  
fuzzy vision, sometimes just one eye  
seeing things from the corner of my eye that aren't there  
falling asleep suddenly during the day with disorientation/confusion upon waking  
periods of insomnia  
oversleeping everyday  
abdominal pain  
constipation/diarhhea  
kidney area pain on back  
chest pains maybe once or twice a month always on left side  
heart palpitations maybe once or twice a month  
hand tremors, from slight to very noticeable, especially when trying to perform precision tasks (has gotten to the pont where it interferes with my job at times)  
no libido  
past episodes of depression  
recurring cracking at corners of mouth  
hair loss & regrowth - sometimes it's pretty bad, but it's ok for now  
diagnosed with:  
hashimoto's thyroiditis  
fibromyalgia  
raynaud's  
also, i had a hysterectomy in february 2007.  
  
so, recently, i went to some sort of "natural" doctor. i was just sick of my gp and thought maybe this new dr could help me. well, insted she scared the crap out of me by telling my i may have parkinson's.  
i am going to go back to my gp next week (if i can get in) and get her to refer me to a neuro. i am scared it's parkinson's or ms or who knows what.  
i don't have time to be sick. i work 40 hours a week with a 45 minute one way commute and i have 2 kids in elementary school and a husband that works out of town frequently. ack!  
  
(help!)  
thanks!!!!!  
melanie
i have been in your shoes & am sorry to say it hasn't gotten better but... what i will tell you is don't waste time. it sounds like you are ahead of the game at least unlike myself. go get that referral to see a neuro asap - no matter what it is believe me it's better to no because my bosy is still trying to fight the unknown. i too, had a total hysterectomy (11/04) except i was exposed to dirty elevator hydraulic fluid which was on the instruments used internally/externally on me during my surgery. since these surgery my body has fallen apart.i no it's a different situation but you sound just like me about work and how you don't have time to be sick. that's more the reason to get it all taken care of now. i never even had one headache until the hysterectomy, then came the infections all over, flu-like symptoms, joint pain, fatigue, tingling in the hands, burry vision, numbness  then came in 2007 (although they said it was missed on the 2005 mri) brain lesions. apparently i had a few in 2005 that they wrote off as being sinus & miragranes, but then they got a little bigger & spread to different areas. at first with the symptoms & brain lesions they were sure it was ms but the spinal tap & mri on my spine showed no lesions so they were unsure. i was treated with a week of iv steriods because the pain & symptoms were so severe though. depending on the weather my symptoms came & went. i finally began seeing doctors at unc only & at john hopkins in maryland. i was hospitalized for the first time in july due to seizures, which i have never had before. i am currently trying to get the right doctor, medicine, diagnosis for that. so ... this is so much more then u wanted to no but no-one seemed to be proving u with any feedback either so i think i would try.go do what you need to do, please! t
Good evening, thanks for asking at HealthReplies.com. Complaints that you experience can be caused by various things, which among each symptom can be interrelated or not. Among the possibilities are:



 Pinched nerve disorders Infection or inflammation of the nerve lining Low blood pressure Spinal structural abnormalities Kidney stones This condition is most likely harmless, but it must be checked immediately because up to this point, the possibility is still very diverse, whereas the handling of each possibility can be different. So our advice, try to check yourself to a general practitioner, and may go directly to a neurologist, to find out more about his condition through direct examination. The handling that you will receive later depends on the results of this inspection.



Meanwhile, consume foods that are rich in B vitamins, limit physical activity, meet your fluid needs, and see your doctor immediately. So, hopefully answering your question. I think many of us have to depend more on observation and self-study than on diagnoses, given the expense of testing and the ugly fact that nothing short of an autopsy can give certainty. Here’s how we are coping with that uncertainty. Before my Mom came to live with us, she had fallen at night going toward the bathroom in her apartment. It was 3 days before anyone found her, and there was severe dehydration and some brain damage due to oxygen starvation. She recovered some functioning in rehab, but we had also noticed before the fall that there were more and more signs of cognitive decline. We were warned by a friend who is a geriatric psychologist to not accept the overall “Alzheimer’s” diagnosis which was bound to occur, but to be aware that there were dozens of dementias, some of which needed very different approaches from what is advised for Alzheimer’s. After she got out of rehab she went through a very bad AL situation and into a very good one. She had a GP who made housecalls but was not that knowledgeable about dementia. She had begun describing what could only be hallucinations and agitation, so her doctor put her on an anti-psychotic, an anti-anxiety and a depression medication. Wow! What a mess! Mom had rarely even taken an aspirin before that so maybe her body was super-responsive to the invaders. Anyway, it did more damage than good, and once we eliminated the meds, she slept all the time. We decided to move her in with us and her new doctor prescribed Namenda. We started with 10 mg, which was too much and increased her agitation. We cut back to 5 mg. once a day at nighttime and it was like a miracle occurred! Now don’t get me wrong, there’s still dementia and it’s still advancing. But my point is that sometimes when you don’t have a diagnosis, it’s useful to read up on the various kinds of dementias, do a checklist of the symptoms to determine which is the best match to the behaviors you are seeing, then become knowledgeable about the various RX’s physicians are likely to try, and get very good at monitoring the response to each and asking about/suggesting others you’ve read about. (I know, you thought that was what doctors did — me, too! Wrong!). I found that as long as I behaved as a fairly well-informed and non-judgmental problem-solving partner (and not as an over-protective, aggressive, critical, and sometimes hysterical relative), I got the same treatment back from the doctors. (Of course, if I did not get that, I did not hesitate to find a doctor with an attitude that worked better for us.). Over time, the troubles with balance, the hallucinations that occur immediately if she misses a dose of Namenda, the depth perception, the amount of activity and conversation that goes on while she’s “sleeping”, the extreme variability from “almost normal” to “almost unable to function”, etc. convinced me it is LBD. It’s not a formal diagnosis because we can’t afford all that testing either. But it’s enough for me to protect her from getting inappropriate medications. While there may come a time to move her to a memory care unit, I will also be able to be proactive with staff about what works with her LBD that is probably vastly different from what works with some of their ALZ patients. Summary: observe, study, and use your best and most loving judgment, with or without a diagnosis. Respect but don’t worship the doctors who are trying to help. And trust your gut. You spend more time with your LO than anyone else and your observations are valuable. if this is old news, just a bad habit. if new onset, you need to see an ophthalmologist/neurologist to rule out any neurological disease. see more... Hello Teye123, Teirma for the question.



  

Dizziness is interpreted differently by each person. Dizziness can be interpreted as a sensation of spinning, a sensation of loss of balance, or a sensation of fainting. These complaints can also be accompanied by complaints of cold sweat, numbness in the body, weakness, nausea, excessive production of saliva, and others. The complaints you submit can be caused by:







anemia  

dehydration  

decreased blood sugar levels  

sudden drop in blood pressure  

heart rhythm disorders or other heart disorders  

side effects of certain drugs



If this complaint is often the case, you should see a doctor immediately. To find out the cause of this complaint is not possible without a doctor's examination. In addition to knowing more about your complaints, your doctor needs to examine you and perform other examinations such as blood tests, ECG, and others. The next treatment can only be determined after knowing the medical condition that you experience.



  

Please sit down immediately and rest if this complaint arises. You can immediately consume sweet foods or drinks. Make sure you always consume food regularly and meet your body's fluid needs by consuming water. Avoid sudden changes in body position for example from lying down to sitting or from sitting to standing to prevent sudden changes in blood pressure.



  

Hopefully this information is useful. or erratic sleep can cause these symptoms, try as much as you can to regulate sleep and get enough rest, avoid caffeinated beverages well before before sleep time, also regular healthy diet would help, if no improvement, see your doctor for assessment for possible thyroid gland dysfunction or any other problem, , good luck see more... there are a number of possible reasons, but narcolepsy may well be what you have. you need to get a set of sleep tests (it takes about 24 hours in a sleep laboratory). then a proper diagnosis can be made, and all of the conditions can be treated.<br><br>you really need help asap. please reword your question and i will attempt to answer it for you. i don't under "voiying facial swelling". to learn about migraines see:
http://understandingmigraine.blogspot.com/ A.Insomnia is no joke. Not getting sufficient [sleep](https://psychcentral.com/disorders/sleep/) at any age, but especially as a teen, is serious business. Sleep disorders can cause [depression](https://psychcentral.com/disorders/depression/), [anxiety](https://psychcentral.com/disorders/anxiety/), diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. According to a poll done in 2005 by Sleep in America, people who were diagnosed with depression or anxiety were more likely to sleep less than six hours at night. A study done in 2007 showed that people with insomnia are 5 times as likely to be depressed as those who got sufficient sleep. At your age “sufficient” means 8 – 9 hours a night.

I urge you to go back to your medical doctor for more tests. I’m alarmed that you were drinking enough but not staying hydrated. There’s more to that than sleep deprivation. I’m also alarmed that apparently you were given a “diagnosis” but not then given a treatment plan to regulate your sleep.

If your primary care physician isn’t able to help you, get a referral to a sleep medicine clinic for a sleep study. Such clinics do a thorough evaluation of how much sleep a person gets and how often and for how long the person is awake. You may be sent home with a monitor to wear. More likely, you will be asked to spend the night at the clinic where they will monitor you throughout the night. You will sleep in a comfortable room in a comfortable bed. You can usually even bring your own pajamas.

Don’t be scared. A sleep study isn’t painful. Doctors or technicians will monitor you while you sleep. Little disks called electrodes will be temporarily glued to your head and attached to an EEG (*electroencephalogram*) machine. This will monitor the electrical impulses in your brain while you sleep and will show the technician how you are moving through the stages of sleep. It will measure possible interruptions in the pattern of your sleep. The technicians will also measure things such as eye movements, oxygen levels in your blood, heart and breathing rates, who much you snore, and how your body moves as you sleep.

The data from your sleep study will be evaluated by your doctor. You will then have a follow up appointment with your doctor to discuss the results and what may need to be done to help you have more regular and restorative sleep.

Please share this response with your parents. I don’t think you are lying or faking. I think you have an untreated medical condition that left untreated will only make things worse.

I wish you well.

Dr. Marie

 

How Do I Get my Parents to Believe I’m Depressed? More than likely, you're experiencing Compassion Fatigue which is defined as   
 a condition characterized by emotional and physical exhaustion leading to a diminished ability to empathize or feel compassion for others, often described as the negative cost of caring. It is sometimes referred to as secondary traumatic stress.  
  
Google it, and take the test online to see if you suffer from it vs. burnout; there is a big difference. Here is an article on the subject:  
  
https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/compassion-fatigue  
  
Here's a link to the Compassion Fatigue test for helpers:  
  
https://www.michvma.org/resources/Documents/Prof.%20Competencies/2017%20Proceedings/figley%20self%20assessment%202.pdf  
  
Please don't ever think of yourself as a horrible, careless person! We are all human and as such, have our breaking points, especially after care giving for years on end. Don't think of yourself as some being that should be able to handle all that's thrown at you without breaking down........that's not realistic or healthy. Nor is it realistic or healthy for you to be in such a position to be a personal caregiver to a mother who's been so sick for so long. A nursing home is staffed with teams of caregivers who work around the clock precisely so that one or two people don't have to suffer the tremendous burden that you and your father have been suffering. You're only two people doing the job of a large TEAM of people; so it's no wonder you're feeling this way.  
  
Wishing you the best of luck in finding peace and joy for yourself amidst the duties you've taken on. she might be depressed. judicious low dose treatment might help her.... and you. see a geriatrician.