Overwhelming fatigue, dizziness, nausea, night sweats, brain fog, heart palpitations, confusion, difficulty concentrating, stomach cramps, hot flushes, chills, metallic taste, insomnia, difficulty in waking up and difficulty in finding words.
Does it sound familiar? I've been experiencing these symptoms for the last 3 years. They have started suddenly, they vary in their strength but they never let go. Every day is a struggle and on the days when symptoms worsen I think of death kindly. Doctors provide no help - as long as your tests do not show anything quite abnormal you are not sick from their point of view. They repeat their usual mantra: "Stress, depression, hypochondria".
Users in the forums like this one are much more understanding. A lot of them know exactly what I am talking about, and while some of them know their own illness better than their doctors they usually quite unaware of other medical conditions and have a tendency to see in other maladies the sign of their own illness.
Yet the symptoms that I have listed at the top of the message are common to several different health conditions, namely: Lead Poisoning, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Celiac Disease, Candida Overgrowth, Gilbert's Syndrome, Cushing's Disease, Hyperthyroidism, Lyme Disease, Adrenal Fatigue and possibly some others.
The point that I am making is quite simple - it is impossible for me to express how tired I am of being constantly sick and how frustrated I am with the doctors. I hope that someone in the forum can match his or her symptoms with very specific symptoms that I list below (rather than the general symptoms that I've listed on top of this message) to help in diagnosing what the hell is wrong with me:
* Symptoms usually significantly subside with sleep but back to their full strength upon wakefulness. It is not the posture that matters, but rather the level of alertness and emotional tension - the greater the alertness the stronger the symptoms.
* Symptoms usually subside during meals. Meals do not appear to mask them but genuinely reduce stomach cramping, nausea and even the degree of mental fog, yet 20-40 minutes after meal the symptoms return with vengeance and generally are much stronger then before the meal.
* Strong bitter metallic (yet occasionally intensely sweet) taste (mostly on the left side of the mouth) as well as ringing in ears serves as precursors to severity of the symptoms. The more bitter (or rather caustic, almost like sucking on a battery) the taste, the more intense the ringing the more severe the whole group of symptoms for the next several days or weeks will be.
* During periods of severe and moderately severe symptoms which may last for 2-6 months my rather regular herpes outbreaks completely disappear.
* When symptoms gets most severe the ranging in ears masks sounds of traffic and human voices, eyes start to burn and the visual field is filled with a myriad of vary frequently pulsating dots, thoughts shimmer with mental echoes, dizziness prevents walking, intense nausea, caustic metallic taste... It all feels like if every dot of my being is filled with TV static.
* There are generally four sets of pains that accompany the symptoms. Stomach cramping that is usually accompanied by excessive salivation, lower back pains (probably kidneys) mostly happen at night, heart pains and (weirdly enough) teeth pain - that is somehow both dull and intense and feels unlike any normal tooth pain. The sets never overlap, but rather rotate, with some lasting days, other - weeks.
I apologize for already quite long post, and ask for your help. If you, the reader, experience similar set of symptoms and know your diagnosis, please let me know. I also appreciate any thought on the subject that may help with differential diagnosis. Those of you who have the symptoms but like me have no clue of the causes feel free to contact me - let us stay in touch - for sooner or later one of us may find the answer for all of us.