Another medical mystery

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MissPickwickian has another mystery illness. She has had this mystery illness for two weeks (!) now.

The symptoms:
* onset of illness shortly after unprescedented month-long menstrual period.
* fatigue. Overwhelming fatigue. I sleep and sleep and take sleeping pills when I can't sleep naturally anymore, but I'm still tired.
* fever (intermittent)
* swollen lymph nodes
* sore throat
* loss of appetite. I force myself to eat because I know that sick people need calories, but I'm never really, you know, hungry.
* dry cough from deep in the lungs
* mild lower GI trouble
* at the beginning of the illness, crampy stomach pain and a little vomiting. This seems to have passed.
* aches and pains in the muscles
* flare-up of preexisting chronic otitis externa (swimmer's ear)
* remissions and relapses of symptoms
* symptoms mildest in the early afternoon, worst in the morning and at night.

In short, an accumulative firestorm of nonspecific symptoms.

Get to a doctor! Some of those symptoms sound very serious, as in life-threatening. If I had even a few of those symptoms, I would go to a doctor immediately, and I HATE doctors!

Hope you get well soon.

A visit to the family doctor is in order - just for the first symptom of month long menstrual period alone that has never happened before - if you are not eating well because of appetite problems (any weight loss with this?), there could be anemia problems from the blood lost (which could potentially explain the fatigue, cramping, aches and pains, anyway). The rest could be due to the swimmer's ear (SE) - that could explain lymph glands, sore throat and cough (also aches and pains and fatigue, loss of appetite and GI problems, come to think of it, depending on what is causing the SE (possibly seeding of infection?). Its a little early for the flu, but this year I have seen people wandering around with colds and such since the end of July/early August, mostly because we have had such a cool summer.

Anybody else you know that has been around you suffering from similar constellation of symptoms? Is it overall worse, better or remaining the same? Remaining the same, or worse overall, is definitely grounds to visit the family doc.

Either way, you should go to the doctor - bring the list described - the doc could sort it out for you, in case you need an intervention such as antibiotics or other.

I hope you feel better soon!

Umm.... I would say that you have "The mark of death", which is a rather terrible thing to have actually. Umm... the most notable symptom of it in the later stages, is well.... death. It is completely fatal, and unstoppable, so um.... yeah, you are going to die. Sorry to hear about that.

Anyway, in all seriousness, I would advise going to a doctor, as the people here at WP usually are not medical experts by any means. I mean, there is one guy, Awesomelyglorious, who has regularly advised people with pains in an extremity to remove that extremity, so as you can see, no sound medical advice coming from this quarter.

I dunno, the vomiting makes me think it is morning sickness. Have you been doing anything risky?

(another patient horribly and completely misdiagnosed by Dr. Awesomelyglorious!)

Miss Pickwickian I dont wanna scare you but two of my friends have had similar symptomps for a few (6-8) moths period, both still remain undiagnosed (sadly most doctors are complately unlike dr House ;p), one even dropped out of uni cause she couldn't study at all. some mystery illness like you said...

I would see a doctor asap if I were you, enlarged lymph nodes sound like a huge flashing WARNING! sign to me.

No weight loss yet.

Last edited by MissPickwickian on 07 Sep 2008, 2:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

YOU. DOCTOR. NOW!

Yup. Doc. See one.

A month long period can be a big deal. However, some kinds of birth control (if you are on any) can cause that. (Happened to me. Nor-plant. Sucked. )

You could be just flat run down from having one that long though. Possibly anemic.

Keep us posted.
Hope you feel better.