Mysterious illness. Help, anyone?

Hi!! I've had this problem for about 10 months now, and I'm ready for it to go away. My symptoms are so many: pain under my arms, in my legs, neck, dizziness and vertigo, weakness, loss of balance, extreme fatigue and exhaustion.

They have scanned my brain and it is not MS. Now they are looking at lupus and something called "myositis" that I've never heard of. The docs are pretty stumped, I think.

ALSO, my doc gave me Elavil for the pain, but I looked it up and it is not a pain med, it is and antidepressant!! Should I still take it? I don't want to, but the pain is pretty bad. Any advice from anyone on here?

 

That sucks, I hope things get better.. good luck.
And I think you should at least give the medicine a try if your doctor gave it to you.

 

I've been described an antidepressant for pain before. It can help in some cases of long term pain. It did work pretty well for me, but I decided I liked the pain better than the feeling of being on antidepressants. Thankfully my pain went away. I say give it a try. You can always stop if you don't like it.

 

I'm so sorry to hear this. It's the worst when it takes so long or isn't diagnosed. My best friend suffered from typhoid and severe dehydration for over a year before they recognized it. She was misdiagnosed with lupus also and several other body function failures. I hope they find something. Are you going to more than one doctor for a second or even third opinion? I would not trust just one specialist, let alone a mere general practitioner.

I think perhaps you should be asking your doctor first about your concerns before considering a forum. He/she will be better able to consider what you should or should not take, knows you and your health record. I hope it gets resolved soon.

 

I would take high potency multiple vitamins, try to exercise and get fresh air, and do some natural things to try and feel better. Unless the doctors are able to diagnose a real illness that needs to be treated (and you need to give them a chance to try), take your health in your own hands and keep on truckin'...

Btw, 'myositis' just means 'inflammation of the muscles' or a fancy way of saying you have aches and pains, which you knew already anyway. It's also a fancy way of them saying that they really don't know what the hell is wrong with you. I wouldn't take the damned anti-depressants-as 3littlebirds said, they'll probably do you more harm than good. I'm telling you-take high potency multiple vitamins and some CoQ10 every day, and pretty soon you'll probably be feeling like a new person...

 

I decided to take the low-dose of the prescription just to see how it goes. I figure, if I don't like it I can always tell the doc about it.

Myositis is an auto-immune disorder that causes pain in your muscles. It's not as big of a deal as MS, which is good! I just wish they would figure it out.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions!

 

depression is a neurological disease its something in ur body that just happens regardless of how you should feel or whats going on in ur life. When ur depressed everything hurts. its possible that u have the chemical imbalance but not the sadness take the drugs itll correct your problems and make u feel better trust me

 

You may also want to have your doc check into Fibromyalgia. My mom was incorrectly diagnosed with MS before her doctor checked into this. A lot of the symptoms are similar to MS, and it is a relatively "new" disease/syndrome. (I know it's not really new, but a lot of doctors are just beginning to look into the studies that have ben done on it.) She also was prescribed an antidepressant. It helped a lot with the pain, but tended to hinder normal functioning, so she went off of it.

 

answer to original post - i take it you've had a cardiograph????

 

Might want to get tested for lyme disease.. i have alot of those symptoms as well and was just diagnosed with late stage lyme disease this month.. They think I contracted it while spending time in ct when i was a teen.. There is alot of mis information on lyme though be sure to research and read peoples personal stories etc etc.. it can be hard to find out if you have this in late stages so yeah read up on it. alot of dr's are very lyme illiterate so its important to find an LLMD. ok good luck!

 

christ, this sounds like me, minus the pain in arms/legs/neck. My doctor said it's nothing to worry about.

Have you had your blood sugar tested? For the dizziness, maybe try eating something that's high in protein like peanuts. It's not a perfect solution but it helps with teh dizziness a lot of the time.

If you wake up dizzy/super exhausted (as I often do), try just laying in bed for 10 more minutes or so. Not falling asleep, but laying there, to get your body used to being awake before having to stand up.

 

In response to those kind people who wanted to know if I've been tested for this or that, the answer is yes! I've been tested for the following things:

Thyroid probs
lyme disease
lupus
cancer
fibromyalgia
depression
multiple sclerosis

They are now on this trip that it's "myocitis", which is some autoimmune disorder that causes muscle pain and weakness as well as fatigue and depression. They also want to test for the above things AGAIN.

And, as an update, I tried out the Elavil, and all it did was make me extremely groggy and didn't help with the pain at all, so I quit taking it. I left my doc a message but he never got back to me.

I think all I can do know is trust that it's not life threatening, relax, and buck it up until they figure it out. What else can I do?

 

I've been experiencing very similar symptoms.
I recommend you get tested for lime disease and also research labyrinthitis.
It took forever for doctor's to find out what was wrong with me, and I was also prescribed an antidepressent.

 

i do not believe fibromyalgia or lupus truely exist..i never have..i believe they were both made up illnesses by sdoctors to make money..i have a cousin who has so called fibromyalgia and the doctor told her husband it is what he gives people that he cant correctly diagnose with anything else with mysterious symptoms...ive heard this from alot of doctors. my sister works in the medical profession as well and has mentioned that doctors love making up stuff to make them money and those two are the biggest ones....


just a question also..what is your diet like??

 

My diet's pretty good, mostly vegetarian, sometimes fish. I pay very close attention to what goes in my body.

This makes me sad to hear, by the way. If they can't figure it out, that's fine. I'm poor, so they can't make any money off of me. I just wish they'd do SOMETHING, you know?

 

aww...have u tried a holistic doctor...most dont mind payment and most will make u feel better.

 

Since you don't eat meat often, do you take any vitamin supplements? Vitamin deficiencies can cause very strange symptoms.

 

this may sound silly. But have they done an ebstein barr test (not a spot mono check). It's linked to chronic fatigue.

I have ebstein barr left over from my mono and it hasn't gone away and if i don't take really good care of myself I get those chronic fatigue like symptoms and the aches really bad. Also have they checked your iron levels for anemia? I couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with me and it turned out just to be an iron deficiency.
I know really good vitamins, lots of exercise, sun exposure (or tanning beds) and chemical free low-fat and low sugar foods are the only things that work for me. No perscription has worked as well as concentrated mother nature.
I hope you feel better. Keep us updated!

 

I think it sounds like a deficency too. I don't eat red meat and these food sourced iron, folic and b-vitamin pills called 'blood builder' have been a life saver.

 

maybe its linked to psychological disorders??