myjoynaomi
07-17-2006, 04:18 PM
Hi Everyone, My name is Beth and I have been quite ill since 1988, when I was 25 yrs. old. Like most of you I'm sure, I have been to countless Drs., in and out of the hospital, diagnosed with CFS, depression, positional vertigo, peripheral neuropathy, Type II diabetes, etc., etc...
For the last three months, my jugular vein has been bulging out whenever I exert myself at all, even to laugh. I have awful headaches! I have joint pain and stiffness in hips, shoulders and fingers, and my shoulders and right hip grind. I have numbness and tingling and burning in my fingers and toes and I get the sensation of having ants walking across my skin. I have brain fog to a very aggrevating extent.
I was recently in the hospital with abdominal inflammation (undiagnosed cause). Now my Dr. says I have an elevated SED rate and he wants to do a work up for Lupus. He has ordered a ds-dna; rheumatoid factor, lupus antigen and another ESR.
I really feel that a diagnoses of Lupus would explain a whole lot of what has been happening to me for these last 18 yrs. I do not want Lupus, but I do want to know what is wrong, both in terms of finding ways to help and to validate myself. I have been told so many times that it is all in my head or that it is psychosomatic. My father-in-law has told me to "step up to the plate" and ignore it. Wow, how I wish I could!! No one but mentally ill person would choose to be incapacitated by illness for almost two decades! I have a six-yr.-old daughter - I would like nothing more than to have enough energy and health to play, swim, ride bikes or run with her.
Please hold me in your thoughts and prayers as pursue a diagnosis. If any of you have any other suggestions for tests that should be run or a type of Dr. that I should see, I would appreciate it! Thanks so much and God Bless all of you! Beth
For the last three months, my jugular vein has been bulging out whenever I exert myself at all, even to laugh. I have awful headaches! I have joint pain and stiffness in hips, shoulders and fingers, and my shoulders and right hip grind. I have numbness and tingling and burning in my fingers and toes and I get the sensation of having ants walking across my skin. I have brain fog to a very aggrevating extent.
I was recently in the hospital with abdominal inflammation (undiagnosed cause). Now my Dr. says I have an elevated SED rate and he wants to do a work up for Lupus. He has ordered a ds-dna; rheumatoid factor, lupus antigen and another ESR.
I really feel that a diagnoses of Lupus would explain a whole lot of what has been happening to me for these last 18 yrs. I do not want Lupus, but I do want to know what is wrong, both in terms of finding ways to help and to validate myself. I have been told so many times that it is all in my head or that it is psychosomatic. My father-in-law has told me to "step up to the plate" and ignore it. Wow, how I wish I could!! No one but mentally ill person would choose to be incapacitated by illness for almost two decades! I have a six-yr.-old daughter - I would like nothing more than to have enough energy and health to play, swim, ride bikes or run with her.
Please hold me in your thoughts and prayers as pursue a diagnosis. If any of you have any other suggestions for tests that should be run or a type of Dr. that I should see, I would appreciate it! Thanks so much and God Bless all of you! Beth