My mystery illness

[dawners]

So since a little before my son was born "he will be 3 in october so about 3 years" ive been having this strange feeling that used to come and go now its all the time its like im out of it, kinda like a constant high with confusion and memory problems with an altered sense of time. Ive been having a bunch of other symptoms liketons of eyefloaters and hand numbness ive been to the emergency department over 50 times have had ct scans and 3 mris 4 eegs one of which being a 48 hour eeg ive had many tests, thyroid,crp,cortisol,blood,sed rate,heavy metals, lyme, vitamin d, magnesium, metabolic panel, phosphate,liver, urine and tons of other tests I'm just not sure who to see and what doctors to see the only tests that came back with anything was low vit d and a creactive protien of 5.6 and a sed rate of 23 I'm stressing out and just want my old life back ive been worried about cjd, lukemia, lymphoma and all the deadly stuff what should i do. And thank you to everybody reading this has really destroyed my life i haven't worked in over a year and a half and we are on the verge of homless because of this, I'm desperate

[Hidden]

I used to get that sometimes but it was down to anxiety. Do you have health anxiety?

All the tests say you are ok.

[dawners in reply to Hidden]

Yeah i have bad health anxiety

[Usagold]

You sound exactly like me other than I've only been to the ER twice, but I also call it my mystery illness and I have thought I had the same exact things you mentioned and have been checked for most of them and had my metal fillings removed! My vitamin D was 23 which is low, and ferritin on the low side of normal, but everything else fine. Hearing you say all that helps confirm that my mystery illness is actually just my anxiety. I'm going to copy the reply I sent to another member and share with you. I think it might also help you. It's about accepting what it is, anxiety, choosing to believe we will get better, that good things will happen, and about us stopping the worrying.

[Usagold in reply to Usagold]

Here's the copy:

I have similar issues, but I'm not quite as quick as you to jump to negative conclusions about my health, but pretty bad (when I have an anxiety attack I am certain that I'm dying), and I'm bad when it comes to worrying about my family. We both always expect the worst. Probably learned to worry as children. Now, we have to make a decision to change our thinking. 1. Realize we have a problem with anxiety 2. Give all our fears to The Lord 3. Choose to start expecting positive outcomes. It is a choice! We control our thoughts which program our minds. Believe it is NOT cancer because it's usually NOT. Or, whatever symptom you're worrying about-believe you are safe and it will improve. Say it over and over to yourself. Laugh about it. We will be retraining years of negative thinking but it can be done! I'm determined to change my thoughts to actually expect the best, like normal healthy people do. I'm listening to Dr. Carolyn Leaf's book "Switch on Your Brain" which is wonderful and helpful in this regard.

[Jeff1943]

Mystery illness? What mystery illness? What you describe, dawners, is a classic example of anxiety disorder, no question. You've had every test and investigation known to medical science and they all came back negative. Forget about the creactive protein and vitamin D business, they're not the reason for your illness. It's high anxiety and you must now accept the diagnosis without question and concentrate on that. No more scans, no more blood tests, no more ECGs. Otherwise you'll be wasting valuable time trying to cure illnesses you don't have.

Now you must focus exclusively on recovering from the illness you do have. It all probably started before the birth of your son because you were anxious about how parenthood would impact on your life. But whatever the reason that triggered your anxiety disorder it's now self-perpetuating. The bad feelings cause fear which causes more bad feelings which cause more fear and so on ad infinitum.

Over stressed nerves thrive on fear, it maintains them in a state of over sensitivity. As a result they fight back by giving you all the bad feelings and random symptoms you've described. What you have to do is break the vicious circle by learning to accept the bad feelings for the time being. That's right, Accept them, stop fighting them as fighting them only causes more strain and apprehension.

When you stop fighting and start to calmly accept the symptoms you stop flooding your nervous system with fear*. And as the fear diminishes your over sensitised nerves start to recover and you begin to feel normal again. All because you had the courage to stop frightening yourself hakf to death over visual floaters, numb hands and feeling confused etc.

So you must now learn to relax when the bad feelings make themselves felt: feel every muscle in your limbs, body and head go limp and let the bad feelings rush round and past you whilst you Accept them without reservation. To begin with you may only be able to 'accept' for a few seconds or minutes, this is called 'glimpsing', and you gradually build those seconds and minutes into 24/7 acceptance of whatever your exhausted nerves throw at you.

I say cease your constant introspection and self examination and testing and replace your fear with courage and positive thinking. And you will be rewarded with full recovery and be able to get on with your life, for your sake and your son's.

*'Self help with your Nerves' by Doctor Claire Weekes (U.K. edition) also published as 'Hope and Help with your Nerves' (U.S. edition) both available new or used on Amazon.

[Connortyu7 in reply to Jeff1943]

Jeff1943 what your saying makes a lot of sense and you seem to know what your talking about Iv never hear the term glimpsing before but it makes sense I'll be looking into the book you recommended

[dawners]

Your guys responses help reassure me but i just keep reading about cancer and how hard it is to find and cjd that it's killinh me