I'm going to the doctors today or tomorrow (whenever i get the appointment for) and i'm going to bring a list of my symptoms which are as follows:
stingy eyes
puffy eyes
dark circles under eyes
anxiety
heart palpitations
bloating
belly fat (slight) (i'm skinny for my height but i have excess fat in certain places)
breast fat (slight)
Sometimes when my health gets really bad my face starts getting rosacea-like symptoms
puffy face
sinus issues
brain fog
bad short term memory
paleness (especially in hands)
cold hands and feet
loss of collagen in skin
oily skin/hair
bloodshot eyes
flaky skin between eyebrows
fatigue
irritability
lack of sex drive
insomnia
i think my vision is worse when my health is down too, i have bad eyesight anyways so it's hard to tell
flatulence
blackheads/whiteheads on nose
stiff joints
Sometimes lately i've been getting a burning sensation over my liver/gallbladder area and i feel a pressure there a lot of the time too
Should i ask for any specific tests or just show her the symptoms and let her determine what tests should be done? I already had a standard blood test done and it came back normal.
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healthiskey
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If your GP isn't helpful, you can get home testing kits - they are very easy to use - prick your finger, and post a bit of blood off, get your results 2 days later. Problem is knowing what to test...
Well i was thinking autoimmune since my dad is celiac and i was talking to a few other members on here who said i should definitely check for autoimmune disease. Can my GP deny me autoimmune tests?
It could well be. As your dad is coeliac, you have a 1:10 chance of having it, and it could explain some of your symptoms, and it's worth pushing for a test.
You are also at an increased risk of other auto-immune diseases, but whether the GP will test for them depends. They don't tend to test for thyroid antibodies, I'm not sure about other conditions.
Yes, but definitely try your GP first. Medichecks offer quite a lot of tests, but coeliac test is about £69, and vitamins are extra, so the more your doctor covers, the better. Let us know what the doctor looks at!
Hi healthiskey. Here are the tests that were mentioned in other posts. If a doctor leaves one part out, it’s incomplete testing and you can’t know where you stand exactly or make a full diagnosis, so insist on full tests in each area:
Complete Blood Count (20ish blood components. If any are off, then you know to look into that piece of the puzzle)
Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (20ish metabolic components. If any are off, you look into them)
Complete Coeliac testing (3-4 different tests, not just one. If a doctor skimps on full testing, you will not know if you have Coeliac or not). VERY important, since your dad has Coeliac and sounds like your mother might have undiagnosed Coeliac or some other autoimmune disease.)
Thyroid panel: TSH, FT3, FT4, thyroid antibodies TPO/ab and TG/ab. (He might only test TPO due to NHS. If so and your TPO is negative, you’ll need to test TG/ab on your own to rule out Hashimoto’s)
Complete iron panel if he’s wise enough to know to test all, otherwise test Ferritin. It will give you some but incomplete information. Better than nothing, but incomplete iron testing can miss critcal details.
B12
Folate
Vitamin D
SED rate, or ESR. Test to measure inflammation. If it’s high, why is it high? So then you know you need to find out why.
General autoimmune test:
Compliment Proteins 3 and 4. If you test low but you Coeliac and Hashimoto’s tests are negative, then this can help determine that you have some other disease and need more testing to find out which one.
All these above tests should be tested to eliminate or confirm that you have something going on in these areas.
ANA (good to test to get a baseline now, in case your symptoms worsen, and you can retest this test. Can change over time, just like any other test can.).
Rheumatoid Factor (may as well test for this, just to know your status).
It might be a bit tricky, but yes, you can. Take a list of your symptoms, write down your questions, and write down the tests. After you tell the doctor your symptoms and history, then the doctor examines, you can ask which tests he’s going to run. Check off on your list any ones he says he’s ordering. If he leaves some out, say something like, I’d like to check my CBC and CMP, to see how my body and blood are doing. Then tell him you’d like to test XYZ thyroid tests, XYZ nutrients, and any others. If he hesitates, just tell him you want to eliminate that these areas are not causing any problems. Best to know for sure, than to guess......so say something like that.
Okay will do, going now... i'll let you know how it went when i come back. It's hard to do this when you have social anxiety lol but i'll make sure i get everything said that needs to be said.
Hi healthiskey. That's great! I'm excited for you to go down the path to figuring out what is causing your symptoms. I completely understand. It's not easy. It's so discouraging when you don't feel well and have less than helpful outcomes from previous doctor's appointments.
I'm rooting for you! I hope it goes well, you get answers, and you are feeling better very soon!
She took me more seriously this time. She said she will do all the tests that i listed out but i think she said the compliment proteins 3 and 4 you have to get done privately. I was soo anxious it was hard for me to take in everything she said. She said she will make sure we get to the bottom of it. Also she done the celiac blood test before for me but the time she done it i was eating gluten free so she has to do the blood tests again on tuesday. She said if everything shows up normal she will send me to a specialist.
Hi healthiskey! This is wonderful news! It must be a great feeling to finally be heard by a doctor, and I love how she said she'd make sure to get to the bottom of things and send you to a specialist if necessary.
On the Celiac test, which one is she doing, or is she doing the full panel? Here is info about Celiac Disease, who should get tested and about the tests and why each one would be tested:
I think she said the full panel. I'm going in on Tuesday anyways. It is a relief but i'm also feeling really worried that nothing will show up in any tests and i don't get a diagnosis. It wouldn't actually be good news for me to see that all the tests are normal.
I hope so. Try not to worry. I know it's easier said that done. Whatever the results are, they are what they are. If everything is negative or optimal (which is different than normal (I'll explain below)), then you keep searching for the right answer. It can be a long journey in some cases (like for me), or for other people it's shorter.
You are ahead of the game because people are more educated these days and because forums like this exist. Back when I started my journey to find the answer, forums like this didn't exist. No one had any idea what my symptoms were and doctors certainly didn't. I was told it was nothing. I was told I was normal. One doctor told me that I was depressed (I wasn't. I was sick, weak, in pain and couldn't speak very well. My anxiety ended up being caused by my thyroid disease.), or some other excuse. My symptoms would sometimes come and go, and then come back even worse. I don't think it will take you a decade to find the answer to your health issues like it did for me.
I know what you mean about it not being good news if all the tests are normal. I remember feeling that way and being let down when that happened to me. I just wanted the answer so that I could get on with my life. You've only just started your journey. There will be highs and lows. All you can do is go through the process of elimination of running the most obvious tests. If no answer there, then you move on to others.
About "normal". Some doctors will tell you that you are good and normal when your levels fall any place between the bottom and top number of the lab range. For many tests, this is not exactly true. For example, on thyroid tests, I was told I was normal when my levels were in the bottom of the range. I later learned that those low levels were why I felt so horrible, why my stomach and digestion didn't work, why I was so cold all of the time, why I had pain everywhere, etc. So for thyroid FT3 and FT4, both low (below 1/2 range) and high (above 3/4 range) is where symptoms develop, even though a both are still "in range and normal". Optimal is the part of the range where people have the least symptoms and is where they feel their best. Another example is B12. If in the low part of the range, most people will have symptoms. Optimal for B12 is in the upper end of the range. Or with the Compliment Proteins, if your level is flagged below the bottom number, this means you could have one of several associated diseases or conditions. If your level is in range, but at the bottom of the range, then this means you might be heading to one of those diseases. Optimal for Compliment Proteins is within range (between the low or high number), but like I said, if it's low in the range, this might mean something is brewing. This happened to me. My levels were at the bottom of the range, then they later changed to below range. A little while later I found out I have an autoimmune disease. If was in the process of brewing when my levels were within range but low, and then it evolved to full blown deficient once it became a full blown autoimmune disease.
Hang in there! You're half way there since you've started the process and have now ran some very important tests. It's only a matter of time and a matter of weeding through to find the right test that has the answer.
Well i haven't ran the tests yet. Tuesday is when it starts. I've taken the first big step in regards to testing so i'm happy i'm on the right track and i'll have faith in my GP to help me find out what's causing these symptoms so that i can live a normal life finally.
I have to say... i do suspect i could have thyroid issues. I think my mam could as well. She had a thyroid test done during pregnancy but i think that was only the TSH? Not sure though.
That's really good! I'm glad she's doing the tests! I think if you've been gluten free and successfully reintroduced gluten, you're unlikely to be coeliac, but it will be good for you to know for sure
If you want my assessment, then your diet is not serving you well. I guess you think that anyway because you have posted on this forum! You say these symptoms are ongoing, so whatever is happening is not going to be sorted in an instant.
My long term plan would be to move heavily towards a whole food plant based diet without oils. I know to many this may sound like a record playing over yet again. However afaik black eyes are synonymous with a body having difficulty digesting meat, blackheads is simply too much fat for your body to deal with.
Even lack of sex drive is also associated with a meat-based diet. See this piece of research ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl... if you want to get to the meat of the matter!
I don't expect the doctor to provide any useful advice. These seem a little non-specific and vague symptoms. But you never know without asking!
The fact that blood tests so far come back okay does not surprise me. Much better to listen to your body.
Whatever you decide to do I would act sooner rather than later. Some of these symptoms (like brain fog & stiff joints) can easily be addressed with this lifestyle providing you get there early enough. This feels to me like onset of arthritis or similar auto-immune disorder. Consider these symptoms as an amber warning! The more you leave the larger mountain you may have to climb.
I have ate really healthy before in the past and it did help but never fully healed me. Also now i can't even tolerate eating really healthily it seems. It seems like it causes too much of a detox reaction in my body and my symptoms get a lot worse. Recently i was on a healthy diet and i had a major flare up and started getting pains in my liver/gallbladder area too. It wasn't even an extreme diet it was just more vegetables and cutting out processed foods.
From my own experience - and that may not be relevant - getting myself out of the arthritis hell hole was not simple. Certainly not as simple as going vegan. Even going for the whole food plant based no oils would not have been sufficient. Even excluding nightshades would not have been sufficient. Even excluding all the other foods would not have been enough.
The only thing that might be enough is a full-blown elimination. That starts with two days of cucumber & celery juicing and builds up. With arthritis it is simple you are looking for more or the same pain. The challenge of what you are looking for is more complex.
Thanks for the reply but i don't think i have arthritis. I get slight pain in my fingers and some stiffness but it's definitely not a symptoms i even worry about much at all.
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Here I go again...
What should i do with vegetables
Should I forget the doctors and see a dietition?
