Since my appendix burst 2 years ago. Ive been having problems. Back then I was in hospital for 2 weeks,I got collections in my stomach,never drained just treated with antibiotics. I was realeased and everytime I pooed it was like pooing razorblades. So was readmitted. More antibiotics and few fevers later I was released 3 stones lighter.
Since then I have not been great. 1st my white blood cells and platelets were low,but they are getting back normalish now. My problem is I can go a few weeks,sometimes months feeling ok then BOOM. One little infection or illness seems to trigger it all off. My eyes sink in my head,bags under my eyes,fatigued beyond belief. I look like Im dying. Its a constant battle. Ive had numerous tests and all I hear is chrinic fatigue. I may have that but I dont think it is all. I have constant sores up my nose and quite bloody occasionally. I have sores on the soles of my feet. I get depressed and aggitated. I get really bad stomach cramps and when needing to poo sometimes I can hardly walk or start due to pain. I had a colonoscopy last year with sedation and I was pulling myself off the bed due to pain. It was like a hotrod was being pushed through me and tearing me open. I cant move on with my life until I have found out the cause of all this. My TSH is 4.6 but my doctor wont send me anywhere else until it reaches 10.
Ive been thinking autoimmune
Chrons
Thyroid
Maybe Diabetes
Im just clueless as are my doctors who make me feel like a hinderence. Any ideas or people going through similar please let me know. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you x
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Walsalltommy
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No sorry I dont. My doctor wont refer me unless my tsh reaches 10. Thats the only test hes prepared to do. Whole thing is a nightmare. Thank you for your reply
It would be helpful to know whether TSH 4.6 is within or over range. Most GPs will diagnose hypothyroidism and prescribe Levothyroxine when TSH is over range. Your GP is a sadist. Ask your receptionist, practice manager or GP what the TSH range is. If your TSH is over range but your GP insists on waiting until you are overtly hypothyroid with TSH >10 you would do better to change your GP.
You can order your own thyroid labs to get a better idea of your thyroid status. It would be useful to have TSH, FT4, FT3, thyroid peroxidase and thyroglobulin antibodies, ferritin, vitamin D, B12 and folate tested. thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/testin...
Yes it would as I need answers asap. Im not joking most days are a battle. Just getting through work and school runs etc etc. At the moment my face is that gaunt I cant look at people in the eye. Gone from a very healthy looking 36 year old to a really unhealthy looking 38 year old. Thank you
You have had a rubbish time. Anyone who has peritonitis from perforated bowel has had acute sepsis. Sepsis has had a raised profile in the media recently and there are several good online resources, the sepsis trust, the sepsis alliance. Up to 60 percent of people who survive severe sepsis have longer term problems, now called post sepsis syndrome. The fact that your white cells and platelets have taken time to recover suggest that some of your symptoms may be connected to this. This doesn't mean that your thyroid isn't contributing to how you feel and it is important to get that properly assessed if necessary by private blood tests.
Has your surgeon explained your higher risk of adhesions causing bowel problems following your abdominal collections? Are you being monitored regularly?
Sad to say it sounds as though you have been let down by the health system, compounded by an incompetent gp. Could you change gp practice?
Thank you. I could change doctors I suppose. I have looked into adhesions and mentioned it to my doctor but you get a blank face. No Im not monitored. I went back last week as I was really ill and all the talk in the press was about vitamin D. Low and behold he told me to take Vitamin D and that was that. Never looking up why Im constantly like this. I will look up the post sepsis also thank you really appreciate it.
I would suspect adhesions to be a major cause of your symptoms, but is almost certainly not the only one. Unfortunately, in my experience, doctors think that adhesions aren't painful. I've also been told by one doctor that there is no point in treating adhesions because the surgery just creates more adhesions. That, to some extent, is true. (She felt there was no point in treating my pain either, b***h that she was, but she wasn't alone in feeling that way.) But with an expert surgeon (I only had one once), you can get a result which reduces pain and it will stay away. It would be a good idea - if you ever got surgery for adhesions - it could take a long time to convince anyone to do it for you - to ask for any tissue which was removed during surgery to be swabbed and cultured. It could show that there is a chronic infection going on inside you.
If you do still have an internal infection which hasn't been cleared up then you really need to try and find out what it is as soon as possible and treat it, even without surgery. Finding out what it is and getting rid of it will be hard (or may be impossible) though, so you will need a lot of luck. The only way I know of for finding those hard to treat infections without surgery is to swab various orifices and get the swabs cultured, and also culture urine, blood and poo, and basically just hope for the best. If anything pathogenic turns up in the cultures then you need to know the appropriate antibiotics to kill the infection. (I am aware that this whole idea really reeks of desperation tactics which doctors would just laugh at. There is no guarantee that any swabs or testing done from external sites will identify what is going on buried deep inside you, and you need luck - lots of it.) You might require weeks of antibiotic treatment to kill off any internal and well-buried infections. Ideally you would have intravenous antibiotics for an internal infection, but good luck getting those.
If your GP just looks at you with a blank face when you mention adhesions then you need to find a doctor who isn't clueless and has some compassion. (I know they are hard to find.)
If you do still have an infection from the burst appendix which is left to simmer then it is likely, over time, to make any adhesions worse.
I'm not medically qualified. However I did "poo razorblades" for about 30 years thanks to very severe adhesions.
Wow. Thank you for your reply. It seems to me my doctor lives out of textbooks 50 years old. All my problems started that day my appendix ruptured. A few other things maybe since. This ay no life for me being like this. I was off my feet last week but still had to go to work 6 days. Its like Im in some sick kind of hell. Thank you for your input. All these comments are being took on board.
Walsalltommy Sorry not got any other advise to add im afraid ,except to wish you good luck, you have had an awful time by the sounds of it ,:((( hope things improve soon best wishes Sunny !
I was prescribed Bactroban for nose sores and splits that would bleed (staph infection initially wrongly diagnosed as cold sores) which worked like a magic wand. The pain is relieved straight away, use a cotton bud to apply, I suffered for 18m overall and was referred to hosp ENT dept.
My best wishes to you Walsalltommy, you are having a rotten time. You need a GP to take his/her eyes off the computer screen to recognise that you are gaunt and need help.
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