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Hi list members,
This is my first post, so please forgive me for any screw ups or writing
too much. I have searched the archives and FAQs, but I didn't find a
very good answer.
The short version:
Symptoms: 103 degree fever for two and a half weeks
Severe pain in neck, shoulder and down left arm. 2 1/2 weeks
Swelling in muscles in neck and shoulder. 1 1/2 weeks
No other symptoms, like soar throat, coughing, or sneezing/runny
nose.
-All three symptoms have gotten better the last two days, but I woke up
at 3:00am today and was shivering uncontrollably which didn't stop for
45 minutes and the fever is back at 103.
-Although I thought it was the flue, in December and January I had a
very similar problem with the fever (no neck or shoulder pain). It
lasted 2-3 weeks, and then came back 2 weeks later for another week and
a half.
-Symptoms are not constant and seem to respond somewhat to Ibuprofen and
Tylenol.
** The doctor first told me it was a muscle problem and prescribed
Ibuprofen. After a week of the worst pain in my life I asked to go to
the emergency room and she finally had me wait a day and did some blood
test. Which were normal except for elevated white cell count (Monocytes
I think she said), and I was still slightly anemic, which I've been for
at least a year. She said it was probably a virus like mono and that it
should clear up.
Two days later (day before yesterday) it did start to clear up and I
finally felt pretty good yesterday, but this morning I woke up at 3:00am
shivering (which didn't stop for 45 minutes) and I was running a 103
fever which has now been reduced since I took some Tylenol.
The last few days as things started to clear up I started getting
tingling in the muscles in my shoulder and realized that I've been
having problems with these muscles for at lest a year. They get tight
or swollen. painful and tingle like pins and needles, but there is now
way to stretch them which seems odd since usually you can stretch soar
muscles and get them to hurt even more. It wasn't really bad, but just
enough to bug the heck out of me and make me pretty irritable (just ask
my former co-workers).
-I've only been truly gluten free for a week and a half now and for the
last month I've been mostly gluten free, but did eat some since I didn't
realize it was wheat. I haven't been positively diagnosed with celiac,
but when I cut out all carbohydrates from my diet (I thought I was
allergic to sugar and carbohydrates) my diarrhea cleared up within a
week, and I hadn't had a regular bowel movement in 6 months or longer.
QUESTION: Finally huh! Has anyone had similar problems and does anyone
think it can be related to a wheat allergy? Will this problem keep
recurring? (It has been bad enough that I asked my wife to increase my
life insurance, just in case there are complications, since I don't know
what's going on). I'm 30 years old.
Thank you for your time and any help or suggestions.
Best regards,
Sven Merten
Orange County, California (anyone local? Anyone know any support groups
locally)
I will now give some back ground info (my case history) just in case
anyone is interested. If you don't like reading long e-mails, you may
want to close it now.
I have most of the symptoms of celiacs, although it has not been
positively diagnosed (just found out last week). I've been having the
symptoms for at least 3 years, probably many more. I don't know if all
of these are related to a wheat allergy, but I figured I would write all
my problems down on the off chance they are important.
1. I've always had white specs on my fingernails and teeth.
2. I was hyper active as a child and always in the "special" classes.
I would get very bad headaches (they called them migraines) a couple
times a year. Over the years they increased in frequency until about a
year ago when they became constant. I will cover how I got rid of them
within 1 week a little later.
3. Starting when I was about 12 I realized I was always thirsty, my
friends in High school would ask me what the bathroom was like whenever
we went somewhere because I was always going. This lasted until
recently when I stopped eating carbohydrates (wheat). Still seems to be
a problem, but has gotten better.
4. Next was probably the diarrhea, which started 3 or 4 years ago, but
didn't become chronic until about 8 months ago. I also have had chronic
abdominal pain, especially when I have gas and it usually causes pain in
my lower back and bottom right of my abdomen.
5. Headaches and dry eyes: As I said the headaches became constant, so
my doctor suggested I cut out caffeine, which I use to have quite a lot
of. I had tried this before, but never for longer than 3 or 4 days and
never saw any results. This time I stopped for a week because I was
desperate, and to my surprise the headaches started to clear up. After
a few weeks of this I decided to cut out all sugar, which I had also
tried before without an effect. This time I went longer and the
headaches started to fade after 5 days and were completely gone after 2
weeks. I couldn't believe it, what a relief! That was about 5 months
ago, and I've only gotten a headache the two times I started eating
sugar again, and it takes 3 or 4 days for the headache to start after
eating sugar again. It took quite a long time for them to get better
after removing, candy, sugar, soda, and even fruit juice from my diet.
Also I had to start eating about 50% more to make up for the calories I
wasn't getting from sugar (that's right I loved sugar). I use to get
very dry eyes and they would turn very red and itch and hurt (usually
one more than the other). I haven't had this problem since I stopped
eating sugar.
6. After I got rid of the headaches, I was pretty happy for a while,
but I still had chronic diarrhea. I would get achy and soar like I was
running a fever, but I wasn't. I was tired all the time, cranky, and
had trouble remembering simple things, like where I was going when I
left the house and drove out of the cul-de-sac. I also have had a very
hard time concentrating and following what I read. I was still anemic
and had been going for blood tests for about a year, but they never did
anything except say lets wait another 3 months and check it again.
So I reasoned that maybe I was allergic to sugar since it got rid of the
headaches. So I went on a diet of just meat and cheese. Within a week
my stools were back to normal after at least 6 months straight of
diarrhea. When I told my doctor that she immediately suggested that it
might be an allergy to wheat. And after reading about the symptoms I
seem to have most of them and no others. For a week and a half I've
been eating meat, vegetables and rice without a problem.
I guess that is about it except that I've changed jobs and then changed
carriers, probably in part due to my problems and the constant slight
pain that had made me pretty irritable for the past year and a half.
My doctor wants me to stay on a GF diet for 2 months and then she will
do tests. This doesn't seem right to me, but she is the doctor, right!
Thanks again for your time, and I'd love to hear your comments or
suggestions.
Best regards,
Sven Merten
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