2 mos of symptoms, no diagnosis, ANY ideas? - General Health Message Board

ishoo172000 · 09-17-2005, 01:55 PM

I've been in pain for 2 months w/o any relief or diagnosis. I'm desparate so PLEASE post if you have anything you think I should explore. Below are my symptoms and what I've done/docs I've seen. Thanks in advance for any advice given!

I am a 25 year old female living in Washington, DC. I've seen docs and been trying to get out of pain for 2 months now and its effecting my life a lot. The symptoms increase/decrease in severity but never go away. At their worst, I cannot do anything, lose balance, am dizzy, & nauseus, and have to lay in bed and wait it out. 'Severe' happens 3-4 times per week. Here's my info:

SYMPTOMS: (all on right side of body)
- Burning Pain in ear: All the time
- Facial pain around sinuses: 65% of the time
- 'Foreign object' feeling in eye: 90% of the time
- Eye is red, sore, smaller/squished: Only when pain is severe
- nostril burns when breathing: only has happened a few times
- dull aching temple headache: 90% of the time
- numbness - right side of tongue: 30% of the time
- neck pain - side: always, gets extremely severe at times
- neck pain - back: dull pain about 90% of the time, never gets severe
- Clavical pain: 80% of the time; gets very severe
- Shoulder - front (the area surrounding underarm): 95% ; gets very severe
- back - upper right quadrant: dull ache always; severe sometimes
- Shooting pain down arm: 1-2 times per week severe
- Pain down tricep: always, gets to medium pain level
- wrist - front & back: 70% of the time its medium pain, other times, low
- finger numbness - pinky & ring finger: 50% of the time
- facial numbness: 65% of the time
- pain in forearm: always dull pain, occaisonally severe
- nausea: 85% of the time; gets worse with severe pain
- balance problems: only when pain is severe
- tender scalp: often; when pain is above a 6.5 on a 1-10 scale
- pressure in ear: always
- ear popping: occaisonally
- muscle twitches - Mostly only i the pain area & when pain is severe
- Difficulty swallowing: when pain is severe

These are most of my symptoms. The 'severe' pain is a few times a week and basically feels like someone is beating the entire area with a hot blanket that has burning hot nails on it. Lasts for about 3-5 hrs and no medecine makes a dent. I have to lay in bed with heat (doesn't help, but relaxes me a bit) and a vomit bag until it subsides.
There seems to be no correlation to stress, sleep, foods.

TESTS
MRI - brain, spine, and something else, maybe chest - nothing shows up 'of concern'
ENT has ordered a CT scan for something that is present on the right
sinus and not the left. He does not think this is the cause.
Chest Xray: normal
EMG, EEG, BAER's nerve tests: all normal
Blood tests: all normal except for the one that says there is inflammation
somewhere in the body (shocking)
Lymes: don't have results yet. (My gut tells me this is not my problem, but its
not a doctor.)
RX's - none have made a dent in the pain
- celebrex
- valium
- daypro
- prednisone( sp.? - its a steroid anti-inflammatory)
- darvocet

OK, sorry about the super long post. Do you guys have anything I should consider?

Thanks!

mjewell · 09-17-2005, 06:31 PM

Are all your tests coming from the same doctor or are you seeing specialists? If not that is what I would recommend. Sometimes it takes several docs and the same test to fnd a diagnosis.

Constant · 09-17-2005, 07:00 PM

Are you working or living in a new environment? Have you recently suffered an injury or had the "flu"?

How did these symptoms start? Did they come on all at once or slowly and building?

Have you recently gone through a unusually stressful time?

Have you seen a rheumatologist?

ishoo172000 · 09-18-2005, 04:42 PM

I've seen a primary care doc who ordered blood tests, MRI's and x-rays. After that was a neurologist who did nerve testing, and then was an ENT specialist. Next I am trying to see a spine or neck specialist.

Ok, no new environmental factors, no injuries or fluish symptoms. The symptoms started with ear pain and neck and arm pain and within a few days all the symptoms I see now were present. I can't say exactly when the more severe 'attacks' started happening, but it was within a couple weeks of the first symptoms, I'm pretty sure. The first two medications I was given were daypro, then celebrex and both of them made me feel pretty ill, so those couple weeks are hard to separate real symptoms with medication ones, and also back then I wasn't keeping track of sypmtoms as diligently.
More stress than usual the last few weeks, but the symptoms started at the tail end of a very relaxing vacation and the following month or so was at a normal stress level.
I haven't yet seen a rheumatologist would you suggest that even though my symptoms are pretty localized?

Thanks to both of you!

Constant · 09-18-2005, 07:32 PM

Ishoo,

All of the symptoms are right sides unless noted?