herwife

I'm a female in my early 30s. Only medical conditions are asthma, anxiety and depression.

My symptoms started suddenly about 10 -12 weeks ago. I was out at a park with my family when I noticed that my right hand was tingling. Eventually I realized that it was horribly swollen. When the swelling hadn't subsided after 2-3 hours, I went to the emergency room thinking I was having an allergic reaction to some unknown food (we had eaten dinner immediately prior to the park and I was diagnosed as an adult with strawberry allergy only after a reaction).

The ER ran with my self-diagnosis, gave me benadryl and maybe something else. When the swelling hadn't subsided after 2 days and other parts of my body (face, arm, left hand) started feeling numb and were tingling, I went to my primary.

He immediately started ruling out a stroke. He took blood work for lyme disease as well. He also gave me a muscle relaxer to try. The muscle relaxer didn't do anything but make me sleepy and my symptoms were continuing to escalate. Next up was an MRI of the brain and CT spine. Both came back clean.

I was prescribed steroids which didn't really help. Symptoms continued to escalate: numbness/tingling in all extremities and tongue, sudden sharp, burning pains in hands & feet, aching pains in arms & legs, muscle spasms throughout body, electric shock like sensations in back/buttocks. A 2nd round of blood tests didn't reveal anything.

After a 4-5 week wait, I finally see the neurologist next Tuesday. Since last seeing my primary, I've found that I can no longer jog without burning pain in my calves, can't hit a baseball with a metal bat (horrible, reverberating pain in my hands), and getting to sleep is hell some nights. It's like someone flips a switch and my body "turns on" when I lie down, tingling, burning, everywhere. Driving or even riding in a car for more than an hour can also be pretty painful.

I've looked on many message boards and have never seen anyone describe swelling with these symptoms. I'd love to hear from anyone here who has had that or who have any ideas about that.

Thanks so much!