Doctor seems stumped!

[neen0]

I am a 36 year old female with a list of symptoms and absolutely no idea if any or all of them are connected. My doctor has sent me for a few tests and after initially diagnosing me with Restless Leg Syndrome and trying a few meds, my symptoms grew and we are both stumped.

I get light exercise (45 min walk) regularly and eat healthy. I am a smoker and drink ocassionally.

I was hoping someone could help because to be honest I am over it and just want to know what on earth is wrong. Or to find a cause that makes sense, so my Doctor and I can explore remedies, even if it is to eliminate the cause. Symptoms as follows:

Hot feet - although not hot to touch, they feel like they are burning. They also swell when they are hot. There is not really any time of day or night that this happens, although perhaps a little more at night than day.

Shoulder pain - I awoke one morning and discovered that I had a pain in my left shoulder which I had assumed was a pulled muscle, until it did not go away, and then the right shoulder presented with pain also. It hurts to lift my arms above my head, reaching out for things and the pain seems to go from shoulder to arms, although I am confident that it is in the shoulder joints.

Hip pain - although constant like the shoulder pain, I often wake in the morning with pain in the hip not unsimilar to the pain in my shoulder.

Leg ache - from the knees to the ankles an achey feeling which (and this is perhaps when the doc decided it was RLs) makes e feel like I need to move them around and get more blood or oxygen to them, rubbing the muscle does relieve the pain somewhat. This ache is not constant and can occur at any time of day or night.

Arm ache - From the elbow to the wrist, also makes me feel like I need to rub or stimulate the muscle. Also get a slight tingly sensation. My hands also swell when I get this arm ache and my arms feel warm. It also makes me feel like my clothing is too tight around my arms and feel the need to remove sleeved clothing.

I started seeing a physiotherapist when I was getting headaches and feeling achey in my right shoulder blade muscle (dont know its name sorry). she discovered a knot which she has spend the last 6 months trying to remove and noted that my shoulder muscles were quite tight. This was happening prior to the start of the above metioned shoulder and hip pain.

I have had a nerve map done, where they electrocuted me around the lower legs and I was told that there was no damge to the major nerves.

My neck feels like it needs to be clicked back into place sometimes, I can roll my head, hear a click and it feels like there is less pressure, even tho the pressure was slight to begin with.

I have had numerous blood tests done, which did not reveal a lot apart from being told that I had inflamed blood. I do not know if this is still the case as it was about 12 months ago when I had the test and am not aware if this goes away on its own or not.

I have no idea if it gives any more of an idea but I also cannot kneel for long (this has been happening for years and years) because after about 1-2 mins my legs get tingly and start aching.

In the mornings sometimes I can wake and my whole back aches, but I had put this down to getting older, lol.

My jaw sometimes aches, which I do feels is due to my sometimes grinding my teeth when concentrating, but thought I would throw it in for good measure.

and I think that is about it. But if someone, anyone could shed some light on this I would so very much appreciate it. I am sick of waking up sore and achey. But I think what is harder to cope with is the fact that the list of symptoms get longer and I just dont have a clue.

Please help.
Neen0

[friend]

Hi neen0

It seems like you may not have any acute illness, according to test results, but that some problems are developing, which may be rather simple to halt if you take action.

I found this info ~
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003104.htm

You could have the beginnings of arthritis, and if so, most of what I wrote applies to dealing with it.

For sure, smoking definitely does not help one's body organs, bones, muscles, etc. The symptoms could be that you are in an early stage of developing liver, kidney or heart disease. Any of those can cause swelling of extremities. You may want to explore what you can do about blood inflammation, asap.
Nicotine is a major factor in causing inflammation.

Inflamamtion can affect internal organs very negatively, and may be causing arthritis and other symptoms you are having.
http://www.webmd.com/osteoarthritis/guide/arthritis-inflammation

As for the neck, shoulder, & hip pain, that can be from lack of proper stretching, muscle tone, posture and/or life stress management. I would tend to think all of those contribute. You may benefit from deep tissue massage, hot tub soaking, and possibly chiropractic care (look for one that does not do neck cracking but does light back adjustments). Since you have 'knot" that this person cannot alleviate, I suggest that you find a different person to treat it. You should have wet heat compresses, ultra sound massage, etc, to get into the tissue so it can relax. I need several weeks of this kind of treatments about twice a year due to some permanent skeletal problems I have from an accident. Without this my body locks up. But if you to have no skeletal injury, you may also get relief from learning and doing proper stretching and might try yoga classes.

Any kind of drug uses up B vitamins very quickly, which feed the nerves...you may want to supplement with B complex every day.

Muscular aching often is alleviated with taking magnesium, esp if you use a lot of dairy food or are taking calcium. That imbalance can wreak havoc with the soft tissue like muscles. Check with a health food store for info on a good balance for your calcium intake.

Let us know if you find any solutions.

[neen0]

Thanks for that. I forgot to mention that I have been taking high doses of fish oil, calcium, condroiten and glucosamine for the last month with no change.

I was taking vitimen B5 500mg & Magnesium for a while too which did not make any difference to my hot feet. (I did not have the shoulder joint trouble at that stage)

I now take the odd sleeping pill if my feet are so hot I can not sleep, but that, other than the odd anti-inflammatory & Ibuprophen, are the only meds I am on.

I have taken all the 'relaxtion' treatments that I can find, all of those you suggested above, short of Yoga. I will take your advice though and visit the chiro or osteo to see what they say.

thanks again

[missmarie253]

Have you discussed the possibility of small fiber neuropathy? The only way to truly test it is by having a biopsy.

[Singlewedge]

Have you been checked for Lupus?

Lupus seems to fit with the symptoms that you have.

"Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic, inflammatory autoimmune disorder. It may affect the skin, joints, kidneys, and other organs."

-Google.