Dear Mumsnetters
I apologize because I don't come on here very often and when I do I'm simply asking for help or advice. I know that's a bit rubbish and I'll change that.
This is quite a long post but I'm desperately worried about my husband. NHS tests are drawing a blank and we're not quite sure what to do next. I'm hoping someone can offer a bit of constructive advice. We're pro science (doctors) but are happy to try anything alternative (within reason). We're pro NHS but have put aside a bit of money to try a private specialist. Any help or ideas would be most grateful received. Here's the detail...
In January this year he began showing signs of ME / chronic fatigue and / or adrenal fatigue and / or fibromyalgia. His symptoms however were building from last summer (incidentally a period of extreme stress and him working crazy ridiculous hours). But his symptoms became really acute in January.
Essentially he's lost all his energy. In January he was suffering terrible terrible pains in his body. Now these are more like muscle aches. This is combined with a really weird feeling in his body of having "jitters" the whole time. Like his body never ever settles down.
Since last summer he feels like he's been 'slowing down', feeling increasingly tired.
But by mid January it felt like his body suddenly said "enough" and the symptoms became really bad. Crazy fatigue that would come out of nowhere and he literally needed to go to bed - but then very bad sleep where he doesn't sleep for long.
He also had incredibly painful (muscle) aches that came and went fluctuating from lower body to upper. Some days he couldn’t get up. He would feel cold "right inside me" - but with a very high body temperature.
His immune system became very low. Whereas before he'd fight off / not get colds, he began catching every bug going.
He felt restless, very very jittery at times. Panic attacks. Pumping adrenaline. This has remained. He feels constantly on edge. Like there's something pumping or rushing through his blood.
GP blood tests came up with nothing - except an extremely low vitamin D level (he received a prescription for pharmacy grade vit D which he’s still on). The GP suggested fibromyalgia but stopped short of diagnosing it.
He was once told (around ten years ago) by a bio resonance style practitioner (who also did blood tests) that his adrenal glands were completely shot to pieces. So we’re very aware of the possibility of adrenal fatigue.
Since mid Feb he’s been on the following, religiously:
Vit B complex
B12
COQ10
a v good probiotic
Vitamin D
Adrenal Cortex
‘Cell Food’
Super greens (Kiki brand)
Zinc
And for a while he also additionally took:
Takuna
Sizzling Minerals
Flax Seed
Plus lots of water.
It took a good two months but then he slowly began to improve. I’d say that by mid April he began to smile again and things felt sort of normal but not 100%. Then it all started again in May.
As an aside: last year he was having terrible, really bad palpitations - like almost every night. One night it was so bad I took him to A and E and they checked him over. Everything seemed ok. He was referred to a specialist and again, nothing serious found.
He doesn't smoke (he used to, in his 20s, though last year suddenly began having the odd one through stress, which shocked me). He's not really a drinker. He's never used recreational drugs.
Does this sound familiar to anyone? Does anyone have any advice or even thoughts on what it might be? This may be a crazy question to ask on the internet but should I be worried? Professor Google can occasionally frighten the life out of me but now I'm trying to be honest and accept every possiblity whilst remembering that two sets of bloods have come back clear. Any specialists that anyone can recommend?
Thank you so much in advance.