Silly symptoms - Adding them all together or looking at them separately?

[AntirrhinumMajus]

I have painful & cold feet and occasionally painful hands; I also get pins & needles in them (daily) and cramp (but only a few times a week)

I am tired, I am always thirsty (not diabetes - had my urine checked), occasionally have visual disturbances

My muscles & joints hurt - sort of low level constant achy-ness rather than pain like sciatica (which I also get)

I have IBS & I control this by limiting my diet

Each of these have been seen & dismissed by my GP as 'something I have to deal with', 'my age', 'lots of people feel like that'; but added together do they indicate anything?

OK, am obv not Dr but maybe get your thyroid levels checked out? COuld you be allergic to anything? I see you mentioned limiting your diet - does this help your IBS, and if so, do you think you may even be deficient in some vitamins or minerals due to this? I'm thinking that the cold and cramps in your hands and feet may be something to do with a lack of something in your diet.

When did your symptoms start, can you relate them to anything or a point in life, what about stress too?

Can you describe more re your visual disturbances - when do you notice that they happen, and how would you describe them? ONe eye only, or both? etc etc

Sorry can't be more helpful just wondered if you could persevere with another Dr and ask for more tests, pretty sure you shouldn' t have to live with these symptoms.

Thanks - I guess I do need to visit the GP & put all the symptoms together

I have a good diet (a bit short in fruit & veg - but not dramatically so) so hat could be relevant

NB I'm not a medical professional, but if I had that many symptoms, I wouldn't be happy having them all written off as coincidences. What tests have been done by your GP to ensure it is IBS you have? Or have all these symptoms been presented one by one to your GP over a long period of time, making it harder to establish a connection, and therefore not really investigated in much depth at all? Could you, eg, have coeliacs disease, which in the long term, untreated, can cause severe vitamin and mineral deficiencies? I would certainly put all your symptoms together and ask the GP again whether they could all actually be connected - you wouldn't want to do nothing, then find you have some kind of auto-immnune disease that could have been treated to relieve some of those symptoms.

It may well be that the symptoms are unconnected and bad luck, or a result of general poor health for no good reason, or a result of your lifestyle, but they are obviously bothering you, so I would go back and ask again, specifically putting them all together.

As you say they have all been looked at individually over a period of years (which makes me sound very flaky ) but it's only when you actually sit down & write them all down that it looks awful

My IBS was diagnosed by camera about 15 yrs ago

The visual disturbances are generally in both eyes & quite fleeting they look like looking through moving oil rather than clear & still (iyswim) - sort of unfocused & swirly (not swirly all over just a gentle wave)

Keep a diary of your symptoms over a period of time and take it to your doctor.

I was diagnosed with M.E./CFS 8 years ago and I had to have loads of blood tests to rule out thyroid etc as they all have very similar symptoms. Keep going back and see a different doctor if you can until you get answers. I get fobbed off sometimes nad now I refuse to give up as I usually know when something is not right.

I was hoping it wasn't my CFS coming back (I even avoided mentioning it) I was diagnosed in '95 & have been in remission for years

I don't want it back [petulant]

Go back to your GP and ask for a neurology referal for the pins and needles in your hands and feet/visual disturbances. Be insistant on this.

Hmmmm, maybe its something you should think about. Reading your post made me think it sounded like my symptoms too.

Mine is never in remission. I just have good days and bad days. It never goes away long enough for it to be remission. Are you sure it hasn't been there all the time but you were just managing it well and now you have been over doing it?

You're both right

I need to see the GP & get a referral to the local CFS clinic - if it isn''t my CFS coming back they will be the best people to work it out I guess

I'm being pathetic & needy aren't I?

Have a look at b12 deficiency on google and check your symptoms I ahd the same feelings and it was that HTH x

You're not pathetic and needy.

I have multiple sclerosis and I also have these symptoms, hence why I advise you to see a neurologist.

I have had close family members with MS - how are you?

That is part of the problem with CFS/ME the symptoms are similar but not permanent

I am not going to let it go - it has been building up for a while & I have been sticking my head in the sand

It's past time to do something

I'm good thanks, I have relapsing/remissive MS so the muscle weakness/eye problems go away. The burning/pins and needles is pretty much constant though but it's ignorable. I was told I had post viral fatigue for a couple of years until March last year when I woke up feeling drunk and not able to walk properly. There's no point sticking your head in the sand, if you know then you can do something or adapt.

My uncle was diagnosed with it for nearly 40 years & his wife (my mum's sister) wasn't so lucky - but apparently it was really odd for a wife to be diagnosed with it after her partner (like 45 yrs later)

Hope things go OK with you

Thankyou, I'm good. I relapsed when I had a bad cold in October, I had a cold/flu last week so it's fingers crossed this week. I'm due back at work tomorrow though so I may skive for a couple of days and rest.

It's odd for it to affect a husband and wife. I often think it's better to know so you know what you are facing. I'm training to be a radiographer and see people in far worse situations every day. It's hard to adapt to not being a hypochondriac, 2 years of doctors not knowing what's wrong does cloud your thought a bit.

I would agree about the hypochondriac bit - but I saw a specialist within 4 months of being ill; however I had always been 'ill' from very young so I do wonder if it wasn't a 'new' illness

Small illnesses take on much larger proportions when you have something underlying - I'd rest for a few days longer than you think you need

I used to be ill alot as a child, nothing moajor, chest infections/tonsilitis but I'd also have days where I just felt really lousy for no reason.

I'm taking a couple of days off, rather this then have a couple of weeks if I push myself too much.

Go to the GP and ask for a neurology referal, it could also be a migraine that you have.

I made my appointment - a week on Wed

I was just generally ill as a child/teenager - with sore throat/tonsillitis then lost of tests for glandular fever/anaemia as I got older

There's a few things that can cause your symptoms, I was told mine were due to a migraine, I had a MRI (to shut me up I think as I didn't look to convinced of the diagnosis) and it showed up lesions consistant with MS, he still insisted I suffered from migraines though. Vitamin b12 deficiency can also cause all this so you could have something easily treated. Let me know how things go

your IBS could be causing a vitamin and mineral deficency. this could be causeing your other problems.

you need a full blood test and a check of thyroid and blood sugars as well.

i would definately try multivatamin.B vits atfer the tests.

That's interesting ladies - my mum has Pernicious anaemia

Hmm something to mention to the GP

I am having blood tests in a fortnight - anaemia, thyroid, diabetes & some others

Got my results btw

All completely clear