Discussions By Condition: I cannot get a diagnosis.

I'm at a loss.

• Posted By: Namae-nante-iranai
• March 28, 2011
• 06:10 AM

I feel like I should preface all of this with something: I don't have access to proper insurance right now, and I'm living on three dollars a day for non-utilities/mortgage expenses, so there may not be anything I can do. Even so, it would be nice to have an idea--any idea--of what I might have. For all I know, there may be exercises I can do, or... Or something that I can actually manage. I was googling for solutions and found this forum, so I thought I should try it.

I'll be using this link to describe pain on a scale of 1 to 10.

I'm 21 years old, female, 5', 125lbs, with almost all my weight on my hips and butt. (I don't know what will be relevant, so I figure that I may as well mention what I can.)

Anyway, I guess that I should list the chronic conditions that I've been diagnosed with (back when I had better access to health care).
- Asthma: Tobacco smoke makes my lungs freeze up; without an inhaler, it's entirely possible for me to pass out if I can't escape the smoke within a minute or two. I also wheeze after running, etc.
- Iron-deficiency anemia: February last year, my ferritin levels were at 2; now they're at about 22. I take a vegetarian iron supplement daily.
- Eczema: Mostly in response to some allergies that I have, which I'll list next, but it can also flare up when I'm stressed, etc.
- Nickel allergy: I turn blue/green (I'm slightly colorblind, so I can't tell which) and get a bit itchy.
- Glycerin allergy: Hives. I carry around my own soap.
- Latex allergy: Hives.
- Dust allergy: Triggers my asthma.
- Pilonidal cyst: It comes and goes, though it's never been operated on and never leaked; I take hour long baths to shrink it. It's about the size of a quarter right now. The pain, on the above scale, sometimes spikes to 4, but is generally more at a 3. Once, before I knew to bathe it, it hit a 9; it hasn't since then.
- Dysmenorrhea: I take hormonal birth control to ease the pain, which was rather severe before. I used to have a 21~23 day cycle with week long periods. During those I'd get cramps that, on the above scale, would rank between a 7 and an 8 at least two days a month. (Since starting the pill, the levels have dropped to a 4 on two or three days a cycle, which is now a 28 day cycle with a four to five day period.)
- Scoliosis: It sometimes reaches a 5 on the above scale, but it's usually a 2 or 3.
(- I also used to have chronic constipation, but it has improved since I began taking iron supplements. I still thought I ought to mention it just in case.)

Of those, generally it can be assumed that three are active at any given time of the ones that come and go. On top of these, I have some mysterious symptoms that I haven't been able to figure out. This is what brought me to this forum. I'll list those next.

- Random chest pain. It'll be sharp and sudden, like a needle in my chest; it's generally between a 6 and an 8 for about ten seconds. Then it'll vanish. It doesn't go away when I breathe in deeply, and I can hardly move or think while it's present. It has no rhyme or reason--it usually doesn't hit after exercise, though, and only shows up once every other month or so.
- Finger joint pain. It's like a needle being driven between my knuckles at some times; at others, it's a bruising ache. It ranges from a 2 to a 5. It only developed after I caught swine flu last December; it was like the body aches lingered in my hands. It was going away until I caught the normal flu two weeks ago, when it spiked back up.
- General sickliness. Throughout my life, I have been sick with strep throat more than twenty times, tonsillitis at least three times, laryngitis, bronchitis, the flu, colds, and countless other ailments a much higher than usual number of times. Mainly nose-throat-lungs kinds of illnesses, but the stomach flu and a few others have hit really hard, as well. In the last five weeks, I've had two colds and a flu. In December, I had swine flu. I couldn't list all the illnesses I get. I've gotten accustomed to it in some ways, but even so, I wonder why I'm sick with all of this.

Further information that may be useful... Hashimoto's runs strongly in my family, though it hits after giving birth, usually. I was born five and a half weeks premature, and I was under four feet tall until sixth grade; I grew eight inches in three months during the summer between eighth and ninth grade, and I haven't grown since. (I was at an amusement park all summer, watching the "You must be this tall..." signs shrink. It was bizarre.) After that summer, my eyes and ears went bad, though not terribly so. I don't know. If you ask me a question, I may be able to answer it.

So, what am I looking for? I don't know. I don't have any idea what there is to find. I'd like to know whether there's something that could tie all of my diseases together, some way that I could stop being sick all the time, some way that I could actually feel like a normal human being for a while. I get so sick and tired of being sick and tired.

There may not be anything to find, but I may as well look. If you can point me in any sort of direction, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you for your time.