Health Problems

Noodleface_sl said:

This is a very strange question, one that I'm not sure anyone can answer.

For several months now I've had a pimple on my neck, actually it is rather painful and I was sure it was an ingrown hair. I let "it" grow out a bit and noticed it was a hard, white, thick piece of hair in contrast with my black neck hairs. I decided to use some tweezers and pull on it, it came out pretty far and I accidentally plucked it from my face. It was several centimeters long, really thick, white like I said, but it was almost like a cluster of white hairs (split ends, etc.). Today my pimple finally feels deflated and doesn't hurt. I put alcohol in the wound just in case (i have a severe fear of boils, lol).

Any idea what the fuck this could've been?

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If you've got a pimple that hurts, pop that shit. If you've got an infected hair that hurts, pull and pop that shit. Don't let it go for a month or two just out of curiosity!

The body is not an infallible machine. It sounds like exactly what you describe -- a folicle started growing an abberant gauge hair and it irritated the area. It's more usual for that to happen with nose or eyebrow hairs. I've pulled some crazy mean eyebrow hairs. I've had nosehairs before that were like two inches long.

The thing was it wasn't poppable, it was just hard and painful. The hair only came out this week.

Noodleface_sl said:

This is a very strange question, one that I'm not sure anyone can answer.

For several months now I've had a pimple on my neck, actually it is rather painful and I was sure it was an ingrown hair. I let "it" grow out a bit and noticed it was a hard, white, thick piece of hair in contrast with my black neck hairs. I decided to use some tweezers and pull on it, it came out pretty far and I accidentally plucked it from my face. It was several centimeters long, really thick, white like I said, but it was almost like a cluster of white hairs (split ends, etc.). Today my pimple finally feels deflated and doesn't hurt. I put alcohol in the wound just in case (i have a severe fear of boils, lol).

Any idea what the fuck this could've been?

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Anal cyst on your neck. You're basically going to die from it.

Well the sore in my nose seemed like it was mostly healed, then all of the sudden in the last week and a half or so it got much worse, to the point that it's basically as bad as it's ever been. I think there's even exposed cartilage. Making another appointment with the ENT guy later today. ><

Nice, that is great to hear. There's no greater sense of relief than hearing news like like that. It's like finally breathing after mouths of holding your breath.
I go every 5 or so months for my ct scans. Small price to pay to keep a good eye in things.

Long story incoming.

About 5 years ago a group of my friends and my girlfriend at the time wanted to do a tough mudder race. Several of my friends had done a few before, I had gone and watched them and decided it was kind of stupid and pointless and didn't want to do one but ultimately my girlfriend convinced me to do it with her so I started training. Before this I had been in fairly decent shape but was never, ever an endurance athlete. The large majority of my workouts were always strength training with very little cardio but I could still do something short and meaningless like a 5k with little effort. The first 4 months of training went pretty well and I was up to 7 miles on training days at about an 8 minute pace and I was getting in some of the best shape I've ever been in, when suddenly out of nowhere one day I couldn't even go a mile without feeling like I was going to faint.

The symptoms were really abrupt and basically ended my training:

1) I would get very pale
2) Cold sweats
3) Blurred vision
4) Nausea
5) Severe fatigue
6) The shakes
7) Headache
8) Instability when trying to stand or walk, dizziness
9) My gums and teeth would hurt, it felt almost like I had just flossed but flossed too hard.

Those symptoms would last for about 10-15 minutes and then I was completely fine. This didn't happen until I got my heart rate up to around 155+, at all other times I was completely fine and could still lift weights without any issue whatsoever. I went to my primary care doctor at the time and he diagnosed me with exercise induced asthma. He gave me an Albuterol inhaler to use before exercise and when symptoms occurred. This didn't help at all so he gave me a few different steroid inhalers. None of those worked either. At this point several months had passed, I had separated my right shoulder, my repaired left shoulder was getting inflamed again and work got really busy so I just let it go and basically stopped exercising all together.

Fast forward 3 years and I had gotten fairly out of shape wanted to lose about 30 lbs so I started doing going back to the gym. At first it was just getting back into the strength training which was fine and then I started to do some light cardio hoping the symptoms had just gone away on their own. They didn't, they got worse. At this point I could only get my heart rate up to around 135 before I felt like I was going to faint. So I went and found a new primary care physician and explained to him the symptoms and what my previous doctor had done and prescribed. He gave me the same albuterol inhaler but told me to use two puffs instead of one. Tried it and no change so the next few months went like this:

1) Blood work which came back completely clean. Was told everything was great and I appeared to be in really good health
2) Cardiologist. They gave me an echo and did a stress test. Again everything came back great and I was told I was in very good health
3) Pulmonologist. Found out I have a very attractive, young pulmonologist, wanted to lie to her about how unhealthy my lifestyle had actually gotten but didn't, they gave me another battery of tests and again couldn't find anything. She prescribed me a different steroid inhaler and told me to use it more often. Again, that did nothing for the symptoms

At this point I had friends, family and co-workers acting like second hand doctors. "So and so had this thing that sounds kinda like your symptoms but actually nothing like your symptoms. They had superdisease1, ask your doctor about that". It actually got so bad I really did start asking my doctor about all the wacky shit they were telling me. One friend told me he had a friend who had similar symptoms and it was grave's disease. So I made an appointment with an endocrinologist even though my doctor never referred me to one. He sent me in for more extensive blood work and again, nothing wrong.

At this point about a year and a half had passed with a bunch of other tests having been done, chest x-rays, etc etc etc. Nobody can figure this shit out. This past January I got really sick. Not really sick like some of you guys, I never post in here because my problems seem inconsequential to all of you battling things like cancer, but pretty sick nonetheless.

It started as just a cold, turned into a bacterial infection, then I had bronchitis, then I got the worst flu I've ever had in my life, then I got pneumonia. I was sick from the end of January until the middle of April.

When I was sick with the flu I told my doctor I was having a really hard time breathing, couldn't take anything more than the most shallow breaths without it causing a severe coughing fit and it was worse when I was laying down. He listened to my lungs, said they sounded ok, even though I couldn't take a deep breath even in his office and then prescribed me an Albuterol inhaler. How am I supposed to use an Albuterol inhaler when I can't breath in? I tried it anyway when I got home because hey, he's the doctor and nearly coughed and choked to death. I called him and told him so he prescribed me prednisone (on top of the tamaflu he prescribed for the flu). I finished that prescription and no change, so he sent me in for a chest x-ray which he said revealed the pneumonia. So he prescribed me... a higher dosage of prednisone. 4 a day for 4 days, then 3 for 4 days and so on. I finished that and again, no change again and at this point I started looking for new doctors.

I couldn't even really leave the house and had no energy to even cook for myself so it was basically nothing but frozen and fast food. I've gained 15 lbs since I got sick. I'm 5'10 and sitting at 200 lbs feeling and looking fat as shit. I finally started feeling back to normal only about 2 weeks ago and could finally leave my goddamn house for more than 20 minutes just to restock my frozen burrito stash. During all this I started looking for a new doctor because my current doctor, I feel, is worthless.

Today I went to the gym for the first time in almost 6 months (which sucks because before I got sick I had been hitting it hard for about 4 months and had made a lot of really great progress and getting back to my old self). I decided to do some DDP yoga after work as well because I want to lose this weight fast. Barely made it through it and my heart rate never got above 130. When I went to get up off the mat after I was done all the same, original symptoms hit me again.

I have no idea what to even do at this point and I'm getting really tired of having to eat like a 13 year old girl just to not gain any weight because I can't do anything active. Anyway that's my rant.

EDIT: One semi-important piece of information I forgot about, I've always had a heart murmur. I've had several echo and stress tests done in my life to get cleared to play sports and exercise. Every one I've had done always came back good and I was always fully cleared to participate in anything athletic or strenuous without issue.

Sounds fun...What do you do after the 10-15min when the symptoms subside? Do you try getting your heart rate back up or call it a day? If you try getting your heart rate back up, do the symptoms return immediately? Initially I would have said heart issues based on what you described..130-135bpm is nothing, not even close to red lining. Not sure what the heart murmur would do to that, but yours drs ruled it out. What do their stress tests entail? Have you ever replicated the issue with any of the drs? Sounds like you know how to replicate it..just get on a treadmill, run, and it should present itself, right?

I have nothing to add but that sounds really frightening.

I did read online that a lot of people that run or play intense sports have the pain/throbbing in their gums/teeth. No one is really sure why, it could be clenching during exercising or just a mystery.

The other stuff I'm surprised wouldn't present itself during a stress test (the treadmill one). Scary anecdote.. I was given a pneumonia vaccine at my doctor's and passed out standing in line at reception afterwards to check out. They thought I had a heart attack and it was the scariest few days of my life. Had to do the stress test to make sure I didn't have one.

matsb84_sl said:

Sounds fun...What do you do after the 10-15min when the symptoms subside? Do you try getting your heart rate back up or call it a day? If you try getting your heart rate back up, do the symptoms return immediately? Initially I would have said heart issues based on what you described..130-135bpm is nothing, not even close to red lining. Not sure what the heart murmur would do to that, but yours drs ruled it out. What do their stress tests entail? Have you ever replicated the issue with any of the drs? Sounds like you know how to replicate it..just get on a treadmill, run, and it should present itself, right?

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I'm done for the day after it happens. Don't feel like trying anything more.

The stress test was just start walking on a treadmill at a slow pace and they gradually increase the speed and the incline. It's never happened during the stress test because their stress tests seem aimed at 70 year old smokers. I get to a light jog and then they just say "Ok you're done!". So basically a worthless test.

Khane_sl said:

I'm done for the day after it happens. Don't feel like trying anything more.

The stress test was just start walking on a treadmill at a slow pace and they gradually increase the speed and the incline. It's never happened during the stress test because their stress tests seem aimed at 70 year old smokers. I get to a light jog and then they just say "Ok you're done!". So basically a worthless test.

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Too bad House MD isn't real. It actually sounds like something he'd look at.

Khane_sl said:

I'm done for the day after it happens. Don't feel like trying anything more.

The stress test was just start walking on a treadmill at a slow pace and they gradually increase the speed and the incline. It's never happened during the stress test because their stress tests seem aimed at 70 year old smokers. I get to a light jog and then they just say "Ok you're done!". So basically a worthless test.

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Tell your drs that if you havent already. I dont see the point of a stress test if it doesn't get you to the point of actual stress.

Would be interesting to see how your body reacts after the symptoms subside and you try getting your heart rate back up. Could be another data point, but could also be meaningless given your drs responses thus far.

I made one of my doctors eat their words. I love it when that happens. The MS doctor was of the opinion "all of this" could be caused by my diabetes. I thought that would be very odd considering one day you're OK. The next day you either have MS or ADEM and then mass corticosteroids and then suddenly a massive amount of problems. Just didn't fit. She asked about my A1C. I was like "Dunno, never had it checked. She almost passed out. I told her when you control your sugar the A1C is just to prove it to a doctor.

She started this long spiel about how I could die and this and that. I made her give me a neuropathy test and she said I scored better than the average person which was odd. They put little things all over in "strategic" spots and then stimulate it and you tell them when you can feel it etc...

I told her I've been a diabetic for 40 years, I check my blood sugar, I can tell within 10 points normally what my blood sugar is before I check it. Not rocket science.

So we did the A1C and she called with the results. She said she was in SHOCK. I was expecting it to be a little higher than normal because I haven't been exactly active lately. It was 6.6, any lower and they consider you a "pre-diabetic" and a candidate for type 2. LOL. Good to know I'm pre diabetic for type 2 since I've been type 1 for 40 years. Said she's given all the blood work to the doctors there and they are going to review it, which means they have no idea either.

The MS doctor originally was of the opinion that you have had MS for years and years according to your MRI which is pretty common. But apparently most people with 34 lesions aren people that have had it for years and years. She said most people have issues they can't pin down for years and years and then the MRI clues them in. I haven't had any issues till the ADEM (?) episode. She's more confused now. I did 4 hours of test at their clinic for MS and I really don't have any symptoms that match MS. Starting to wonder if they are ever going to find out the problem. I feel like I'm 90% and so close it wouldn't be that hard. The main issue now is still the shortness of breath. Have an appointment with a pulmanologist or whatever they are called. I've givn 2 gallons of blood for blood work over the last 2 years. According to all that I'm very healthy. Even my cholesterol was not bad. I think it was in the low 90's and the doc said to aim for 75.

Also a 2 hour MRI...I don't recommend it. A week later and my back still hurts. I told the doctor that was the last one. I know they want a baseline but I'm not doing another one later. Rather just die.

Kuriin_sl said:

I'm curious how your blood pressure is pre workout, intra workout, and post workout. It sounds like a couple of things to me. I initially thought maybe hypoglycemia (with the symptoms) that correct itself from glycogen stores.

In any case, stress tests on the treadmill should get to the point where you feel like you may pass out. When I did mine a couple years ago, I was at about 200BPM. Just tell them when you're ready to get off. :]

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It sounded like hypoglycemia to me as well which is another reason I went to the endocrinologist but he ruled that out.

I was also going to mention hypoglycemia but I figured since you more than likely didn't have diabetes it probably wasn't that.

When I feel hypoglycemic I basically get tunnel vision, feel light headed, and feel confused.

If you are concerned it's related to blood sugar, wal-mart sells meters to check it for only $9. Can just check it when you have a flare up or whatever. Not a huge investment.

I still haven't made it to the doctor for my nose. Ended up with unexpected transportation issues this week, had found someone who could give me a ride into town yesterday only to have the doctor call in sick. So unless I can find an alternate source of transportation, the soonest I'll be able to go in myself will be Monday.

That being said, I stumbled upon part of the problem last night. Either the PA or the pharmacist gave me the wrong fucking medicine. I've been cramming topical mupirocin up my nose instead of the stuff they specifically formulate for intranasal use, and on top of that I've been using it for weeks when apparently the nasal stuff normally comes in a five day supply. So it's possible that something seriously bad is going on and I really don't want to wait five more days to have it looked at.