Chronic Illness

  It’s crazy that it has been 5 years since I have typed anything in to this BLOGSPOT, because the amount of journaling I have done in the note section of my iPhone is 5 years could fill a book! 

We all know that COVID started in 2020, and from there began a whirlwind of changes for me health-wise. Prior to this, 2017, I competed in a bikini competition, then continued to weight train and run through 2020. When businesses and gyms began to close their doors and shelter-in-place began, it would become harder to train at the caliber I was used to. Eventually, I started to notice that my joints were hurting more than usual and that my hair was thinning rapidly. 

Then, in February 1, 2022 my father in law noticed I had a headache that had lasted a few days. For some reason this stuck out to me, and I couldn’t shake it. The next day, I noticed the headache was still there, and then the next. By the following week, when the headache had been with me non-stop without letting up, I knew something wasn’t right. I demanded my doctor order an MRI immediately. Within a month I had seen my primary, a neurologist, an ENT, an ophthalmologist, a rheumatologist, an endocrinologist and a psychiatrist (we’ll get to that later!). I’m not sure how much detail people want at this point, and I also don’t anticipate to make sure I complete some blog posts, so I will cut through all the details and tell you that after 5 years of symptoms which included;

• Chronic Daily Headache

• Joint pain

• Hair loss/Thinning

• Extreme Fatigue/Exhaustion 

• Brain Fog

• Memory Loss

• Facial Numbness/Tingling 

• Finger Cysts

• Swelling in Lower Ankles/Extremities 

• Dizziness/Light headed

• Dry mouth/eyes

• Blurry Vision 

• Heart Palpitations 

• Chronic Sore Throat 

• Swollen Lymph Nodes

• Numb/Tingling Hands/Feet Extremities 

• Rashes/Itching Skin 

• Acne-like breakouts on face/scalp and in nose

Seems like a LOT, and right?! I even went to my gynecologist asking her and my primary care physician to run a full blood panel, knowing that my own mother had started perimenopause in her early 40’s and I could also be experiencing symptoms of perimenopause. Both of my doctors DISMISSED this as a possibility!!!! They told me I was TOO YOUNG to be in perimenopause! Eventually I came across an add on TikTok for Hone that offered to read my blood work to see if I was in perimenopause  the initial report said I was (without a doubt) in perimenopause and possibly past that! I never even got to the point of speaking with one of their doctors (I think they encourage you to buy their hormone replacement therapy), because at this point t I was validated that I could possibly be in perimenopause.

Isn’t it crazy that doctors don’t believe a woman could be 44 and be in the process of a physiological change?! 

Anyways, I had so much more to write about all the things I have actually been diagnosed with. All the “chronics” which they call them. Luckily, I was also cleared of many things (autoimmune mostly!) along the way, which is great news, so I will talk about that as well.

Some of the things I hope to discuss in the following posts are;

• My history with headaches

• my mom’s autoimmune 

• my tests to eliminate autoimmune 

• my tests to eliminate autonomic 

• my current ana test

• my chronic fatigue syndrome 

• my chronic sore throat/lymph nodes 

• Raynaud’s 

• Rheumatoid Arthritis 

• Sleep Test

Let me know if there is anything else you want me to cover that I forgot! 

Xo Shan