A sort of complicated problem...

Well, I was going to keep quiet about this, but it's been going on for about a year now and I'm getting really tired of it, so I figured I'd start asking around...

I've been abnormally sore and achey for a while now. Sometimes it's not too bad, but sometimes it's so bad I can barely walk. Something always seems to be sore on me... sometimes it's my joints, sometimes it's my muscles. Sometimes my back and hips hurt so bad I have to use a cane just to get around the house. The muscles that ache aren't really specific, they can be anywhere from my face to my feet. If I get hurt, like scraped or bruised or whacked on accident, it hurts a lot more than it used to. I used to be somewhat strong, people could hit me in play and it wouldn't bother me at all, but now it hurts a lot, or if I accidentally knock myself on something, I wouldn't normally have noticed in most cases but now it hurts a lot. Even little things hurt - all somebody has to do is flick or poke me and it hurts... not a ton, but it never used to really hurt at all. Also, I used to be able to carry heavier things over longer distances, but now my muscles get sore and tired and I can't do nearly as much as I used to. I often wake up feeling like all my muscles are dead and I feel like there's no way I possibly have the strength to sit up. If I don't lay awake in bed for a little while and sort of move a little bit first before trying to get up, I get really lightheaded as soon as I sit up. I've always been tired and reluctant to get up when I wake up, 'cause I'm not a morning person, but I never used to wake up feeling so sore every day, even if I hadn't done anything strenuous the day before. I used to be able to walk or ride a bike for miles without getting tired and now I'm lucky if I can go one mile. If I go to a concert where I've got my arms in the air a lot by the next day I can barely hold my hands over my head for more than a few seconds because my arms get so dead.

As I said, this started about a year ago, in late summer/early fall. At first, for the first three or four months, I was hoping it was some sort of phase and would go away, but it didn't. Around the time it started happening nothing in my life changed. No family drama more than the usual, no change in diet, no change in how much I excersized, no more stress than usual, no new medication. I got a job in December, but that was after this started. I do take (or am supposed to take) medication for my asthma (which is fairly mild) and I have pills for allergies. Last time I was tested for allergies the tests were all negative, but I know I must be allergic to something because my eyes and nose get really itchy, I think it's dust because one year at a music festival I inhaled a lot of dust and that was around the time the allergies started, so my doctor gave me some general allergy pills and they seem to help. But I wondered if maybe any of my medications were contributing to the problem so a couple months ago I stopped taking them, and it made no difference. I recently started taking the allergy pills again because I can't stand being so itchy, but again, my other problems didn't seem to get any better or worse.

I know it probably doesn't help that I don't sleep well, though I don't think that's the root of the problem because I have had trouble sleeping all my life. Less so when I was younger... as a little kid I would occasionally have trouble sleeping and get up to get a drink around two in the morning, but in the past few years it's gotten worse. It's not uncommon for me to be fully awake through the entire night. Also sometimes I will only get between two and four hours of sleep. It's also not uncommon for me to have extremely vivid nightmares that will wake me up several times in the night. Most often I sleep through the night, but only get a few hours' actual rest. I know this because the nights I sleep but don't rest, I generally have vivid dreams, and can feel how much rest I got when I wake up. When I rest all night, I can feel the difference... I will often sleep all night but only rest for one to six hours, depending. When I rest all night I generally don't have dreams that I remember. Still, I don't think sleep is the root of the problem because I've been sleeping irregularly like this since I was twelve or so.

I went to the doctor about six months ago, in late winter/early spring. The doctor told me to eat better and excersize. I don't think that's my problem because I really don't eat that poorly, and I'm often up and out and doing things all day. Since I have horses, I spend a lot of time outside working with the horses. I know many people who eat much worse than I do who are much healtheir than I am. I generally avoid junk food like chips and ice cream because I'm not real big on the stuff anyway, I'll only have it occasionally. I don't like many vegetables, but I will sometimes go out of my way to eat the ones I do like, and I like a lot of fruits so whenever we have fruit in the house I will generally eat it. I eat a lot of convenience food because we don't often make family meals, but I try to eat decently even with that, and not overeat... I like things like rice and noodles, so I'll make stuff like that for myself sometimes. I try to drink plenty of water too, I have a 12 oz. bottle I keep in the fridge and I'll often drink two of those in a day.

The doctor also asked if I was depressed, though I told her I wasn't because my mom was in the room. In truth, I've dealt with depression my entire life, for as long as I can remember. As a little kid I can remember times when I would go to bed praying to die in my sleep, times when I wished some tragic accident would happen to me so my family would be rid of me, and I had terrible self esteem, often thinking that I was just a waste and a burden to my family. When I got older, around twelve or thirteen, I was able to identify my depression and realize what it was. It was still only off and on though until I was fourteen, at which point I became chronically depressed. Since then there have been a couple of times when I've had reprieves from my depression for as long as a month or two, but it always hits again and generally I don't get a reprieve for more than a day or two. I've had several other problems stem from the depression, most of them cropping up when I was fifteen, which was when my depression was worst. Lately the depression's been getting a bit better, I've been trying to think positively and maintian a sense of purpose, and I've been working through a lot of issues in my head. I still hit extremely low points every now and then, but in general it's not as bad. I'll often have a vague feeling of depression that sort of floats beneath the surface of my thoughts, but it's generally not as all-consuming as it used to be. I did consider that depression might be the source of my aches, but I don't really think so for a few reasons. For one, I've been dealing with this my entire life, and this problem is only recent. For another, even when I'm not depressed I'm still just as achey as when I am. Lastly, I've learned to know what the depression does to me physically, and it's never done anything like this before. It often gives me a lingering fatigue but nothing that hinders my daily life, it can give me headaches, and it often gives me this sick feeling in my stomach, sometimes to the point where I feel like I want to just throw up or pass out to get rid of it, but of course I never do because I'm not actually sick, I just feel sick. It's never really made me achey before like this.

I considered also that it might all be in my head, which at one point seemed the most logical conclusion, but after thinking about it for a long time I doubt that too. It's not attention seeking because I don't like it when people pay special attention to me and I generally avoid special attention as much as possible. If I were attention seeking, I would be getting the attention - I know many ways I could if I really wanted to. Also, I hate complaining, so I generally just grin and bear it even if I'm so tired and achey that I want to curl up in a dark corner and stay there until the twelfth of never. If I wanted attention I would complain a lot, and I don't. I also thought that if it were all in my head I would be able to reverse it in my head, so I tried that. I tried for a couple of weeks telling myself that there was absolutely nothing wrong with me. When something hurt, I told myself that it didn't hurt at all and I was just imagining it. I would lift everything I used to lift and work as hard as I used to work, and if I ended up getting so sore I could barely do it I would keep pushing myself, telling myself that there was nothing wrong with me and I could do everything I used to. There was no change, and eventually it ended up draining even more energy out of me, so I gave up on that.

A neighbor and friend asked wether I had regular periods, because she said she knew somebody who had something that sounded similar but she'd stopped having her periods. My periods are still as regular as they've ever been... they've never been right on the dot, and I've missed one or two, but they're generally every three weeks or so. Sometimes a week early, sometimes a week late, but usually every three weeks.

My mom thought it sounded like fibromialgia (sp?) even though she said I was a bit young for it... she has fibro, but when I went to the doctor she didn't think that was what it was. The doctor ran a blood test on me, but didn't find anything.

As far as my back and hip goes, I was going to a chiropractor regularly when this started (though I'm not now because the insurance doesn't pay for it). I have a really bad back, from the bottom up it goes off to the right then off to the left and then straightens right before getting to my neck. Even when I was going to the chiropractor regularly it didn't seem to help my back a whole lot, and it would still hurt, even right after getting adjusted. It didn't seem to hurt any more or less if I went a lot or only once a month, and even now that I'm not going it doesn't seem to be any different.

Also, I was taking some fish oil vitamin pills for the omega for about a month or two but that didn't seem to help either.

I'm addicted to caffine, but I don't think that has anything to do with it (or not sleeping well) because I still slept poorly before I was addicted and I looked up the affects of caffine and they didn't seem to match up with the muscle and joint aches.

That's as much information as I can think of... if anybody has ever heard of anything that sounds similar or knows what it might be, I'd greatly appreciate any information or thoughts... I have a weird habit of researching diseases and disorders but I've never come across anything like this, and I would search for it if I knew what to search for, but it's hard to search for a problem when the symptoms are "lots of pain, everywhere," so any clues might help... also, I would really appreciate any suggestions for things to try.

Sorry this post is so long, but I wanted to include any information that might be relevent... I'm really getting tired of feeling like I'm old and falling apart when I'm only seventeen, and not being able to do all the things my friends do because I'm so sore all the time. It's also caused a lot of stress in my family (as if we needed more) because they get frustrated when I can't do things and we don't have the money to keep taking me in to different doctors. So if I could get this figured out, that would be really wonderful...

 

It's probably not osteoarthritis because it's not really chronic pain... it just flares up every now and then, and it moves from place to place, it's not always in the same place. Thanks for the suggestion though, I will look into different kinds of arthritis because I know it's in my family... and I have heard of people getting it at an early age.

As far as the thing where your bones get brittle and break, my bones aren't brittle... I haven't broken a bone in a long time, since I was eight or nine probably. So it's not that.

I'll have to look more into fibro... my doctor didn't think it was that, but my mom thought it sounded like it... does anybody know if there's anything you can do for fibro?

 

Thanks for the info guys... I think my doctor did check for Lyme disease and said that wasn't it, because I live in midwest US so I think that was one of the first things she checked for if I remember correctly.

I'm not feverish, and my joints don't swell... I can't think of anything that really makes it better, but it gets a little worse if I'm really tired or on a caffine or adrenaline crash (I get the worst adrenaline crashes, and every single one of my problems gets amplified during them). I don't think it's really patterned, like by time of day or weather or season or anything like that, not that I've noticed at all... it seems to be pretty random. I tried taking Ibuprofen once for it but it didn't seem to make a difference and I never tried it again or anything else because I'm very anti-medication (actually, more like afraid of the side affects and possible dependency/addiction issues), so even if I get injured or have a really bad headache or whatever I would generally rather just deal with the pain and tough it out than take any painkillers. I guess I'm especially anti-painkiller because it seems to me that painkillers are just a quick fix coverup to deal with the problem temporarily and don't really get to the root of the problem and deal with the real issue... maybe that's just my skewed philosophy, but that's how I tend to think of it. I don't have any visual problems (though I recently started getting headaches when I used the computer so I've started using my glasses again) or any problems with speech or mobility. I am very mentally absent and unfocused a lot of the time though, my mind tends to wander a lot, and part of that I think is just my creativity - my mind's always venturing off into my own fictitious worlds and characters - but I don't think all of it is... I think it's gotten worse too, because I find more often that I'll just completely zone out, and my mind's not even wandering but just sort of blank. I have noticed though that if I drink energy drinks like Monster and Rockstar I tend to be able to focus and concentrate a little easier, I'm not sure what it is but there must be some vitamin or something in them that helps with that. I know they've got some B vitamins and other stuff like Taurine, Ginsing, Milk Thistle Extract, etc... I don't really know what any of those things are or what they do, but one of them (or a combination) seems to help me focus.

If it's especially good for Lupus, I think she probably must have, because I know she mentioned it and it was one of the main things she was looking for... I don't remember exactly though, as it was a little while ago now and I wasn't paying real great attention because I was pretty angry that she was telling me, in essence, "it's all in your head, you're fine, go home and feel better." I don't think she was taking me very seriously. If I go back I will definitely ask though, or if I go to a different doctor and they run a new test on me I will ask for one.

Thanks for all the info, both of you... I don't really know anything about most of the things you mentioned except for Rheumatoid Arthritis (which I know about because it's in my family) and fibro which I looked up a bit the other night, but I will definitely look into them now... and bring them up next time I do see a doctor. I don't know when that will be, because our insurance right now isn't very good and after I turn eighteen I have no idea what I'm going to have as far as insurance and what my financial situation will be, but I guess that will give me more time to do some research and give clearer information when I do see a doctor... I will make it a priority as soon as I get a chance to go, definitely. Hopefully this time they'll be able to tell me more if I come with more information.

I figure this is probably a pretty long shot, but it couldn't be some kind of weird infection, could it, from an injury? I didn't think infections acted like this or lasted this long without changing much/at all, but I figured I'd ask just in case...

 

Yeah, I didn't really think it was an infection, just wanted to make sure... 'cause I do get hurt a lot.

Thanks for the advice, I will see a doctor as soon as I can... I don't want to mess myself up for life, my ambitions are too big for that. =]