Diagnose me! Wth is going on?

[Anonymous]

So for the past year or more I’ve been having a lot of brain fog and difficulty concentrating. I also have a hard time finding words and tend to get overwhelmed by conversation. I also have had more frequent infections and have an anemia that has required multiple iron infusions a couple of times a year.
Fast forward to last few months and I’ve had low grade fevers. They come, I think I’m coming down with something, feel tired and achy. Then they go away and the cycle repeats a few weeks later. Well the last couple of weeks I’ve had that again except now my body really hurts, my neck/shoulder are hurting all the time. I have this weird chest pain in the area right below my neck and down to nipple line that just feels like my chest is cold. It’s the same pain as if your hands are too cold for too long.
I have a constant ringing in my ear and now my mouth has a reddened/swollen are near my gums that I’ve also seen before but thought maybe it was brushing related. It hurts.

I had an appointment tomorrow with my PCP but she went on maternity leave early. Now I have to wait to see another PCP. My husband wants me to go to ER or at least UC but I don’t think I should, considering my symptoms aren’t an emergency. I also think I’d rather go to sleep today and wake up weeks from now so I don’t have to be feeling like this for weeks while I have no answer.

[Anonymous]

Your husband is right. Go to urgent care.

[Anonymous]

Celiac?

[Anonymous]

The infections and fevers sound potentially unrelated to the pain. But yes I'd see a doc soon (not necessarily ER).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The infections and fevers sound potentially unrelated to the pain. But yes I'd see a doc soon (not necessarily ER).

Op here: no, I agree. Except I have no pain during the chunks of time when I have no fever. Now I’ve been having fever off and on and I have pain.

[Anonymous]

How long do you have to wait to see the new dr.? Your doctor should have made arrangements for sick visits during her leave and this is a sick visit. You need thorough lab work. The anemia can certainly explain the brain fog though not the fever. did you discover the source of your anemia? I don’t think you will get a lot of help at an urgent care but they at least can do basic labs. I would call back to dr’s office and say you are ill and want the soonest possible appt. good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How long do you have to wait to see the new dr.? Your doctor should have made arrangements for sick visits during her leave and this is a sick visit. You need thorough lab work. The anemia can certainly explain the brain fog though not the fever. did you discover the source of your anemia? I don’t think you will get a lot of help at an urgent care but they at least can do basic labs. I would call back to dr’s office and say you are ill and want the soonest possible appt. good luck!

So one of my best friends saw the Dr (we go to the same one) about 3 weeks ago and she said she was 28 weeks. I didn’t even know the Dr was pregnant! My friend also had a follow up scheduled for next week, so I think the Dr went on maternity leave way earlier than expected so I don’t think they had plans to absorb all her patients this soon. I’ll have to wait 3 wks to see the new person, who is new to the practice and doesn’t start there until next week.

[Anonymous]

Lyme disease.

Are you sure those low grade fevers are true fevers - not hotflashes.

If you're 40+ consider peri/menopause rearing it's ugly head. Symptoms vary and are erratic so no 2 people are alike.

With all that iron infusion - are you on meds from your hemotologist? There might be unintended side effects - brain fog, etc.

Any chance you have circulatory issue going on?

[Anonymous]

The fevers could be autoimmune. Your nerve pain sounds like the peripheral neuropathy I have in my hands and feet, except yours is in a different location.

You may need to see several different specialists, it can take persistence to get a diagnosis. Take charge of this, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lyme disease.

Are you sure those low grade fevers are true fevers - not hotflashes.

If you're 40+ consider peri/menopause rearing it's ugly head. Symptoms vary and are erratic so no 2 people are alike.

With all that iron infusion - are you on meds from your hemotologist? There might be unintended side effects - brain fog, etc.

Any chance you have circulatory issue going on?

I have thought of Lyme. But would I have had a bullseye rash first? I don’t remember ever having a tick on me or a rash like that.

I’m 36 and I’m sure it’s not hot flashes. I get chills (although my temp is never over 101) and feel really cold (like it’s cold in the room even though it isn’t), which I understand is not how hot flashes go.

[Anonymous]

I would see a rheumatologist. Urgent Care will be useless for this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lyme disease.

Are you sure those low grade fevers are true fevers - not hotflashes.

If you're 40+ consider peri/menopause rearing it's ugly head. Symptoms vary and are erratic so no 2 people are alike.

With all that iron infusion - are you on meds from your hemotologist? There might be unintended side effects - brain fog, etc.

Any chance you have circulatory issue going on?

I have thought of Lyme. But would I have had a bullseye rash first? I don’t remember ever having a tick on me or a rash like that.

I’m 36 and I’m sure it’s not hot flashes. I get chills (although my temp is never over 101) and feel really cold (like it’s cold in the room even though it isn’t), which I understand is not how hot flashes go.

I’m not saying this is what’s going on with you, but I am perimenopausal and I don’t get hot flashes, I get cold flashes. There are times when it feels like I should be able to see my breath but in fact the room is perfectly warm. so I wouldn’t rule out hormonal or thyroid causes.

[Anonymous]

^^sorry, forgot to answer your other questions. My hematologist doesn’t have me on any meds. All I take is a prenatal with iron.

Something circulatory like what? I haven’t considered that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How long do you have to wait to see the new dr.? Your doctor should have made arrangements for sick visits during her leave and this is a sick visit. You need thorough lab work. The anemia can certainly explain the brain fog though not the fever. did you discover the source of your anemia? I don’t think you will get a lot of help at an urgent care but they at least can do basic labs. I would call back to dr’s office and say you are ill and want the soonest possible appt. good luck!

So one of my best friends saw the Dr (we go to the same one) about 3 weeks ago and she said she was 28 weeks. I didn’t even know the Dr was pregnant! My friend also had a follow up scheduled for next week, so I think the Dr went on maternity leave way earlier than expected so I don’t think they had plans to absorb all her patients this soon. I’ll have to wait 3 wks to see the new person, who is new to the practice and doesn’t start there until next week.

Hmm. I am ni alarmist but I would not wait 3 weeks with recurrent fevers. I think you should find one of the urgent cares that does primary care too-you need a thorough physical and extensive labs. Alternately, you could ask to speak with the nurse at your practice and describe the situation. They may squeeze you in sooner or run some initial labs before the appt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
- a lot of brain fog and difficulty concentrating.
- a hard time finding words and tend to get overwhelmed by conversation.
- more frequent infections
- have an anemia that has required multiple iron infusions a couple of times a year.
- had low grade fevers.
- I think I’m coming down with something, feel tired and achy. Then they go away and the cycle repeats a few weeks later.
- had that again except now my body really hurts, my neck/shoulder are hurting all the time. I have this weird chest pain in the area right below my neck and down to nipple line that just feels like my chest is cold. It’s the same pain as if your hands are too cold for too long.
- I have a constant ringing in my ear and now my mouth has a reddened/swollen are near my gums that I’ve also seen before but thought maybe it was brushing related. It hurts.

(Sorry for reformatting - was having trouble parsing the wall of text (short attention span over here).

IANAD but from the first batch, it sounds autoimmune (we have Hashimoto's thyroiditis and celiac in the family. Either of those can account for the brain fog, achiness, and ringing in the ear (tinnitis) due to the general inflammation/feeling crappy that can accompany uncontrolled autoimmune conditions; anemia can be caused by celiac (poor absorption).

Who diagnosed the anemia and ordered iron infusions? Did they do any further investigation, or was the diagnosis basically, "low iron? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ go get infused"?

If you go to urgent care, please consider asking them to run a full thyroid panel, a full celiac panel (not just TTG-IGA - a new study came out this week showing that it's not as on-target a measure as was previously thought), and similar for any other AI conditions that seem like possibilities.

If it were me, I'd be pushing the anemia-diagnoser to dig into *why* such anemia; if that was your PCP, then maybe polite persistence with the practice is the way to go. (Sure, maybe she went on leave early, but there are short-term resources they can engage to cover the gap rather than just throwing up their arms and telling patients they'll have to wait until the group is (somehow, miraculously) fully staffed again.