Mystery Medical Condition for 30+ Days

20 years old

Male

5'8

Weight: somewhere in the 190s

Caucasian

30+ Days

Head and Stomach

Struggled with anxiety/OCD my whole life

Not currently taking any medication

Okay, so this is going to be a very long post. Let me start this out by saying that my dad died of leukemia when I was about 6 years old. He was 49. Needless to say, ever since then, I have had really bad separation anxiety and have become a complete hypochondriac. I have always worried about my health since then and thought that I was dying multiple times in my life. However, something has been happening to me for more than a month now that I cannot seem to get over, no matter how much I try. I am so scared beyond belief and cannot shake the fear that I am dying every single day. Here's what's been happening:

So this all started when I got home from college for summer break (In early June). I had a plan to start exercising over the break and started walking around my local golf course and playing Dance Dance Revolution (don't judge me). Then this all started happening some time around the 16th of June. I overexerted myself about 2 nights in a row and started getting some massive tension headaches in my temples. However, after a while, I started noticing that the pressure in my temples wasn't going away. I will admit, it was at this time that I was already starting to freak out. The pain dropped off, but the pressure was still there. For the next few days, I noticed that the arteries in my temples were just constantly pounding really hard, so much to the point that I could feel them and see them bulging out of my skin. This caused my first trip to the ER. They told me I was fine. Then new symptoms started out of nowhere and got worse and worse. The tension in my head was getting so bad to the point where I couldn't even get out of bed. It felt like I had an elastic waistband around my head at all times. But then again, no pain. Just pressure. I started getting massive fatigue, weakness, dizziness, and more. Mind you, I am beyond paranoid at this point and thinking that I am going to die the entire time. Then the gastrointestinal symptoms started. It started off with just going to the bathroom a lot, and then it turned into full-on diarrhea. I started thinking at this point that I had a brain tumor or something, I had no idea. I went to my primary care doctor multiple times and finally got approved for an MRI of my brain. Got it done and everything was perfectly fine. I had no masses, hemorrhages, edemas, or swelling whatsoever.

Fast forward about a month now. At this point in time, my gastrointestinal problems have gotten much worse and my head symptoms have pretty much stayed the same. At this point in time, here are my symptoms:

Loose stools that come and go (occasionally turns into pure liquid diarrhea), has been mostly yellow in color and smells horrendous, like pure bile. The color has also been dark green, but never bloody or black at all. I have never found blood in my stool whatsoever, just mucus. But I simply cannot stay out of the bathroom; I am going up to 6-7 times per day. I literally have not had a normal poop in over a month now. I have been having an upset stomach pretty much every single day, especially in the morning. Usually, I wake up with a LOT of gas and end up having to use the bathroom within the first few minutes of waking up. I have also been having loss of appetite that comes and goes. Sometimes I can eat a whole lot (and then immediately rush to the bathroom), or sometimes I can't eat anything at all. Usually, when I do eat, I feel really bloated and nauseous and feel like I have to throw up (but never have once). However, I have gagged and dry-heaved in the morning before, but that hasn't happened for a while. My fatigue/weakness has definitely gotten better: I am able to walk, talk, drive, get out of bed, and lift heavy objects. However, I still always feel better if I am laying down in bed or sleeping. I have also been feeling feverish, and one time, in like the first two weeks, my temperature actually got up to 100.5 F (which caused my second trip to the ER). However, for the last couple weeks, my temperature has been completely normal and so has my blood pressure and oxygen level. Now, this is the one that really, really scares me. When this all started, I was 210 pounds. The last time I weighed myself, I was about 196 pounds. So, give or take, I have lost about 15 pounds in a month. No doubt, this is from the loss of appetite and constant pooping, but I am really worried about this. I have even tried to stuff myself with a lot of food and I don't seem to gain any weight. Now back to my head. I am still having tension in my temples every single day in one form or another. Some days it only lasts a little bit, and other times it lasts all day long. Like I mentioned before, it is just pressure, but no pain. The arteries in my temples are just pounding like nobody's business, which is certainly not normal for me. Coupled with this tension is dizziness. It has never gotten bad enough to the point where I stumble or can't walk or anything like that, but I certainly can feel it every single day. Like the pounding in my temples, it comes and goes as well. All of this pressure and dizziness has just been making me feel very heavy-headed over the past month. My head honestly feels like a ton of bricks at some points of the day. And to make matters worse, it gets even worse whenever I am not lying down in bed. For example, it gets a lot worse whenever I stand up or just simply sit down at a desk and try to read something. At the tail-end of this long list of scary symptoms is tension and a bit of stiffness in my neck. I can still move it around and rotate it pretty easily, but it just doesn't feel like it used to. However, the stiffness seems to go away whenever the tension in my temples subsides, so the two are definitely linked.

ONE VERY IMPORTANT THING I NEED TO MENTION IS THAT MOST (IF NOT ALL) OF THE SYMPTOMS I HAVE LISTED ABOVE SEEM TO JUST MAGICALLY GO AWAY (OR AT LEAST GET A LITTLE BETTER) AT NIGHT TIME. This is honestly the most puzzling part of the whole situation. I simply have no way of explaining this. The only thing I can think of is that my anxiety tends to calm down at night time. Please also keep in mind though that I have struggled with anxiety my whole life, but NEVER had these kinds of physical symptoms before.

At this point in time, I have gone to the ER about 4 or 5 times (lost count) and seen almost every doctor you could possibly imagine. In addition, I have gotten nearly every test in the world done. Every single one of them has come up with nothing. I have had over 5 blood tests (and been tested for leukemia and lymphoma). Everything has been normal, except one time, my calcium and albumin levels were slightly high (however in other blood tests, they weren't). I have had multiple urine tests, no infections or bleeding. I have done a stool test to check for occult bleeding, nothing. As previously mentioned, I had an MRI of my brain which turned up nothing abnormal. I have even had an ultrasound of my abdomen, and all of my internal organs were normal. So on paper, I am completely healthy and perfectly fine, but I feel horrible every single day. Despite all of these findings, I am still fearing the worst. I am really not good at staying calm when it comes to things like this. This started completely out of nowhere at a time in my life when I was not stressed out by anything (apart from missing my girlfriend who lives about 2 hours away from me). I am living in fear every single day and am convinced that I am going to die. This has gone on way too long to be something minor, but then again, if it was something life-threatening, I am sure that something would have been found by now. Every doctor keeps telling me that it's not cancer and simply anxiety, but I honestly don't believe them. Because of this, I have become extremely depressed and more anxious than ever. I am having trouble sleeping at night and having visions of losing my loved ones. I am crying every single day and have completely lost interest in doing the things that once made me happy. This condition is ruining my life and my relationship with everybody I know. I am miserable and I just want to be diagnosed so that I can put a name to this. I am going in to see a gastroenterologist tomorrow afternoon and currently waiting for some more blood work to come back along with a stool culture to check for parasites or bacteria. For the dizziness, my doctor recommended going to an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor to get my inner ears checked I guess. I am also getting my eyes checked soon (as I have been having slight vision changes) and currently seeing a psychiatrist (as if all that wasn't enough). Like I mentioned previously, almost every doctor I have been to has told me it could be anxiety and/or depression. However, I keep trying to tell them that my anxiety/depression came about AS A RESULT of these symptoms and was not the underlying cause itself. Then again, though, there are some times when I do think it could be anxiety. Like for example, the pressure in my temples seems to go away when my mind is off of things (like when I am driving). But then what makes me think it's not anxiety is that I wake up with my temples pulsating hard almost every morning. The last time I went to the ER, I was given Famotidine (Pepcid) to reduce acid in my stomach, which seems to have been helping a bit. But then as soon as I think I'm finally getting better, all of the symptoms come back. No part of this mysterious condition is consistent, which makes it all the more strange. It makes no sense at all to me.

I also thought it would be important to mention that I was on Sertraline (Zoloft) for OCD and anxiety about 2 years ago and got off of it about a year ago because I thought I didn't need it anymore. Needless to say, I made a mistake and wasn't able to handle stress as well as I used to. My psychiatrist prescribed it to me again, but I am hesitant to take it until I get all of these other tests done with my other doctors. Plus, I don't know what's going to happen after being off of it for so long and then all of a sudden getting back on it. I am not convinced in the least that anxiety/depression could be causing these severe of symptoms for this long of a time. But then again, I know absolutely nothing at this point. This has been completely baffling myself and every single doctor I have gone to. Nobody can figure out what is wrong with me. I have been told it could be anything from IBS, to ulcerative colitis, to anxiety, depression, colorectal cancer, temporal arteritis, Chron's disease, vertigo, or something related to a food allergy (like Celiac disease or lactose intolerance). I don't know if I have any food allergies, but hopefully I will find out soon at the GI specialist. The only other things I can think of that I guess could be considered "warning signs" are that this last quarter of college, I noticed that I was getting a lot of acid reflux-like symptoms and heartburn. But that could have just been from the food I was eating. Also, there was a time that I got really dizzy out of nowhere, but it went away after like 2 days. Please, if anybody can give me some advice or moral support, I would greatly appreciate it. My spirits are so low, you cannot even imagine. I do not want to die. I am only 20 years old and I have my whole life ahead of me. I apologize if this whole thing sounds extremely selfish, but I just don't know where to turn anymore. I want my old life back. I want to be normal again. Thanks.

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