Same symptoms - Finally figured out

Hi. I know this is an old post but just wanted to add my experience.

I am 38F. I have had spinal fusion on lower spine which led to a 10 year addiction of pain medication. I have had numerous kidney stone removals and stent placements and gallbladder removed. I have had high blood pressure for years. I have always had very irregular periods since i started. I have also been unable to get pregnant. Those 2 things and other symptoms made my dr think i had PCOS. I never followed up with treatment. I also have a long history of anxiety and depression and migraines. Im a ton of fun you can see. Lol. Anyways about 6 months ago my blood pressure medication stopped working. Dr switched things around and it was ok for a while but about 2 months ago it skyrocketed and still hasnt been controlled by medicine. Its pretty much stayed around 170-200/120. I also found i was exhausted after just short amounts of activity. I would be drenched in sweat, chest pain, dizzy, nauseous, if i ate certain things it felt like i couldn't swallow it. I became super grumpy and rude and that's not normal at all. Just felt something was off but after such a long addiction to meds, it led to me going to a dr or the er weekly to get more meds. My mind tricked me into hurting so I could get my fix. So after i gave up the pain medication i went over a year without going to the hospital or to a doctor other than my addiction counselor. A weird achievement to some people but a huge step for me. So when i started to feel all those symptoms i ignored it. I told myself that my mind is tricking me again and i felt like i couldnt even trust myself. So i ignored it and soon the only way i could function is laying flat in my bed. I eventually called the nurse at my drs office and explained the symptoms. She said i need to be evaluated but they didnt have any openings and i should go to prompt care because my blood pressure was 200/120. I have a family history of deaths from stroke and heart failure, which were the 2 things they were worried about. I went to prompt care. My blood pressure and pulse were thru the roof. They gave me an EKG and everything looked fine. They said there wasnt anything else they could do at prompt care and i needed to go to the ER. i said okay no problem and i went home. i just did not believe myself at all. well the next day I decided to go. Blood pressure still thru the roof. all the same symptoms. they did an EKG and it was normal. did blood work and chest xray. finally they came back and said i needed a CT to check for blood clots. one of the blood test came back with very high d-dimer levels. so they take me for the ct and then i wait for 2 hours for the dr to come back. well i didnt have a blood clot but because of my elevated levels was the reason they even did the ct scan. on the scan they found that i had a very large tumor growing down from my thyroid. it is already compressing my trachea quite a bit which explains the trouble breathing and why it feels like certain foods are stuck. it has grown so far down it is actually growing behind my sternum. so they call it a substernal thyroid. the only option is removing the thyroid and tumor after biopsy. the weird thing though is my thyroid tests all came back normal. but it finally explains so many things like my irregular periods, heavy bleeding and cramps, infertility, facial hair growth, always being so hot no matter the temperature, headaches, change in mood, increased depression and anxiety, chest pain, shortness of breath, nausea and vomiting, dizzy spells, mental confusion, fatigue and im sure a lot more. the er doc said he would have never thought to check my thyroid. he assumed it was a heart related issue. that was 1 week ago. im waiting to hear from the ENT dr to get his evaluation. i guess substernal thyroid is not very common and so there are many decisions to make. since my trachea is already compressed being intubated for surgery can be extremely difficult. most people who have sternal thyroids have the surgery thru a neck incision and they can reach the tumor to remove it easily. however those people with compressed tracheas sometimes requires a sternotomy just because they cant reach it any other way. so that would involve cracking open the chest and grabbing it that way. i have never been scared of surgeries before. usually i was excited cuz it led to more pain medication but this will be my first invasive medical issue without pain medication. im not sure how to get around it but i don't want to take any pain medication. im hoping the dr has another option as far as pain medication but we havent gotten to that place yet.

I just wanted to say thay doing as much research online to find as much information that you can is important. its your body and you know when something feels wrong. you live with your symptoms and pain every second of every day. to a doctor you are just another patient and they can only go off of what you tell them and usually they spend very little time with you so they are making a judgment call based off of just a few minutes if talking with you. search the internet responsibly. dont assume its cancer every time. no reason to freak yourself out even more. but you should educate yourself about what symptoms you have. it also helps to download an app that keeps track of your symptoms daily. its nice to be able to print that info to show the dr. it also gives you the opportunity to see if your symptoms follow a pattern or if there is something that triggers the symptoms.

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