For the past two year I have been constantly getting ill, excercise (even mild) seems to trigger illness and the past 9 months have been particularly ridiculous. I spent the best part of 3 months in bed with nondescript infections that cause my lymph nodes to swell, especially in the back of my neck which becomes hot to the touch, accompanied by a rotting taste in the back of my throat but NO sore throat, extreme fatigue and fevers. I had three sets of antibiotics and symptoms would reappear 2/3 weeks later, on the last bout I started getting electric shock bee sting type pains in my left thigh.
I eventually seemed to shift whatever it was and all was well for a month till I woke up a few days ago with my first ever bout of vertigo with nausea, it lasted half a day, Doc said there was no ear infection but my eyes felt noticeably strained when doc did the ‘follow his finger’ test especially when I looked upwards which seemed to set the vertigo off again. I have positive RF and ANA 800+ another antibody also tested positive which apparently means I will develop RA but I have only ever had mild rheumatic joint symptoms and don’t understand why I would experience constant illness, fatigue, and intermittent nerve and vision problems whilst only having mild aching knee joints if the symptoms where linked to Rheumatism?. I have intermittently experienced electric shock sensations up my neck since I was a child but these shocks are rare, my main concern is my persistant blurred vision and sudden vertigo. .
.I have had blurred vision for the last 9 months, once again it comes and goes but I have it most days, It feels like my eyes just can’t be a****d to focus, I often have to stop watching tv because I start to feel nauseaous with the effort of trying to focus through disorientating blurs. I have a very mild glasses prescription for long sightedness and a stigmatism, opticians didn’t find anything else but the problem is getting more noticeable and is happening more frequenly, coupled with the nerve pains during my bouts of illness and the sudden onset of vertigo do I have reason to be concerned? I also want to add that I have noticable memory and concentration problems especially with word recall. Just fed up of being tired, ill and seasick : (
BTW I also have hypothyroidism and had a full abdominal hysterectomy for intestinal endometriosis 3 years ago, both conditions took years and years to be diagnosed and I was labelled a hypochondriac by the mother in law for all those years before I got a firm diagnosis, even though I was eventually proven to have two chronic conditions, she is back to secretly turning up her nose at me because I’ve started to get ill again and I really need to get a quick diagnosis this time just to stop her making me feel like crap all over again. . .
I have to say though, the swollen lymph glands and hot to the touch neck make it sound like it’s not MS. as these are not things that are associated with MS. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t something else going on of course and I would definitely be pushing for proper investigations if I were you. One place to start might be ophthalmology - they should be able to work out what’s going on with your eyes, and hopefully help with it. Where to go next might become more obvious depending on what they say, although, seeing a consultant rheumatologist seems like a logical step since RA has been mentioned.