Causes for swollen lymph nodes in neck headache and tiredness

My crazy symptoms after strange infection - neurological and flushing
In august last year I had strong infection, I was sweating by month, extreme fatigue, swollen lymph node under armpit.
Since then I have tons of symptons:

• neuropathic pain in back, deep pain in spine
• right shoulder blade is painful and deep itching, extremely weird tingling pain deep, when I move my arm
• my back feels so messed up I feel asymetric when I walk, when I breathe I feel pain in lot of different places in body
• redness on face, flushing, red ears, heatwaves and warm feeling (mostly at night) - when my face is flushed, symptoms of pins needles burning are the worst
• electric, neuralgic pains in face, head, scalp, pain when I move my eyes deep in face
• body itching, itch deep inside ears, face
• skin on face, scalp, eyelids twitch randomly, like electric shocks
• fatigue, brain fog
• brain zaps
• pins needles in feet, body for example when I put my clothes on
• random warm feelings in legs like hot water in legs
• hives which disappeared mostly

Here are pics of my red face flushed:
https://ibb.co/album/WWw7VS
Bloodwork is ok. Is it some kind of long covid? Taking gabapentin, doesnt help too much. Antihistamines doesnt work (ketotifen too) so not MCAS..Please, tell me which lab tests should I take. Please, I feel like a living dead.

My last flat was unbearable.
I mean, you try having a family of 11 live above you, when half of them are under the age of 8. Also try having a pair of raging alcoholic neighbours on either side of you. A pair who were once married to each other. My eyes rivalled that of pigeons’ due to no sleep.
I lasted a total of 21 days. I know, new record huh? I just about shoved the keys back in the grubby hands of my landlord when I finally saw the lunacy inscribed on his face. No wonder the rent was dirt cheap.
So I was back on the road, not on the streets though. Luckily enough I started questioning the flat by day 8, looked around for another place by day 15, and made a decision to get the hell out on day 18. 3 days of packing and it was bye-bye.
My new place seemed all the better too: yes, the rent was more expensive, and yes, it only has 2 bedrooms. But at least it was a house, one where pesky neighbours were at least 5 metres away. On my right, at least. On my left? Their house - thankfully - couldn’t even be seen where I stood.
Parking my car, I skipped up towards my new house with my fresh set of keys. And on entering? Silence. Perfect still silence. Thank the Lord. I basked in it for a while before returning to my car, unloading some of my baggage. It took 3-4 hauls, but I managed to fit it into one of the bedrooms. Thankfully, the rest of my things were to be brought by moving vans in about an hour.
I envisioned what the house could look like with a few finishing touches.
“But first…”
I eyed the 2 rooms. “Mine!”
The room I had chosen to be mine gave a bright view of my own smaller garden, as well as a portion of my right neighbour’s house, but that didn’t matter much. The view in the other room would suck: just my car and some reeds.
I was just about done heaving some of my baggage into my newly-chosen room when the doorbell gave an obnoxious ring. I stood, fighting the urge to just run away into one of my rooms when it beeped again.
Reaching the door, I eyed out of the peephole to see nothing but an opaque whiteness. I guess the downside in this house is that the last tenant was a slob. I eyed some of the yellowing walls. Sighing, I opened the door.
“Hello! We’re your neighbours, Jack and Sally, and we live just there,” She motioned towards my right, “We came to introduce ourselves, and to let you know that if you ever need anything, we’re right here.”
She then shoved a basket full of biscuits at my chest, a motherly-smile stretched around her lips. She turned to leave, husband - clearly forced to follow her - in tow, when she turned around.
“Your name, dear?”
“Leen!” I shouted after her.
“Perfect.”
And perfect it was, I thought. Neighbours that respect their distance from you, and give you food? I eyed the delicious snacks in front of me. Definitely an upgrade.
Though it was at dawn the very next day that I woke up, shook.
~
See, I was just sleeping in my newly delivered bed when I heard it. Something that sounded like a bird, a huge caw, before it alternated into different pitches. Disoriented, I tried to wipe the sleep from my eyes in order to focus better. But it just made me more confused.
It sounded like a chicken.
As far as I know, this new place was not the countryside, nor farmland. So what? And why?
I stepped up to my window to take a good look outside. I wouldn’t keep a rooster in my home that’s for sure. Whatever it was, it was coming from…
My jaw dropped.
I closed my eyes and scrubbed at them harshly.
Please tell me why I opened my eyes and saw the exact same thing.
A man, on his haunches, face pointed towards the sky, was making rooster noises.
And he was on my neighbours’ garden. The ones I met earlier.
He looked absolutely demented. I wasn’t even scared then, just flabbergasted. I wasted no time calling the police at this disturbing nuisance.
When they arrived though, I saw my neighbours’ shoot straight from their house, speaking or…was it pleading? With the officers. What on Earth..?
Anyway, it was their problem now, so I went back to bed. I had a whole bunch of chores the next day, and had to get it all sorted before I returned to work.
Shutting my eyes, I wished for peace. And quiet, thank you very much.
~
At last, I woke up at 10 AM. By 1 PM, I had sorted my clothing into its respective drawers, and had decorated my bedroom walls, including a new golden addition. And now? I had food cooking on the stove. It felt satisfying, having cleaned up and now awaiting the prize of food.
I scrolled on my phone as I waited for the pasta to cook, before another ding turned my attention towards the door.
“Huh, what now?”
Unfortunately I hadn’t cleaned the peephole yet, so I had to open the door. There stood Jack and Sally. Or Sally and Jack. Jack looked lost. Sally stared deep into my eyes.
“Was it you?”
“Me? What do you mean?”
“That called the police last night?”
I recalled the past night, and gave her a thumbs up, hoping my smile was reassuring. “Yep, don’t worry, that lunatic will not be coming back ever again. He can go to the zoo if he wants to squawk.”
I should’ve taken the cue from Jack’s paling face, but Sally grabbed hold of me. “Listen here, okay? That man, the one you called the police on...” She trembled, “He’s my son! You can’t do that! He was not even on your property!”
My eyes widened. “He’s…your son?”
“Of course! How can you not see that?”
Nodding at her, I relinquished myself from the hold she had on my arms. “Okay then, sorry for the call. But I do have to mention something,” Jack started to shake his head behind his wife, but I ignored the little-to-say man, “Is there any way you can keep the noise down to a minimum? Honestly, your son has vocal cords of steel! It would wake the entire neighbourhood at this rate.”
Sally stared pointedly at me, then took a look around my house. “Very well.”
She grabbed her husband’s arm as she turned to leave, and I caught the slightest look of fear in his eyes before he was abruptly pulled away.
I dismissed it - and the sinking feeling - on discovering my very soft, overcooked pasta when I came back into my home though.
I managed to also do one thing before wrapping up: I cleaned out my door's peephole. Now I wouldn't have to open the door to know it's them. I'd just speak at them from the inside if they were to come back.
~
I woke, jolting out of my bed the very next morning, or night. I checked my bedside clock to see it was 3:50 AM. The cock-a-doodle-doo was breaking into my head. I grasped my hair in frustration, knowing that I didn’t have the madman’s parents phone numbers’ to call, or maybe scream at them. It was the exact same thing as the day before! Except…maybe…
I strained my ear.
It sounded a lot closer.
My hands, for some reason, became clammy instantly, and the urgent thumping of my own heart - the fragility of my own life - became all the more prominent.
I tiptoed to my window and peeked outside. Nothing.
I then slowly treaded to my spare bedroom, and pulled the curtains apart. Zilch. Nada. Though…
Almost as if under a spell, my head turned towards my main door. I…I could somehow feel it. Just to confirm though, I peeked out of the door-hole.
And with a slam, I collapsed in my new, dream home.
~
When I came to, I was lying on white sheets, and a bright white light hung over me.
A hospital.
I was in my own room, which I found odd. It was not like I needed it. But then a doctor walked in, followed by 3 other people, and it all made sense. Everything - blurs and sureness - melted into a perfect picture.
Sally, Jack, and their son.
He couldn’t be more than 17 really. Though he looked 37 a few hours ago. Face pressed against the glass of my peephole, mouth wide open towards it, eyes pointing in different directions as his face reddened and contorted.
I was deaf in one moment. Then came the COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO.
Of course I fainted. Who could blame me?
“Good afternoon, I’m Dr Lam. You’re in A&E right now. Are you able to tell me your full name and date of birth?
My voice answered the Doctor’s questions, but my eyes stared dazed at the youngster’s abdomen, not daring to reach his its eyes.
“Well, nothing seems to be wrong with you. You may have just been dehydrated. Did you have any headache or pain before you fainted?”
I replied in the negative.
“Luckily, your friends’ son had found you passed out, and ensured your speedy arrival to hospital, so I wouldn’t be worried about any damage.”
My eyes finally strayed, looking towards the ground. I held the nauseousness of bile down my throat. Following a brief check-up, I was allowed to leave.
And 2 people and a demon followed me out.
“Well, Leen, that should give you a lesson,”
Sally.
I turned towards the family, who stood in a 3 person arc. Only 1 managed to look away, equal parts shame and guilt. I don’t need to mention who that was.
“Don’t worry. You can look at me, I don’t bite: not now and not at dawn,” a strained voice whispered at me. “I promise, it’s only at dawn when I…when I…”
“Hush Dean, don’t work your voice that much. You’ll need to save it for later.”
I was still dizzy. That didn’t stop me from running half-hobbled to the taxi stand, where I begged and claimed to many that I would provide double payment if they were to take me to my house.
It took a while, but I managed to pack some of my clothes. There was no way in hell I was sleeping at that damned house again, not now, not ever. I called and booked at a nearby hotel in the meantime.
I was done packing necessities by the evening. Walking out of my house, I saw no sign of those three. I would have been relieved, had I not come face to face with than one thing: standing in my garden, leaning against my car. My breathing picked up instantly.
Dean
It stood with its back resting against my car. And It noticed me immediately. Seems like it was just waiting for me to notice it.
“Are you leaving?” It sounded almost sad, but I needed it to move away, or my only way out of there would be in jeopardy.
“For the night.” My answer? Almost smooth, but even I could hear the first shake in my voice.
It nodded though. “Okay.” And he moved from my car. I counted the distance. 1 metre. 2. 2.5-
It made a sudden dash at me as I - in flight response - ran frantically to the driver’s seat, locking the door. I came in half-squashed, my backpack still on my back. But I didn’t care.
Its face was pressed against the window.
“Mum is waiting for a person that will like me for me, not run away. You’re supposed to like me.” It said, matter-of-factly. It then wailed, and sunk beneath the car window.
I did not dare to sit up and see what it was doing.
I didn’t even need to though. The sound came a split-second later.
COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO
Tears spilled from my eyes. My limbs felt weak. I couldn’t even breathe. It suddenly sprang up to the window. Eyes enlarged: looking at me and everywhere at once.
“I can actually tur-COCK- in the day too, but M-DOODLE- said it would be too much for you,” wheezing, it exclaimed again before adding, “but this is ME. Do you-do you, do you like me?”
With dead limbs I weighed my foot on the pedal, and jump-started the car to speed off. My head shook left-and-right in response, stomach heaving with nausea.
Human preservation kicked me into taking proper control of the car when I saw, out of the rear view mirror, Sally. This time with a rope, which locked around the creature’s neck before she tugged, drawing it into her house. At one point we locked eyes. And what do I mean by we?
Answer: the 2 of them and me.
It was honestly a miracle that I did not get into a road traffic accident.
I spent 3 days living in the hotel after that, my job long-forgotten in the aftermath.
By day 4 I broke down and called my older sister, asking to stay at her place for a while. Her house and area seemed fine the times I’d stopped over. I guess I clearly did not seem right though, as she many-a-time asked me what was wrong. My answer? Stress. She persisted, years of living together as kids helping her figure out my lies, though she ultimately gave up after a week. She knew it was something I didn’t want to share, and that I was safe now. That was enough for her.
For me? I guess at the time I so badly wanted to tell someone. Though it couldn’t be my sister. I didn’t want to cause any trouble. Nor see if she’d even believe me, or instead rank me at the same IQ level as her two 5-year-olds.
For a few weeks, I stayed with my sister and her family, reassuring both her and myself that I was fine. Thankfully, we worked together to find a small apartment. Next to a kids school too - bonus points. I now craved safety above all else. After moving out though, I realised I needed my belongings back.
So, who picked up my stuff from that cursed residence, you ask? The moving people. I called the police from a random phone booth first to head over to that area, emphasising on seeing some suspicious looking men, whilst I got them to collect everything. I did not dare to call the police on that family though. I would prefer if the link between me and them got cut, drawn and quartered.
So now I’m here, in an apartment which thankfully hasn’t shown any sign of insanity. Inspecting my belongings, I noticed that there was one thing missing.
My gold frame, used to encase my make-shift certificate - made by yours truly after her 21-day record from the previous apartment - was gone.
I felt somewhat miffed, but then I realised something.
Something which can maybe bring the light out in this whole situation.
I counted carefully. I broke my record.
With a grand stay of 2 days. Now that - that I don’t think I’d ever be able to beat.

sore throat for a few days then i started noticing white stuff on my swollen tonsils. next cam the swollen lymph nodes in the neck. never had fever, not much fatigue. but it was hard to swallow food. i went to GP, they prescribed me antibiotics for a week. slowly the white stuff went away slowly but my tonsils are still swollen and my throat is still red af. after finishing my first cycle on antibiotics, i went to an ENT since my tonsils are still inflamed, they gave me another round of antibiotics which i have only started taking since yesterday and no changes at all.
https://ibb.co/N65fm1D

32F, mother of two diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroid disease in 2000, Levothyroxine 120 mcg, I have been chronically ill since October of last year. All started with the worst episode of thryoiditis I’ve ever had. I couldn’t speak or eat. Swollen lymph nodes appeared all throughout my neck and collar bone area. I lost 30 lbs between October and December. I’m suffering from body aches, chronic fatigue, bruising, hair loss. In February chest pains and heart palpitations began. Holter monitor confirms palpitations, echocardiogram confirmed no abnormalities. By March, 4 lymph nodes did not go down so a neck CT was ordered. Thyroid is heterogenous (we knew that, it always has been) with sub centimeter nodules and multiple borderline prominent cervical lymph nodes, “short interval follow up needed”. Referred to an ENT for Thyroidectomy evaluation. ENT was not convinced my symptoms are stemming from the thyroid, yet the thyroid and everything else is symptomatic of something else. In April, all the blood tests were ran, only labs out of range were MPV and ACE. Both levels were high. ENT then told me my MPV levels were high back in November too when my PCP Ran blood work but it was never disclosed to me. I also went to the gynecologist in April because I was experiencing abnormal bleeding. I had been bleeding for over 20 days by the time I had my appointment (currently I’ve been bleeding for 53 with only 8 days of none bleeding). During the breast exam she felt multiple lumps in both breasts. Sono/mammo were ordered as well as a pelvic ultrasound. Pelvic ultrasound and Pap smear came back clear. I just received my results back from the mammogram and all I was told was that “abnormalities were found, there is an area in your breast that needs to be looked at again in six months”. I also received a phone call and the woman said I’ll need to get more imaging done every size months for the next two years because after they compared my imaging from a previous mammogram from 2019, the density in the problem breast has changed from dense to even more dense. My ENT called and said he’s referring me to a pulmonologist for the elevated ACE level. I asked him why, what does that mean and he said “though we don’t know exactly what is going on, all we can do is follow the bread crumbs, the ACE level was our next clue and it could possibly mean sarcoidosis”. Then he said if I need a referral for a rheumatologist after the pulmonologist then he’ll do that too. Could anyone please tell me if my care team seem to be on the right track? With $6k in medical debt, I’d love nothing more that to spot seeing specialist after specialist if what I have is another chronic condition that I’ll be stuck with suffering from for the rest of my life. I’ve already been chronically ill since I was very young with thyroid disease so even though this has made it worse, it is nothing new to me. I just don’t want to drown in debt AND still feel like shit. And TBH, I’m more concerned about the blood work than the breast but I’m not sure if I should be considering I have to now get 4 mammograms during the next two years. I didn’t even notice the lumps until she had pointed them out to me. Opinions?

Hello, I don't know if this is the right sub for what I'm about to post, if it isn't I would appreciate being pointed in the right direction.
So I'm a self-employed delivery driver and I was involved in quite a serious car accident whilst at work. I approached a queue of traffic where I came to a complete stop with my foot on the brake, a few seconds later I was rear ended by a 16 tonne lorry which as you can imagine was a huge impact.
I was left with the following injuries - severe right ankle pain when I walk, a swollen and bruised left kneecap, whiplash, significant neck and back pain. Due to these injuries i'm obviously unable to work for the foreseebale future due to the nature of my job requiring me to drive and walk for 9/10 hours a day.
I was told by the police at the scene that all indications are that the lorry driver is at fault and that there will be an investigation to find out exactly what caused the accident wether that be him on his phone or just careless driving.
My only concern and the thing I was looking for advice on was the fact i'm self employed means I don't recieve any sort of SSP so i'm obviously worried about my finances since I don't know when or if i can return to work.
I spoke to a few different injury lawyers yesterday who all told me that i definately have a case and that if I was to win my case I would recieve money based off my loss of earnings and that their specialist lawyers would call me on Monday as the offices were closed on the weekend.
I would appreciate any advice on what I should do with this situation.

Hi, this is gonna be a bit long, but let me explain the entire situation so far: Going back about a year or so, I started noticing an elevated heart rate above what I usually would have. I have an apple watch that allows me to check my heart rate, and around this time I started to get notifications that my heart rate was above average (in the 120s to 130s range while resting as opposed to my normal 60-80 range). This happened a few times along with some very minor chest pain / tightness, however after laying down for a few hours / going to bed it would usually return to normal. Around the same time I got diagnosed with anxiety and ADHD and placed on an SSRI to help my anxiety after trying ADHD meds and not liking them. I never really had any incidents with high heart rate after that, so I had assumed it was just anxiety causing it (and that may still be the case). A few months went by and I ended up starting college and got myself a girlfriend. As I ended up finding out, SSRIs, while great, have the unfortunate side effect of erectile dysfunction, so I weaned off my meds so I could prioritize my love life. There were a few incidents after this where my heart rate was above average, but again I just chalked this up to anxiety, as it would usually go away on its own. At one point I went into my on campus doctor's office just to verify my heart was okay after an elevated heart rate the night before, and they gave me an EKG which came up clear. Months go by, and things are fine, besides a slight uptick in anxiety. Unfortunately however, my relationship began to crumble and my anxiety skyrocketed, and we eventually broke up, which led me to talking to my doctor and getting placed back on anxiety medication. However, I really didn't like how SSRI's impacted my libido, so after trying a few more SSRI's I was placed on Buspirone. I love Buspirone, and it's made a noticeable difference on my confidence / reducing anxiety. When I take my full dose at once (30 mg), I tend to get a bit dizzy / nauseous, however when split up into 10 mg taken at breakfast lunch and dinner I have no noticeable side effects. I will say (and I don't know if this is in any way important but I'm just naming everything possible), I have noticed that since stopping the SSRIs and starting Buspirone I tend to ejaculate VERY fast which is abnormal for me, and although I would like to fix that it is not my main concern. Moving on though, after about a month or two after being placed on Buspirone, we get to where my heart problems start. As someone who had never used any substances my entire life, leaving home and going to college gave me the freedom to try new things, and although I know it's not great, on weekends me and my friends will get together and drink or occasionally smoke weed / take an edible. I was worried at first about interactions with my medication, but after some research all anything online could tell me was that I may get drunk faster / more nauseous and dizzy, which wasn't too big of a deal for me. I had tried weed earlier in college and didn't like the way it made me feel, however after being placed on Buspirone I decided to try it again and actually enjoyed the feeling, so I started doing it more on the weekends as opposed to just drinking, which leads us to the incident. Me and some friends had just sat down to watch a movie, and all taken an edible. Time passed, and I started to notice that my heart rate was extremely elevated, way more than I was usually used to. I checked my heart rate, and found that my watch was displaying an average of 160 bpm. At first I thought I was just having a bad high and tried to calm myself. I laid on the floor and put some ice on my forehead, but nothing was helping. I checked my heart rate again and saw that my watch was displaying 190, which really freaked me out as that was way higher than I had ever seen before. I had my sober friend call Public Safety for me, and they came to my dorm room and did a basic check up on me. They said that I had a fever, and when they took my heart rate they got something in the 160s range. Their explanation was that my anxiety, when combined with being high and likely being sick made my heart rate elevated, which made sense at the time. I went into my college's health services to follow up the next day since my heart rate was still elevated (in the 120s-130s range), however they again told me it was probably just anxiety. A few days went by and my heart rate was STILL above average, so I decided to double check with my real doctor off campus. About a day before this I had also stopped taking my medication to see if it could be the cause for my elevated heart rate. The doctors took my vitals and immediately noticed that had very high blood pressure and an elevated heart rate, to the point where they sent in a second doctor to recheck my vitals and make sure it was correct. After talking to me and having me give a run down of my symptoms, they had me schedule an appointment with a cardiologist and told me that if I ever experience chest pain and a heart rate above 100 bpm that wouldn't go down to go to the hospital. I had also told them about how I stopped taking my medication and they told me that that was fine and to tell the cardiologist about it. About a week passes, and I have my cardiologist appointment in a few days. I had been up the night before working on my final exams, so I hadn't gotten much sleep, and besides a breakfast sandwich that I had for lunch I hadn't eaten much either. I had been experiencing chest pain all day, but I assumed it was being caused by my lack of sleep, so after classes I went and took a nap. After a few hours I woke up, and immediately noticed that I still had chest pain. I checked my apple watch, and my heart rate was displaying roughly 90-110 bpm while laying down, which on top of the chest pain made me worried since my doctor had told me that that was cause to go to the hospital. I called my parents to tell them about it, and they drove to the school and had me sit in the car and eat some food they had made to see if it would help at all. However, even after this, my heart rate was still above 100 bpm and I still had chest pain, so my mom made the call to bring me to the hospital. While on the way to the hospital, out of nowhere my heart rate increased to about 170-180 bpm, which freaked me out. We arrived at the hospital, and they immediately gave me an EKG to make sure I wasn't going to drop dead. During this time, I also was shaking a lot and couldn't make myself stop. Eventually they took me into a room and decided to run some tests on me. The tests they did are as follows: BASIC METABOLIC PANEL, CBC WITH DIFF, TROPONIN NH, D DIMER DEEP VEIN THROMB LEVEL, TSH REFLEX, X-RAY CHEST PA AND LATERAL, and ECG-12 LEAD. While I'm not a doctor, from what they told me and from what I can see, everything turned up pretty normal. My potassium was a smidge low, as well as my MCV and MPV, and my Monocyte (absolute) was a tad high, but generally nothing to worry about. The website where I'm viewing my test results display my ECG as abnormal and an attached document says I have left atrial enlargement as well as sinus tachycardia, but they only mentioned sinus tachycardia in the hospital so I assume that it was just the machine reading my test results and giving its own diagnosis. Long story short though, I left the hospital a few hours later, and although I still had a slightly elevated heart rate they said I was fine to go about life normally and to follow up with my cardiologist. Cut to the present, and I just met with my cardiologist a couple days ago. I gave him the general rundown of the above story (but didn't mention the edible as a precursor to the 190 bpm heartrate as my mom was in the next room over and the door was wide open), and after checking my vitals he told me that although I did have an elevated heart rate and high blood pressure, my chest pain probably wasn't a huge concern and that he wasn't too worried it was anything life threatening. He told me I could resume taking my meds (which I had temporarily replaced with ashwagandha supplements while I waited for the appointment and have since stopped taking), and had me wear a little device that monitored my heart rate for 24 hours, which I'm set to return in a couple days. He also told me that when I returned it he would check my results and give me an echocardiogram and go from there. So, with any luck, he should be able to figure things out then. However, I wanted to post this to see if anyone could help me get any ideas on what it could be that I could run by him to help speed things up. I also have a recent theory of my own that I want to hear advice on. I was doing research and discovered that Buspirone, when taken with other medication that increases serotonin, can cause serotonin syndrome. After another google search, I found out that weed can increase serotonin levels. The only hole in that theory is that I stopped taking Buspirone after the initial spike in heart rate / blood pressure but had no noticeable changes. Another theory I have is that it could be some form of dysautonomia, as I fit many of those symptoms. Oh and one last thing, if you can't think of anything in regards to what could be causing my elevated heart rate, I actually would like to know why I'm ejaculating so fast so I can fix it because its gotten to the point where I can't even enjoy masturbating because of how fast I cum.
In case I missed anything, here's a list of my symptoms (although I have no idea if they're all correlated):

• High heart rate (anywhere from 90-190 bpm)
• High blood pressure
• Chest pain / tightness on my left side and does not hurt more when I breath in / out (every now and then pain extends to my neck and shoulder)
• Frequently tired
• Insomnia (could be correlated with the above symptom lol)
• Get out of breath faster than usual
• Anxiety (already had this though)
• Mild depression (probably from my breakup)
• Lack of motivation (probably from my ADHD)
• Very rare and random spasms in my neck
• About 10 pounds weight loss in the past few months
• Headaches (could be from the meds)
• Sexual Dysfunction (extremely fast orgasm)
• Probably something minor that I'm forgetting but if I can't think of it it probably isn't important (will update this list if new symptoms arise)

TLDR: I have a high heart rate and blood pressure and can't figure out why

I am 20F. So I have been diagnosed with POTS and recently learned about PEM. Suddenly some things made sense: the random times my lymph nodes on my neck swell up and my throat hurts are probably actually just PEM. It literally feels like the flu- body aches and all. I have even ran a fever with it before. I also meet all the criteria for EDS.
For years now I have went through these random phases where I just CANT sleep enough. I constantly will wake up tired and I slept through so much of my senior year of high school it’s not even funny. Yes I worked and took dual credit classes but no matter what I was exhausted. I don’t do this too often but when it happens it is so hard. My joints already hurt all the time so, I just figured it was EDS. I have also been diagnosed with ADHD but now I am second guessing it. I was diagnosed with the inattentive kind, (what used to be called ADD) but it’s mainly forgetfulness, brain fog, trouble staying focused, etc.
All the comorbidities for EDS and POTS also run in my family. Such as GERD, ASD, Arthritis, MCAS, ADHD, etc. Not looking for a diagnosis, I just don’t know much about this!

I am a 22 year old Female, I’m 1,6m tall and I weigh around 90kg.
Since February 2024, I have been feeling dizziness, more than usual. My vision will be blurry or I see spots when I wake up. Around two weeks ago I have started hearing sounds in my left ear. A loud sounds as though it’s the wind blowing through. It changes in volume if I turn my head to the left, bend down and if I press a certain point in my upper neck. Now I have pains around my neck and it causes these numbing headaches. I feel like because I listen to music a lot, it might have been the cause. The whooshing sound also corresponds with my heartbeat or if I get too anxious it gets worse.
I also panicked when I saw a semi dark line up my belly. I am also panicking that I might be like pregnant. I had unprotected sex around October and I did take an after pill the next morning. My periods have been a little regular but I can’t be sure because we are so poor that we don’t eat well and sometimes I will be eating bread for days. My last period was on the 21st of April and lasted for three days and the bleeding was very light. I have only felt nausea when eating too much or not eating and only when my period has started or about to start.
I have also been diagnosed with Major Depression Disorder two years back and I took antidepressants for a year till I let go. I have had three suicide attempts and was this admitted before getting diagnosed. I also had my jaw lock twice and was admitted to the hospital for it. For a year and a half now, my jaw would always pop like when I’m stretching. I was also given something else well to help with the mild anxiety I had. I had withdrawals end of 2022 and in 2023 I felt good.
I have also struggled with constipation and diarrhoea. When I was eighteen (last year of high school), I found out I had high blood pressure but it went down after I completed school and got into university.
I don’t sleep too well and I often will sleep a lot or for short periods of time. Being home does have me on the edge as I know how irritated my mom can get for not doing things around the house or sleeping in too much. I have a job that doesn’t pay too well as well as my mom. So we don’t have money, not even a ride to the hospital. We don’t eat well due to this and I am terrified to tell my mom all this because she will tell me it’s because of the phone and listening to music. Please help or advise I’m scared my right ear will follow.

I posted in this sub a few times last year when I was really going through it. Brain fog, anxiety, fatigue, vision issues, debilitating headaches and hyper sensitivity (“mini” concussions from small bumps of the head). I had 4-5 concussions over the course of 3 years, with 3 of those occurring within 2 months of each other. Outside of some lingering neck issues, I’ve made a full recovery and want to share what worked for me.
Please don’t let this long list stress you out though. There were days when getting out of bed in the morning felt like an accomplishment. Every recovery is different and only you can know what your body and brain are feeling.
Commitment After my most recent injury I decided that getting better was the most important thing in my life and I completely dedicated myself to my recovery. That’s why this list is as long as it is — I decided I was going to try everything.
Research Learning about concussions is a great place to start! It really helped me plan my course of action and think rationally about recovery. This sub is a great source of knowledge. Complete concussion management on YouTube has some great intro videos too.
Exercise I think that exercise was the #1 most important factor in my recovery. I started by going on short daily walks and doing light yoga in my house and eventually built up to 2x cardio 3x weightlifting 2x yoga every week. I got in the habit of exercising early in the day and felt like it really helped with my mental energy throughout the day.
Diet I tried to eat an anti inflammatory diet but it was hard (I really love to eat lol). I couldn’t go completely keto but I cut out carbs where I could and made an effort to cook all of my own meals with a lot of protein and vegetables. Avocado and olive oils give you omega 9s which are important for omega 3 absorption. I also didn’t really drink at all.
Supplements I don’t know exactly what worked and what didn’t but you should definitely be taking omega 3 (and probably creatine). My stack: - 4000 mg Nordic Naturals omega 3. Can cut down to normal dose after a couple months - 5 mg creatine monohydrate - 2000 mg magnesium l-theronate - 1g ImmPower AHCC (mushroom-based immune supplement) - 125 mcg vitamin d3 - Multivitamin - Dietary fiber + probiotic (gut health is important)
CBD Only way I could get to sleep for a couple months. Great for headaches. It’s also a nice substitute for alcohol when going out with friends.
Concussion clinic + Neurofeedback I went to a concussion clinic in NC shortly after my last concussion. Most of my problems were cognitive so my doctor recommended a neurofeedback program. I was super skeptical at first but it definitely improved my screen tolerance and I felt like it helped with teaching my brain how to switch off.
Neurologist + Nortryptoline Neurologists are really only good for one thing: prescribing meds. There’s a good chance you don’t need to take an SNRI but I had nerve damage at the site of impact that, whenever touched, would cause me a lot of pain and trigger hours of concussion symptoms. I think that my meds (prescribed for nerve pain) helped get some of this hypersensitivity under control.
Meditation There are people on this sub who can speak to this better than me but after a concussion your autonomic nervous system can be in an “always on” mode where you’re constantly in a state of fight or flight. Meditation while concussed is very challenging and won’t immediately zen you out but it will help you notice just how overactive your brain is and help you train yourself to redirect your attention when your mind runs wild.
Physical therapy + dry needling If you have any neck pain at all, go to PT. Seriously! It might be causing most if not all of your headaches. A few months of stretching and strengthening exercises helped resolve most of my headaches. Also, if dry needling is legal in your state, seek it out for really intense neck tightness. My PT offered needling and it was a godsend on my worst days.
Brain challenges I’m a computer programmer so getting back into work was challenging enough but I also made an effort to try to learn a new language and do some daily puzzles to help foster some new neural connections.
Try to relax when I bump my head Idk I still freak out when I bonk. I probably have had 30-40 “flare ups” over the past 2 years. No one on the internet seems to have a great answer for why this happens. I think it’s probably some sort of learned response from the brain in response to a stressor. I recently took the approach of doing everything in my power to chill out when I bump my head on something (including taking cbd immediately after). Not sure if this helped or I just needed time but I hit my head on a cabinet pretty hard last week and experienced no symptoms! That’s honestly what encouraged me to write this post.
I hope some of this will be helpful to someone. Feel free to comment or hit my dm’s if you want any more detail on anything.

I have had tension headaches for years, and got off birth control due to the headaches turning into migraines. I have been off BC for over a year, and do not get them as often now. The past 3 days, I have had a HORRIBLE migraine. It hurts so bad when I stand up/move around. The pain is only on the left side, right above my left eyebrow and in my neck. It seems to subside throughout the day, but the mornings are the worst. It gives me panic attacks and nausea, but weirdly enough, no light sensitivity. I am wondering if taking amoxicillin could cause this? I have had sinus issues for a few months and hope this is the cause. Benadryl is the only thing that helps, but it knocks me out so I do not take it until an hour before bed. Any tips or information would help!

my candidas albicas is one of the worst yeast infections. i stopped eating sugar. insert fungal cream once a week as prescribed. had sore swollen random lymph nodes. one behind my neck , one on my thigh, two on my arm. left earache. pain in left armpit. doctors don't have a clue. i believe it's from my candidas. i think i'm getting better cause pain and swelling has stopped. but i still have some burning on v a g. burning left arm has stopped. i get the feeling from going to gyno doc and MDs. they don't really know a lot about yeast. it affects everyone differently. you wouldn't believe how many gynos i went to in the beginning , that sent me home with nothing. one told me it was all in my head. that's not that uncommon to hear. my vag was a little swollen and he didn't see it. another doctor did. that's when things got rolling.

I am pretty sure this is what is going on with me! Without me realizing it originally….
Short story; about 2 weeks ago I noticed that I had some frontal neck tightness, like my veins I could feel more blood flow happening in them? Or my pulse? Idk, but it didn’t feel right. Also had some irritability and hot flashes. Then I noticed my chest was tightening! I had already experienced some pins and needles feelings in my hands and arms. I had just started an upper dose of my thyroid medicine which can also cause quite a bit and thought it was just that. So because of the cardiovascular issues I was feeling, I decided to completely stop caffeine just in case bc I didn’t want to exasperate my symptoms. Important to note, I had already decided to bring down my caffeine content because I know it was too high, but I did not really connect any of this to lowering or tapering my caffeine at all until the last couple of days! I truly thought it was just my medication. However, seeing as I was very dependent upon caffeine for the last 20 some years at anywhere between 500 to 700 mg of caffeine a day throughout the day, caffeine withdrawal makes total sense! Could my thyroid medicine have contributed? Absolutely, probably so but at this point I think that I’m really in the thick of it when it comes to caffeine withdrawal because I have completely stopped my medication. Symptoms included: I have been experiencing some chest tightening/discomfort. It was never painful but it was just very tight and heavy feeling. I have had heart palpitations that I could feel in my chest and in my neck, along with neck restriction, almost strangulation feeling! Bad headaches and I would say the oddest one were cold tremors. There was one night where I was wearing a full clothing plus a onesie and a blanket and my whole body was tremoring. I ended up going to the hospital ER twice thinking that it was something to do with my heart and each time they ran an EKG which came back totally normal. The first time they also checked my blood for troponin which signifies whether or not you may have had a heart attack and it was fine. They did a CT scan on my neck since I complained of tightening and restriction and it completely came back fine and a chest x-ray to check my heart and lungs which was also fine. The second time I went to the hospital they did, like I said another EKG, which was fine and another x-ray which was also fine and basically asked if I was stressed or have anxiety (which I never have!)
So, all this to say, it’s gotta be the caffeine withdrawal! I’ve always been someone who has tried to be physically fit and today I felt probably the best I have felt in two weeks so I went on the smallest jog ever and it felt fantastic during but after resting for about 10 to 15 minutes that sudden rushed pulsing in my neck came back and after doing some research it looks like caffeine normally will restrict the blood flow to your head and so it seems like maybe I’m getting more blood flow now that I’m not having caffeine to restrict blood flow, which is causing the pulsating to where I can feel it as well as the headaches. It’s insane!
Please tell me I’m not alone?! How long does this last!

Just another fun little story idea I had. I am still working on Humans are the violent ones but I like to bounce around and experiment with ideas to see what I really like. I also suck at writing more casual stories, as they give me severe writer's block as I try to map out how to make a scene feel genuine in my head, but I promise I'll update that soon. If you like this story and want to see more, then like and comment. I'll gladly continue this series as well.
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.

I am 16 DPO and I believe I’m just getting over the stomach flu. I’ve had a low grade fever for five days and vomiting and ugh I wanted to give up yesterday. My PS gave me a Z pack round 4 days ago to kill any possible infection and thinks it’s a virus since the antibiotics didn’t help. Today is day 4 of sick and I finally broke the fever and ate!! The only lingering issue is swollen lymph nodes in groin. Today they hurt worse than ever! My whole groin SUCKS. I also have a small pain in my belly, really deep to the left of my belly button.
I’m just complaining but wow. Anyone else get sick with PS? Fuck. Me.

I developed this neck+ forward head posture, after an laparoscopic surgery where the gas had to escape over my shoulders (musculature), ever since all the muscles in the neck/trapezius area are cramped up with a bunch of infected lymph nodes all around, it has affected my life quality immensely, from aesthetic standpoint and physical and health problems, head aches, concentration problems, tmj problems, breathing issues, my mandible kinda dropped backwards and face got recessed and droopy, it sagged downwards. My scm’s are extremely compressed compact and tight. For the tension I’ve tried everything from Physio therapy, stretches, breathing, osteopathy, accupuncture, even muscle relaxants, payed money for this treatment and the cramping doesn’t go away. What can I do here, I been making sport trying to get my muscles “stronger” but it of course doesn’t help as it’s separate to the neck. I don’t know what to do anymore as I’ve tried everything, I got suicidal thoughts because of it 20m/ 150lb

I went through every stage of mono and recovered in a month. This is the steps I took to do so, and hopefully they can help you too. I am not a doctor and there is a lot of stuff that could be wrong here, and/or not do anything at all. If you are dealing with issues please go get medical assistance.

1. Sore Throat

For throat pain I visited my doctor and was prescribed prednisone and unfortunately I was dealing with an infection so I had to take anti-biotics. If you are diagnosed with mono and your doctor is assuming it is strep or another type of infection communicate with them the uncertainties you have in order to be tested for strep (taking anti-biotics with mono burdens you with a high chance of a rash).
Besides prednisone. I used a humidifier in my room in order for my throat to not dry out in the back. Even if it hurt horribly I attempted to drink at least 4 glasses of water every 4 hours so I wouldn't be dehydrated.
I suggest not taking Ibuprofen during use of Prednisone as it can cause intestinal issues. Use Tylenol.
I stuck to smoothies and chicken noodle soup for food during this time. Salty broth foods help soothe the throat quite a lot and help you get some nutrients.
It was hard to sleep because of my throat pain, I ended purchasing a sitting pillow for my bed. It took a lot of the stress off my lymph nodes during rest.
Finally I made sure to brush my teeth twice a day and use Orajel hydrogen peroxide mouthwash. Oral hygiene is incredibly important during any issues with tonsils in order to keep an infection from happening and washing off pus from throat scars during mono.

2. Sleep

For me sleep was quite difficult and I unfortunately didn't have many ways to deal with it for the first couple of days.
I tried to not take naps throughout the day and rather hold in my sleep for the nights, as your body does better healing when it's in REM. Which is more difficult to have happen if you take brief short naps.
By around my third day I learned that having a humidifier in my room made it so much easier to breathe and feel a bit better.
I took one extra strength Tylenol right before bed, and 10 mg of melatonin. Keep in mind that melatonin only is going to help put you to sleep and you will need to change your diet to be heavier in magnesium in order to have a better time staying asleep. If I woke up due to the pain at the middle of the night i'd take another tylenol and wait it out until I was able to sleep again. Continue to drink water throughout the entire time.

3. Spleen Pains

I dealt with really bad spleen pain for a couple of days and my only solve for it was laying on my back and using a heatpad on the area where my pain was. I tried not to move around very much. If your pain becomes increasingly worse go in to get screened for a risk of rupture.

4. Mental Health

Out of all the things I dealt with, this was one of the worst. I felt defeated for most of my days. I tried to feel better by looking at other peoples experiences and seeing how others have it worse. It also can help to call loved ones and friends and talk with them. I also watched shows and movie continuously in order to distract myself. Eating good helped me a lot, once I started making protein smoothies my mood changed for the better. Also try to stay out of the dark for to long, if you can go into a more open room with sunlight and lay during the day it will make you happier. Try to retain your sleep for just the night, this way you feel like you still are holding to a schedule. It also helps with REM which is incredibly important for mental health and can't be done with naps. Finally, self-care was a breakthrough for me. I tried to shower daily, and clean up my face before bed. It made me feel happier and nicer.

5. The Rash

This rash was one of the worst parts of the whole thing besides my throat. It happened after I had taken my antibiotics for 5 days. It itched so badly. In order to deal with the itch I went to the ER and was prescribed hydroxyzine and another dose of prednisone. For the first day I used calamine lotion, I soon realized it was making me even more itchy as it caused my skin to dry up. I switched over to Eucerin anti-itch lotion and it helped so much. I applied when I woke up and before I went to bed. I applied ice packs to my skin, instead of itching and it works much better at stopping the itch. Also try to sleep with a fan pointed towards you. During the rash stage, it is the most important for you to drink as much fluids as possible.
I hope this can maybe help someone? Idk, i am very thankful for this subreddit as most of these posts helped me recover much faster. Thank you all.

Hi guys! Its my first time making a post here so I hope I'm not breaking any rules. After a lot of fighting I recently got diagnosed with IIH, but after looking through my symptoms.. I started to think that maybe my IH isn't really idiopathic. After my diagnostic lumbar puncture and medications, my symptoms have only gotten worse. I've been dealing with uncomfortable cracking sensations in my neck, tmj problems, constant headaches, migraine with aura, tinnitus, dizziness and a whole bunch of visual disturbance issues.
My neurologist has been pushing off my concerns and I recently found out about fmsomething called cervical instability which matches a lot of my symptoms as well as causing IH. Has anyone else had worsened symptoms after lumbar punctures and meds? Is there anybody else dealing with this problem? Should I push more about this issue with my doctors?
Im sorry if this sounds like a mess. Im just scared..I'm not even in my 20s yet and I'm sick all the time is very disheartening and depressing. Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.

Hello, everyone. I’m posting here as I’m becoming desperate to find help or some answers.
I’m a 27 year old male. Toward the end of last year, I began having severe issues with the vision in my right eye that led to a traumatic cataract diagnosis. Around 15 years ago, I was shot in the right eye with a BB gun.
In January of this year, I called the University Hospital regarding the loss of vision and pain in my right eye. I was rushed in, as pain is a big concern and they wanted to make sure everything was okay. I was told I have a cataract and scheduled an appointment with a surgeon for the removal. When I asked about the pain, they told me that cataracts do not cause pain, but it may be what the cause is.
Over the course of the next 3 months, I went through phases of pain in my eye. One night, It was severe enough for me to visit the ER, from which I wasn’t given any real help. I was also incredibly sick with influenza B and congested, which seemed to make the pain even worse.
I was given an MRI and went through several different tests. Ended up getting home around 2am. Around 6am I noticed 5 missed calls from the hospital, asking me to come in right away as they may have seen something on the MRI and need more imaging.
After the additional imaging, I was told nothing seemed to be wrong, and they were at a loss in finding the cause. At one point, the ER doctor said chicken pox may be a possibility (I don’t know why). Then they told me it’s just neurological.
I spent the next few months with the pain coming and going, up to my following surgery appointments. When I brought it up to my surgeon, he didn’t know what could cause the issue either. He mentioned the cataract was so old, it had become soft.
The surgeon then explained to me the procedure, risks and benefits. I was told that I may or may not need glasses after the surgery, which I was fine with. I was told they’re standard procedures, simple and short recovery periods. I agreed and the surgery was scheduled.
Fast forward to the day after my surgery, and I begin to notice the difference in clarity of my vision. It was honestly crazy how clear my far sight vision was, but very disappointing how little I could see close up. I’m now unable to read my phone or see any detail closer than 5-7 feet away, but I was told glasses will correct the issue. No problem, I thought.
This is where my problems really begin. At night, I started noticing these incredibly intense visuals from light sources. So intense, I wasn’t able to go outside at night, or be in a dimly lit room for weeks. I am 1 month past my surgery and I am still unable to drive in the dark and struggle immensely with sitting anywhere dark with acute light sources. The best way to describe the visuals are halos, but not just like glowing street lights, I’m talking about psychedelic looking, hallucination type halos. They disappear when the light source is covered, and move in all directions, side to side and back and forth.
The best way to describe them is that they are perfectly circular and very sharply defined. Sometimes, there will be a slight ray type effect inside of them. They are present around every light source in a dark space. On the street, sometimes it’s so bad that there are dozens and dozens layered on top of each other. For weeks, I could literally feel my pupil swelling and sort of “popping”, as it adjusted to the lights. Immediately after, it would begin adjusting again, and the halos would come back. The lights go away when very bright light sources become present (like incoming headlights) or when equally disbursed. Better nights make the halos become more blurry, less defined outside of the circle.
I’ve tried to design this image to explain what I’m seeing to my doctor and others. I’ve also included a picture of how my right pupil looks in most dimmer lit, inside spaces:
https://imgur.com/a/o7vxpo3
Furthermore, I am experiencing a shadow casted around the outside of my vision in my right eye. Feels almost as if I’m looking through a tube, and seems that I have lost a fair amount of my peripheral vision. Some new floaters and flashes of light starting appearing around week 3, but not as drastic as it was with the cataract. I’m used to floaters in both eyes.
I showed this image to my surgeon and tried explaining the problem. He really didn’t seem to understand what the problem was, saying the eye looked good and halos are common. But I never knew that it would be so debilitating. He was at a loss, and mentioned that if my pupil is over dialating, it may be extending beyond my IOL, causing this issues. He’s been doing cataract surgeries for 2 years now. He also kept saying “well typically patients are older…” and then continued to explain protocol and experiences with older patients, not really considering my case individually, or offering to refer me to someone else.
At my post 1 month checkup, I asked him if there are different sizes that should have been used, only for him to say “well most IOLs are a certain size, but some are slightly bigger.” And then explained that my pupil dilating past the lens, causing the visuals. This makes sense to me, as the visuals do seem almost “prism” like. I was also told the lens was acrylic, and not as perfect as the normal lens, but I’m pretty sure there are different lens material types.
This confused me. It still does. I told him about my pupil being larger than the other before my surgery, and he saw it as well. Was this not a considering factor in my lens choice?
Additionally, I told this surgeon that back in 2013, I was diagnosed with optic nerve swelling, but he said that he had no idea what that was regarding and simply disregarded the diagnosis.
I’ve spent weeks trying to research the subject, but honestly, it’s causing me to become severely depressed and frustrated. I feel that my concerns have been totally disregarded, as I was told to wait another 3 months for my next appointment. I actually had to suggest treatment I read online with eye drops that cause the pupil to stay smaller. He agreed after my suggestion and said he would prescribe me these.
Unfortunately, they have not submitted the medication to my insurance for the past week, so I haven’t been able to try it. I hope it helps.
I really could use some help or advice. I’m writing this in the middle of the night and once again suffering from a headache from my eye issues. These visuals have not gotten any better since the night of surgery. Recently, they just go away, and some nights are better than other. Sometimes, artificial tears seem to help and other times they don’t. Sometimes losing the tension in my neck helps, sometimes moving my head down makes it worse.
I was also severely congested a few nights ago, and the halos were terrible. Decongestant spray seemed to make them totally disappear. I was told in the past I have a deviated septum, and on my right side I believe (not sure if they can be correlated)
If anyone’s has a suggestion as to what type of doctor may be able to help, or what I should expect my recovery to be like, I would be very grateful. I’m starting to feel hopeless and that people don’t believe or recognize the struggle I’m having.
At this point, I feel like I may have permanently messed up by opting in for this surgery, and I’m afraid I’ll never be able to drive or do things at night again. I understand that the damage the accident caused in my eye may be repairable, and that I probably will just need to adjust to new vision, but I really don’t think I can live with the issues I’ve been having at night. I feel as though I may never get to watch movies in theaters or watch events in dark spaces without severe visuals and head pain.
Let me know if there’s any additional info I can provide to help. On Monday, I am going to try to have my primary care provider help recommend me to someone else (insurance requires this for a second opinion).
Thank you for your time and help.

Hello, everyone. 35M with Chiari 1 of “only” 3-4mm diagnosed at 17 years old with MRI due to headaches that later resolved. Subsequent scans in 2022 and 2024 revealed that the size has remained constant. Throughout the years, I literally forgot I had it due to a lack of symptoms and/or conflating the symptoms with Bipolar 1/ADHD and treatment side effects. In 2022, I had an onset of neuropathy with a job I took that had me bending over repeatedly. I remembered the Chiari at that time and got referred all the way to neurosurgery but was never able to go due to a move. Symptoms subsided again. I was on lithium, which I later learned increases ICP. I had jumpy vision (I described it as fast-forward vision) which was terrifying and for which I suspected mania, not knowing it has to do with Chiari. I had some photophobia that mostly occurred at night when seeing police lights and I assumed it was perhaps epileptiform activity, still knowing essentially nothing about Chiari. Went to a NUCCA chiropractor, at which point the photophobia became severe and permanent and I no longer drive, except on totally cloudy days, and even then with great difficulty. My symptom is silent headaches with immediate onset of dysphagia that goes away when I force myself to swallow and remove the trigger. It is still extremely debilitating and causes a panic attack basically every time because despite having never had a seizure except ECT, I still assume that that’s what’s going on and that I have to quickly to prevent it. When I finally got an EEG to try to rule out epileptiform activity it came back normal with no epileptiform activity, but admittedly, I was on a low dose of 300 mg of lithium (an anti-epileptic) because it seemed to help the headaches I was having at the time so I’d like to discuss whether that could’ve thrown the test with a medical provider.
I stay in dark rooms and get motion sick from the motion of tree shadows coming through the window (the intermittence of tree shadows and sunlight driving is my main photophobia trigger driving), screens in general, especially TV flashes on the walls. I’ve been unable to comply with CPAP therapy due to it making my wooishng tinnitus worse and me waking with a jerk right as I’m falling sleep, but I’m going to try harder to push through the waking reactions despite needing Seroquel nightly for sleep. I was already facing functional or total disability because of the Bipolar but now hopefully Chiari is some of the picture and I can regain some function. Phone calls, Zoom, especially speaker phone are difficult too. Because of pitch-dependent noise sensitivity. Car motors and other repetitive and high-pitched sounds are also instant triggers. At the peak, was having bad phonophobia with onset of panic and weakness that felt like a blood sugar crash when planes and big trucks would pass, and only after hearing them consciously after the initial reaction did I understand what was going on.
I’m coming to the end of a course of physical therapy (with an emphasis on longer-term posture correction) with dry needling that definitely helped, and the one night that I was able to sleep with the CPAP seem to clear up a lot of the headache symptoms and some of the photophobia as well. The sudden onset of the photophobia has me concerned and I don’t want it to be permanent or worsen and I’d like to drive again. Also off of all meds, including psych meds because everything seems to cause me this silent headache, which is basically overwhelm and worse, severe dissociation (Lithium and Depakote did this, to my recollection, though they initially helped pain when I had that and I only tried a crumb—as is now typical—of Topamax with the same result of severe dissociation and panic. Admittedly, my problems with these panic attacks started when I had too much cannabis one time without prior experience but now Chiari seems to be a complicating factor and it’s hard to know whether ICP and Chiari stuff or panic is at work in these reactions definitively, but I also tried Gabapentin recently and it didn’t cause dissociation just some calm with a reduction of muscle pain but an increase in Chiari symptoms on at least one occasion besides messing up the functioning of my sleep meds). I was adjusting my meds pretty frequently at one point and suspected them in the photophobia for a long time as well, but I’ve been off of all meds for probably four months now. I also have visual snow and nystagmus at night, when reading and I just catch it general when I’m outside—my eyes don’t know what to focus on and jump around and are taking longer to focus the last several days.
I’m trying to get a neurosurgery appointment with Dr. Judy Huang at John Hopkins, besides trying to get CPAP to work and I’m curious about mild traction. It seems to help me when done rightly, but I know there are conflicting reports here about it and that it’s pretty individualized. Sometimes when therapies I try seem to be going poorly, perhaps I quit it too soon, but sometimes I gaslight myself and tell myself to try harder and push through bad reactions. There’s only so much I can do about severe dissociation and panic attacks and no one around me gets it but thankfully, my providers are fairly understanding.
There’s definitely a strong positional component to symptoms. I’m normally intracranially hypertensive but tried Prilosec in two cases and a pinch of baking soda in water in others and they send things hypotensive, likely due to poor flow. Drinking water and using the restroom both seem to instantly affect pressure in head too so it seems to very much be Chiari. I don’t know my tolerance or the merits of trying other migraine medications and treatment, for example. Ibuprofen helps as has sipping caffeine, though it’s a mania trigger. I’ve also tried eye drops, glasses, biofeedback and neurofeedback for headaches as well as specialized glasses for light sensitivity and I think I’ve ruled out green light therapy with a dimmer at this point having tried it, but I understand there may be some more specialized eye exams to try. I know I have Chiari and had mild photophobia but then it got worse very quickly. Don’t know if adjusting meds or NUCCA adjustment or other traction, exercises or poor posture were to blame or this is just the progression of Chiari or the onset of a migraine component alongside all these symptoms above which are largely new. Differential diagnosis between Chiari and migraine seems to be a special challenge. CPAP and rolling my neck seemed to also help my debilitating OCD but lately rolling my neck has become irritating. I also have worsening brain fog which I forgot to mention until the very end.
Thanks for listening to the rant.
Please weigh in if it connects with your experience!
TL;DR Tried chiropractic, including NUCCA over the years and have since discontinued due to onset of photophobia after NUCCA. Did physical therapy with dry needling, tried soft collar, CPAP (still trying to get it to work—helped the one time I could sleep with it, biofeedback, neurofeedback, eyeglasses and eyedrops for photophobia which is my main concern for which I’m seeking consultation for surgery (it’s so bad, I often wear sunglasses indoors and have cover my eyes totally by hand—even stray light through a thick eye shade is an instant trigger) but what else should I try?

I made a post about my symptoms probably a week ago and they've been yo-yo'ing up and down since then. My sleep the past few nights has been atrocious and I suspect it's not due to my changing my laxative, but the Latuda kicking my ass. I've been on this medication a month and a half and it was fairly gentle at first. After my period things started to go haywire, beginning with worsening insomnia.
I've started getting akathisia like and TD-like symptoms after I eat and before bed that I didn't have before. Restless legs, involuntary tongue movements against my teeth, tingilng in my shoulders and wrists, things I wasn't dealing with during the early dosage phase at all. It comes and goes but when it comes it's exhausting.
One night I had immense, pinching chest pain. Past few days it's woken me up at like 3-5am and I can't get back to sleep for an hour or so, I will wake up a couple more times. Today I had to take a benzo to take the edge off. Should I go off? I literally just had a conference with my doc a few days ago saying I'd try another month and now I can't handle. I get a blood test done on tuesday and I'm considering waiting it out till then to see if my blood levels come back weird but I don't really want to suffer till then.
The sad thing is that it was helping me with my depression, psychosis and focus, but I cannot focus when my entire body dips into akathisia mode for zero reason. It's not livable. Should I also consider asking my pdoc about birth control on Tuesday if my cycle or hormones is somehow driving the reaction?
Does anyone have recommendations for what I should try next? I've tried Lamotrigane (allergic reaction, worked for about 1.5 months), Abilify (Akathisia from hell), Caplyta (painful digestive issues), buspirone (see caplyta), and now Latuda. I don't know if I can handle antipsychotics anymore, should I ask doc to consider another mood stabilizer. I hate blood tests but at this rate I think I'd rather deal with blood tests than go on another AP knowing they tend to cause me akathisia and TDlike symptoms. I've considered alternatives like Depoteke Lithium or even an off label anticonvulsant like trileptal.

Around Thanksgiving last year, my 22 year old daughter Izzy started complaining about her back hurting. We just assumed she pulled a muscle or had a pinched nerve. After a couple weeks, the pain seemed to be getting worse. She went to urgent care on a Friday and they confirmed she probably had a pinched nerve. They gave her some meds. That following Monday (Dec. 18) she was in a lot of pain, so I rushed her to the hospital. It was her back and her left arm now bothering her. They blew her off and said that she was fine. I insisted that she get an MRI or cat scan done. Finally at my request they did a cat scan on her back and said they didn't see anything wrong. They said it's probably a pinched nerve, gave her more meds and sent us home.
The week of Christmas everything changed. She woke up each night covered in sweat. On the 28th, her heart was beating fast, she was extremely pale, and had two knots appear on the left side of her neck and one under her left underarm. I brought her to a different hospital.
When we got to the ER, they immediately took her to a room. Her vitals were extremely high (170 heart rate) from the pain she was in. They were considering that she could have meningitis or mono. They wanted to get tests ran right away. They admitted her, and did a spinal tap and MRI. 2 days later (Saturday) the doc said they found a large tumor on her spine. Can't say if it's cancer yet, she would need a biopsy first. They informed us that she would be moved that day to their sister hospital that specializes in cancer.
When we arrived, she was put on the neurology ward in a regular room. They immediately put her on a lot of meds. She was on so many pain drugs, (Oxy, Dilaudid, muscle relaxers, Morphine, Xanax, etc.) that I kept asking, "Is this end of life? Can she overdose from all these drugs?" They would respond with, "no, it's just to keep her comfortable and we're trying to get her heart rate down." On New years day they gave her Ativan. She responded horribly to it. It was a rough day. She was hallucinating and freaking out all day and night. The next day she told them to NEVER give her that again. They told her when we first arrived that anything she didn't want to take, they would respect and not put it in her charts to receive. They would put it under allergies. We assumed they would do so as they said they would.
They finally did the biopsy on Wednesday the 3rd. When she came back from surgery, she wouldn't wake up. She slept all day Wednesday and most of Thursday. I was really concerned.They kept adding more pain meds to her chart. I again was scared she would forget to breathe. That night she wasn't breathing properly and her vitals were going down. She had to be rushed to NeuroICU. They got her stable and explained it was from all the different drugs. They explained that it's trial and error. They're trying to figure out what works for her and they decided to put her on a drip line of Dilaudid. They still gave her other drugs but Dilaudid seemed to help her pain somewhat. They also said she had a spot on her lungs what looked like pneumonia starting.
All week she was constantly telling us that she was losing feeling in her legs and her left arm. By Saturday of that week she was paralyzed. They finally took her for an MRI and saw that the tumor had spread up and down her spine and to her ovaries, and it was stealing her blood supply. She would need emergency surgery asap. They of course came to explain what was happening and the surgeon informed me that Ativan would be used during surgery. I immediately told him no, and that she is allergic to it and it was supposed to be on her allergy list. I explained to him what happened when she received it before. On Sunday they rushed her into surgery and cut the blood supply to the tumor. It was too dangerous to try and remove any of the tumor. They didn't know if the paralysis was permanent, but they were hopeful that the surgery would work. It didn't we would later find out.
When she returned from surgery, she was out of control. She was violent and cursing at me. In 22 years I had never heard her curse, but she was fluent! She was hallucinating bad and kept freaking out. It was scary to watch. They decided to give her some meds to make her to sleep, to help her heal. For 2 straight days my baby screamed blood curdling screams, she would cry out "mommy, mommy" while she slept. She screamed so much and so loud that anyone in ear shot were questioning what was going on. It was heartbreaking to witness. I thought she was having a bad reaction to the anesthesia. I later found out that they were giving her Ativan anyway. They NEVER put it in her chart as an allergy the week before, and the doctor disregarded what I said about not giving her that. They had other options they could have used but he still chose to do what he wanted. I only found out because the nurse mentioned that she would be right back with her Ativan. The nurse had no knowledge that my daughter refused that medication previously. I informed her not to give that drug to her. She went and spoke with the attending physician who changed it to haldol and ketemine. That was Monday night. By Wednesday she finally calmed down from screaming, so they decided to try and wake her up.
When she woke up she could no longer speak properly, use her left arm, or move her legs. Her fingers and toes were turning black. They said it was from a certain med she was on. That it's normal. A lay person could see something was horribly wrong.
Everyday we would see up to 30 doctors. I say we, because I never left her side. One would say one thing while another would say something else. It was confusing and scary. We still didn't have a diagnosis. We just knew she had cancer. They suspected stage 4 but couldn't say until pathology came back. It was traumatic and a nightmare. It went from a diagnosis of a pinched nerve to stage 4 cancer in a matter of a week. WTF?
We finally got the diagnosis on Tuesday the 9th.. Stage 4 anaplastic large cell lymphoma. Very rare and aggressive. They said they were starting chemo immediately. They gave her the first dose that Wednesday night. We had hope. It was a rollercoaster of terror, but the doctors kept saying that she could beat this. I googled everything I could and prayed for a miracle. It's always been my girl and I, so I was desperate for her to live through this. She wasn't just my daughter, she was literally my everything.
By week 2, she needed blood on a daily basis. She couldn't eat or drink. She couldn't relieve herself. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak clearly to explain her needs or wants. Her breathing was shallow. Her vitals were not normal. They would go down and then jump extremely high. She was so out of it, that they had to come to me concerning everything. Her oxygen was dropping significantly and they had to keep changing out the masks and oxygen levels to help her breathe. They kept changing her meds and she had multiple complications from that. They couldn't find any good spots on her arms to put her IVs anymore, and her legs were so swollen that they couldn't locate a useable spot anywhere. They put it on her right side of the neck. During all this she had multiple medical emergencies. One example is they said that spot on her lungs wasn't pneumonia but they now suspected a small blood clot. That medicine she was given would hopefully help, the only problem was that medication was causing problems for her back surgery. A few days later we found out it was blood and it was completely filled up in her chest. She was drowning in her own blood. They couldn't do surgery right away because she would bleed out since her platelets were so low even while receiving blood transfusions. That blood was somehow going into her lungs. I was floored. Everyday I would ask about it and I was told it was getting better, nothing to worry about. In fact the doctor said that very morning it had cleared up significantly. Imagine my shock when the critical team comes rushing in that evening to do ultrasounds on her and tells me they suspect it's why her breathing was going downhill.
On Monday she was transferred to a MICU room on a different floor. This floor felt uneasy to me. There was death all around and you could see it. They said that this floor was where her main doctors were, so that she would get the best care. Now they introduce fentanyl to her med regimen. They explained it that it would help with her pain. She would be allowed so much every hour if needed.
The next day they decided to do the surgery to put a tube in her chest to drain the blood. She now had an extremely dangerous back surgery, staples running up her entire back with tubes, a huge scar under her arm from the biopsy with tubes, and now a huge tube coming out her chest. Her fingers and toes at this point were in a stage of necropsy. But they couldn't do anything about it. They would just have to fall off in time. It was devastating. My daughter was a trooper through out this whole time. She never complained or was negative. She was just scared when she understood what was going on. Honestly I've never seen so much courage in my life.
When it came to her pain meds she was only on fentanyl and Dilaudid drip. She would only receive it when she asked. That was her rule. She was scared she would overdose or become hooked on it and didn't want that monster on her back. She would be in so much pain but would just sit through it. Her vitals were better, but when the pain would become to much to bare, her heart rate would go into the 150 to 170 range. As soon as she got some meds it would go down to the teens to low twenty's.
On Thursday night she had a new nurse. He would administer pain meds even when she didn't request it. I saw him give her shot when she was sleeping. I walked in on him. I asked him if she requested it as I saw she was asleep and he said no. He stated he was trying to keep her comfortable. I asked him not to unless she asks. He didn't listen.Throughout the night as we slept, he would give her meds that she didn't even need. He gave her haldol. She only received that for two days after her back surgery. No one had given her that since. He would give her a shot of fentanyl behind it. I later found this out while talking with her doctors and from her records.
That Friday morning she started having these weird episodes, what later looked like seizures to me. Her vitals would drop and she would go into a deep stare. They blamed the meds. It was constant apologies for her being over medicated again. Even the doctor didn't understand why he gave her so much.She had 4 separate episodes before they (at my constant request) sent her to get a MRI done.
She had a blood clot in her brain. Again they said nothing to worry about. But after experiencing what we went through already, I was highly concerned. As I should have been. They kept apologizing and said they would change her medication up again. I told them it wasn't the medicine it was the nurse. I couldn't understand why he would give her two doses of haldol when she didn't need it. The nurse said my daughter was anxious and thought it would help. My daughter was sleeping so how could she have been anxious. I went off. Something in my spirit was telling me to get her out of there. But how could I when she was hooked up to all these tubes. She was suffering and I couldn't help her. The only thing I could do was use my voice to try and protect her and be her advocate. The next day Jan. 20th, I woke up after a couple hours of sleep, and I knew something was wrong. She was awake and trying to talk. Her vitals were back at a steady 170 with high blood pressure and a low oxygen number so I knew she was in pain. I could feel it in every bone of my body something was different that day. I felt my baby didn't have long as I thought cancer was winning. I called all of our family to come see her. I can't explain it. At one point I pulled one of her doctors out of her room and begged him to tell me what was happening. Shoot it to me straight. He kept saying she's always been critical but she would pull through. He had so much hope.
They gave her some meds to help bring her vitals down and it started to work again. Her vitals started going from 160 to 150. At this point she was having a brain scan done in her room to see what the episodes were exactly. She was awake but could no longer move from her neck down. Which had just started the 2 days before. She had a blood infection and they had to move the pic line from the right side of her neck to the left side but we're unsuccessful because she had obstructions there (2 huge tumors) They had to put the new line back on the right side in the back of the neck. I don't know what happened since I wasn't allowed in the room. I do know my daughter said after they finished, she wasn't able to feel anything but her face. She never turned her head again.
During that day she kept having flem and spit from the congestion she had due to the chest infection and surgery. I would sit there and suck it out for her. No problem, I had been doing it for days with no complaints on my end. The doctors were coming in and out constantly all day to check her brain test and at one point the doctor seeing me and my nephew take shifts suctioning her out said he wanted to try a new medicine she had never received. My daughters nurse interrupted him and said that she didn't think that it was a good idea. They went back and forth for a few minutes and I stepped in and said, it was fine, I would sit there and suction out forever if I had to. Something felt different in this exchange as well. In all of 24 days of being in the hospital, I never saw a nurse challenge a doctor. I immediately went to the computer, where the nurse had typed in the order for this drug, and googled it. The first thing that popped up, was not to give this drug to someone with high blood pressure or high heart rate. It causes a person's heart rate to shoot up high quickly. It was too late. They already administered it to her. Since her heart rate was already high it caused her to go into cardiac arrest. I just stood there in shock screaming is she in cardiac arrest? To which the doctor finally responded "I'm sorry, yes"
They ushered me and my nephew out of the room so they could work on her. After about 30 minutes they called my phone and told me she flatlined but they got her heart beating again. I went flying back in that room screaming at them. I refused to leave the room. She was now on life support, but there was no hope for her to ever wake up again. After consulting with my family and her doctors, and looking at where her vitals were, I decided to pull the plug. She passed within seconds. I feel like the doctor should have listened to the nurse, but his ego would not allow him to. I feel like he's somehow responsible, but at the same time I saw what was happening to her on a daily basis and what cancer was doing to her body. I also witnessed a lot of negligence too on their part. I've been going back and forth since January 20th, about contacting an attorney and seeing if I have a case. I requested an autopsy to be performed, because I wanted to know what all was wrong with her. They informed me they normally don't do that because of the cancer. I argued with them and said I wanted one anyway. I wanted to know what happened. I was trying to understand this whole situation. 25 days prior it was just supposed to be a pinched nerve, but it wasn't. They explained I would have to pay for the autopsy, and I was okay with that. The next day after she passed away, I received the phone call to give my permission for an autopsy. They said it would take a couple days and would let me know when it was finished so the funeral home could pick up her body.
I've been calling for months about the autopsy report with no luck. Here we are in May, I go to the hospital to get the autopsy results and it's all of five pages. It's not even an autopsy report. It doesn't even state her cause of death. It's just bullshit paperwork. All it mentions is the necropsy to her fingers and toes and her basic info like height and weight. I'm so angry right now. I have her medical records, and I noticed on the 19th of January they finally put she was allergic to Ativan. There's a lot wrong with this situation. I even asked for a CD of all her images, from pathology. What I received only two images come up. Everything else is blocked from opening. I know my daughter took multiple MRIs, ultrasounds,and CAT scans in those three and a half weeks. There's no way it's only two images.
I counted all the times the nurse gave my daughter pain meds that Thursday night and it was double what any other nurse had given her at any other time plus with other drugs she didn't need at that time. I found out that haldol and fentanyl is something they give to patients that's in end of life care. Which I was constantly told my daughter was not. Her death certificate states she passed from lymphoma related cardiac arrest. I'm just so confused on what to do. I feel like I'm letting my daughter down if I don't look into this further.
I'm sorry this a novel. I couldn't just ask a simple question with out the back story for you to understand. It was so much more believe me, this was the short version!
Do I have a case or should I just move on and accept my daughter died from cancer related complications? Thank you....