Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Flu From Hell and Endless Tongue Sores



I've been really sick again. The fatigue is killing me. Life for me has become nothing but sleep and time on the Internet. 

This flu from hell came to get me.  Dry heaves, regular puking, sneezing, congestion, horrible indigestion, and exhaustion formed the extent of the last two weeks. I almost went to the hospital one day because the combination of severe mouth sores and the rest were sending me over the bend. The on-call doctor sent me some Diflucan and Lidocaine for the mouth pain so I stayed home.

 Outside time online in bed, all I am doing is sleeping. My sleep is around 14 hours a day. I may have to ask for a mono test or something. My sugars have kind of sucked being from 140-129 on average lately for fasting but not bad enough to explain what is going on.  I am eating some soft foods like cottage cheese and eggs.  I've cut all spicy, hard or tomatoey foods from the diet. I haven't left my apartment since Dec 3rd. On top of everything our very warm fall turned into a freezing winter so I am completely housebound.

Sometimes I don't know what to do. The thrush or "tongue sores" or whatever it is, is out of control. I have tried yogurt and kefir for probotics.  I was on both Nystatin and Difuclan last week, and my mouth feels like someone lit a match in there and burned it.  No medicines are working. There are sores on the back of my tongue that swelled up during the worse of it, where I felt like I had blisters on the back of my throat where the tongue is and tongue. The sores hurt all the time. Oddly strong doses of Nyquil seemed to cut down their pain the most. I even have wondered about allergies because Nyquil has killed some of the tongue pain but it is not swelling as huge as anaphylatic shock would do and I have no hives or other signs.

 The sores are still there, and still hurt but they don't seem to go away. Before I got this flu, because my mouth hurt all the time and these sores were there, I had the dentist do a cancer screen. Maybe they didn't see the sores on the back of the tongue but they said something about me grinding my teeth and said their light test did not show any cancer.  The sores don't seem to be healing and seem to be getting worse.

I would think cancer except they swell up and go down sometimes. Cancer doesn't "get better" then worse and back and forth. My tongue in the front always has these horrible ridges on it, it's swelling and pushing against my teeth. It is "scalloped" to the max.  It goes from pale white looking to cherry red.  What kind of specialist would deal with this? 

It hurts all the time. Sometimes I get so sick of this body. I have failed to lose any more weight, I don't know what I weigh right now, when I am in bed for days I ironically "lighten" up because a bunch of water weight comes off. My health just seems to get worse and worse. I know some major financial and other stress sent me got me sick. My husband had bad gout, an office worker erased all my medical benefits with an error that took me hours and worry to fix. I just wanted to be able to relax. I'm tired of having to worry about this stupid body.

One thing I haven't talked about but is an on going worsening problem is that my fatigue has worsened. I feel tired all the time.  I have constant guilt thinking I need to do this and that and need to "get my life together" when really all I want to do is sleep.  I put everything off even things I enjoy lately. Somehow the doctors need to take this serious. It is getting in the way of things really badly. There's times I will just sit down on the couch even while watching TV or trying to do art work, and just feel frozen, putting my head back talking myself out of going back to bed to go back to sleep.

I have to "make" myself do everything. Even when I had my art class during the fall, I would use my energy up for that and then go collapse into bed. I feel like going to back to sleep now at 10:20 am. Around noon I am sure I will drag myself into the shower, and maybe do a few dishes. It's not much of a life. I was told my thyroid scores were normal on 300 mgs of Synthroid a day, and I already get  monthly B-12 shot from the at home doctors.

As far as the mouth goes, I get constant teeth-cleaning, and brush my teeth 3-4 times a day and do at least one Water-Piking a day. It hurts a lot. Any advice is welcome. I hope I don't have tongue cancer or something else weird. It could be even something autoimmune creating this problem.

The "flu" or virus from hell is almost gone but fatigue and some coughing is still there. I'll have the doctor look at my tongue, and figure that out. I don't think it is "thrush" anymore and even if it is, something is severely wrong with my immune system.


9 comments:

  1. Okay, the indigestion and recent dietary restrictions along with the mouth sores make me wonder if you have an ulcer. I always had mouth sores before an ulcer flair up.

    Also, at the same time I had my first trouble with ulcers, I also had mono. This was my senior year of high school. My. Senior. Year. But I digress.

    Over 90% of ulcers are caused by a bacteria that is easily tested for and easily cleared up. (I'm in the other group.)

    Maybe get tested for both at the same time?

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    1. The indigestion was more short term with the flu, but I am up for any tests. That is interesting that mouth sores and a stomach ulcer go together. I keep coughing some, and wonder now if I have bronchitis, I am fighting it off anyhow. I am going to ask for a mono test and maybe Esptein Barr too while I am at it. Something is wrong. I've had inconclusive tests for lupus before, I've wondered about that as well. Sorry you didn't get the easily cleared up ulcer. I can't keep going on like this, the mouth pain was bad enough to bring me to ears and I woke up this morning and it hurt bad though not so badly I could not eat and not at crying level but noticeable.

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    2. eating yogurt is not really a "probiotic"; go and find real ones at the pharmacy,even ask the druggists if there's a really good one--also,health food stores have them,but the druggist is more secure.--health food stores will sell ANYTHING NOW.yeah,yogurt won't do it.I had a gynecologist,who went to a conference,and the newest research said,"yogurt is good for you,but it will NOT DO THE WORK OF A PROBIOTIC."if the gynos found this out,long ago,its true."Epstein-barr syndrome is a immune system disease.my dad had it.he never got over it.HOWEVER,Cher said,(yes,Cher)that she had one,and she felt terrible,but she went back to excercising, and finally got better--but she was a regularly healthy person.--my dad never got over it,he was in his 70's,thus when the person is not "regularly healthy" and is very old,there's not much you can do.EXCEPT DRINK LOTS OF GREEN TEA--science has said,it does boost yer immune system.--but don't expect miracles.ALSO,EXTREME DEPRESSION can cause a lot of these illnesses,because it lowers your immune system.clinical depression, untreated, can make the person literally physically ill.however you treat it,it has to be paid attn to.

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  2. Hello Peep,

    I'm sorry you are going through all this sickness as of late. I do recall when I was diagnosed with Mono (first time) in the sixth grade that I had horrible mouth blisters/sores as you described here. That may explain your exhaustion and extreme fatigue as well. You can get a mono test to rule in or out.

    The second time I got mono was in 1998, right after graduating from college. I was always rubbing my upper right side. My doctor felt the area and said he could feel that my spleen was enlarged, and discussed tests for Hodkins lymphoma (SP?) but also did a mono test first. It came back as positive and I didn't, thankfully, got the tests for HL.

    The fatigue was insane. I was living with my parents, just graduated from university, dating my now husband, and working full time. It had never even occurred to take time off to fully recover from mono. Are you kidding with narco Mom and enabling dad? So I still worked full time through the mono.

    About a year later, I got a call from an ex-coworker. She said I got her sick. We used to share a phone at work. She called to tell me that she got Epstein Bar Virus. That made me feel so badly.

    Mono is very serious. Epstein Bar Virus is serious. Chronic Fatigue is serious.

    My brother and sister-in-law had mono and it lead to chronic fatigue for several years in the 90's. They couldn't even work. My mom and sister would put them down behind their backs, call them lazy. No one took their condition seriously. Today, that same sister-in-law has lupus and RA. I hear that she is a shadow of her former self. Who knows if the mono started this chain reaction, which lead to chronic fatigue then to lupus/RA.

    I would get tested for mono. I remember gargling with salt water when I had those dreadful mouth sores in sixth grade. It did help.

    Rest when your body says it needs rest. Everything else can wait. I've talked to some people who have been sick for three weeks. This has been a bad month for illnesses. Maybe because we had warm weather well into end of November.

    Please give us an update on how you're doing.


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    1. Thanks anon, I definitely am going to look into tests for mono, and will show and tell doctor what is going on. He should be here in a few days.
      It helps me to know that the terrible mouth sores were one of your symptoms. Yes I am tired all the time and wanting to sleep. I was going to get up today but mouth sores just got over the top with pain.

      I am glad you did not have HL. Sorry you went through mono living with narc parents. I am not surprised they made you work or you felt you had to push your way through. I know I worked through illness for years until there was no other choice.

      Sorry about the co-worker, I hope she does not blame you. Do they test for Epstein Barr to outrule Mono?

      Yes these are serious conditions. I agree.

      Thats too bad about your brother and sister in law. Some people become bedbound from chronic fatigue alone. It makes me sad how people are judged and put down as lazy. In this culture to have any illness or sadness makes you a "bad person". The narcs have run with that one just look at the jerk troll's whose comments I decided to post today just as an example.
      I wonder too if there is a connection to lupus with mono.

      I'm definitely going to ask the doctor for a mono test. He has to be told the thrush medicines aren't working

      I have found out some of my friends have gotten horrible flues, even friends who live long distance. Yes the warm fall and the suddenly very cold December I think did bad things to people's health. Thanks for your kind remarks and advice too.

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  3. Hi Peep, I'm so sorry you are going thru all of this. I'm also a thyroid patient; I have autoimmune hashimoto's thyroiditis and maintanence is a delicate balance of proper thyroid treatment,GF & non-GMO diet & supplements for several nutritional deficiencies. I see that you are on T4/Synthroid which one has to convert to T3, the active thyroid hormone. Not everyone can efficiently convert T4(only a storage hormone)to T3.Changing to T3, changed my life in a huge way. I dose 2xs a day since it is fast-acting...alot of my unresolved strange symptoms(water retention, joint pain & exhaustion, ect...) disappeared.
    Checkout stopthethyroidmadness.com In addition, mouth sores can also be a food allergy. You could try swishing in your mouth Extra Virgin Coconut Oil(anti-viral too)to ease the pain. I have also dealt with a viral load and daily selenium & zinc has helped tremendously. It's like playing detective, process of ellimination to get to the root. Good idea to also get tested for H.pylori bacteria(ulcers) as suggested above. I hope you feel better soon:).

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    1. Thanks, I will look into the T3 matter. I should talk to the doctor about this, I am glad it helped your strange symptoms. I have wondered about food allergies because there is a antihistamine in Nyquil and I noticed when I took it, the sores hurt less. I may try another antihistamine to see if that is having an affect on them. Coconut oil is a good idea too. Yes some websites told me vitamin shortages could be creating mouth sores too and I thought of zinc as well. Yes will talk to doctor about the uclers test, I should be seeing him in a few days. Thanks Kittiestravel. :)

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  4. So sorry you are suffering this way. it sounds like a nightmare. thinking good thoughts for some relief for you.

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  5. Oh Jesus what a whine fest. Wait! I thought I was posting anonymously. I will be back when I can hide my identity and troll you half to death. Like your average gutless troll.

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