Age: 32
Sex: Female
H/W: 5’4”/180
R: Caucasian
Background:
I was 20 and pretty sick so I apologize if the details are a little fuzzy or inconsistent but back in 2006 I had a latent/mutated form of strep that caused a whole host of problems—joint/muscular pain, severe fatigue, external sores and in mouth, etc that the doctors weren’t able to diagnose until it escalated to the point where I was unable to walk or eat/drink unassisted. After they were able to nail it down and I was given treatment some of the symptoms evolved into a more chronic disorder and after several months I was eventually diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which at the time, I had never heard of. The diagnosis has been confirmed by several rheumatologists.
It’s never really been clearly explained what happened to me other than “you had a lengthy strep infection, it did some damage and, congrats, now you have fibromyalgia”. All I’ve been able to parse is that either the bacteria mimicked my normal cells and my immune system has just continued to fire bomb everything or it ate my nerves and now I hurt all of the time. I’ve kind of been like ¯_(ツ)_/¯ for 12 years because the peer-reviewed studies I have access to aren’t always super clear to someone with an art degree and high levels of brain fog and what I’ve found online is...not great especially in regards to post-strep reactions/fibromyalgia other than a paper from 1998 saying “hey this novel thing happens sometimes”. If you know of any resources or literature I could look into or know what the actual mechanism is, I would be hugely appreciative.
Submitted August 07, 2018 at 09:22PM by CarolWendelson https://ift.tt/2AOjALc
No comments:
Post a Comment