Hi all,
I am new here and this is my first ever post. This is going to be a really long post so for that I apologise in advance!
A bit about me - Male - 32yrs - 5'8 - 11.5st - UK.
Ok, so since I was 17 I had always liked to go out for beers etc with my friends - was doing it every week for years. Since then I have got myself a mortgage (8 years ago), settled down in a good job and got a lovely wife and family. I have always seen myself as a social person and very outgoing.
Over the past 18 months I have noticed that I like to binge drink at the weekends with my friends as they would come over and stay at our house or we would go over to theirs. I don't drink in the week and to be honest I believe I was "saving up my drinking" for the weekends. So for example on a Friday night I would have about 8 pints, then on a Saturday probably another 5 pints, then on a Sunday I would have 7 pints and a couple of glasses of wine. This would be pretty much every week for at least the past 1 year.
Anyway - and this brings me to today's post....6 weeks ago on a Friday night some friends came over - I had about 8 pints Friday night. I had also arranged to go on a "all dayer" on the Saturday with some other mates. On the Saturday I drank myself absolutely stupid. Ended up having 16 pints , jaeger bombs, vodkas - you name - we drank it. I have zero recollection of this but when I came home I collapsed. I couldn't walk, talk, or do anything for myself. During the night I violently vomited and vomited blood too. My lips went blue and went deathly pale. My wife did not take me to the hospital and just let me "sleep it off". I feel that I should have gone - but that is by the by now. According to my wife I was extremely gaunt and you could see my ribs because I vomited so much.
Upon waking up the following morning I did not feel like I had a hangover. No headache, nothing. The only feelings I got was very bad abdominal pains. I then started to get aches and pains all over my body as 2 days went on. I started trembling and uncontrollably shaking. I was having pains in my chest, left arm, heart/chest palpitations, feeling run down, flu like symptoms that never really come out, literally thought I was having a heart attack. I decided to go to the doctors 3 days later (after the binge drink) just really to check me out and make sure no damage was done. She prodded and poked me and couldn't see anything that was of concern but prescribed me Lansoprazole as she believed I may have damaged my stomach lining because of the blood vomit and that would sort it. They also carried out blood tests to be on the safe side but all came back normal.
After leaving the doctors and taking the tablets my stomach pains, body shaking, headaches, arm pains, palpatations, sneezing, sore throat that never really came out properly, just started to get worse. I was having sensations of my body just "stopping" and I found it hard to breathe. This was when I was going to sleep and also had this a few times in the day too. I ended up seeing the same Dr about 4 times in 2 weeks. All she put it down too was my binge drinking session, and my body was still recovering. I wasn't happy with what she was saying so I ended up visiting Dr Google and all sorts of malicious illnesses and diseases were coming up. Every new symptom I had I googled it. Although I was hungry I was forcing myself to eat.
On week 3 I was still no better and felt that I was gradually getting worse. I started to prod and poke myself in the stomach area that it was hurting, and I convinced myself that I am sure I felt little lumps in there. Again Dr Google was visited. Discussing with my wife and she thought I was showing signs of depression, so we booked in to see another Dr. This dr checked me and again could not see any concern and put it down to anxiety.
I was still feeling the same with all my random aches and pains everywhere - from head to toe - trembling, shaking, palpations, sensations of body stopping, chronic aching on liver side, back ache, leg ache, tingling, pins and needles in fingers - you name it - I felt like it. I then started to get a pain on my right side of stomach and heart attack symptoms again and after googling this I went straight to the local walking centre and saw ANOTHER Dr! Had an ECG, blood pressure etc - all fine, she checked my breathing, listened to lungs and could not see any issues with me at all.
A couple of days later I still had this pain in my right side of stomach, I thought this was getting worse - googled again and read about Appendicitis. Again I called up my local Dr - saw ANOTHER Dr! He had a prod and poke and said he thought it might be a stomach ulcer or appendicitis. He made me go straight to the hospital. This is where things started to get interesting.....
Week 4 I had seen 4 different dr's - 5 or 6 times and now I was in hospital!
Still had pains in my right hand abdomen and still felt generally unwell so had to be admitted. They took my bloods and again all came back normal. They ordered a X Ray on the Friday night and a colonoscomy (sorry for spelling!) on the Saturday (morning)! I say Saturday morning like that because....
After my X-Ray Friday night I was Nil by Mouth at 11pm. Supposed to have my camera in the morning the following day. Anyway 2:30pm came - and still no sign of camera operation - no food or drink for 15 hours - I felt like I was going to collapse - I was asking the nurses for water and they refused, so I ended up drinking water out of the tap in the Male toilet! I also ended up drinking some water from a jug of the patient next to me! The nurse just said "Oh you were supposed to have a cannula 5 hours ago" - they had forgotten my fluids! A cannula was fitted and fluids came through although it was difficult to get the cannula in because I was so dehydrated. Now because I had eaten and drank something I could not have anesthetic, sedation, or be put to sleep and I had to have the camera in "dry"! This was a problem because the pain was so bad with the camera up they could only see the first 15cm of my bowel but said it was normal although they did not get round to the appendix side (the right side where I was having the pain) They said because x ray is normal, and camera is normal, and blood test is normal then there is no cause for concern for them. I was kept in over night and in my sleep my cannula in my arm moved so when I woke up on Sunday morning it was half hanging out of my arm. It actually fell out of my arm with no professional to take it out properly. This made me worry as I thought what if a bit of plastic was left in my vein! Again, no nurses seemed worried, only I was.
Later on the night of the second night the nurse administered me with a blood thinning jab and told me I should of had it when I was admitted 35 hours ago!
The hospital told me I had IBS because of anxiety and prescribed me with Buscopan - 3 times a day for 2 weeks. To note - when I woke up on Sunday morning my neck really ached but I put that down to sleeping funny on it at the hospital.
I left the hospital on Sunday PM and immediately regretted my decision of drinking water from the hospital taps, I began to feel myself trembling, and again aches and pains all over my body that I had from day 1. I had weird sensations of Chinese burns over my neck and wrists. All manner of illnesses were going round my head about MRSA, Legionella, pneumonia, and even was aimlessly reading the news and meningitis stories were coming up - dreadful ones. I thought I had given myself a illness because of the water tap, or the plastic cannula break off being in my vein so I rang NHS direct - they told me to go straight to a Out of Hours Dr at the local walk in centre.
After speaking with the local Out of Hours Dr he wasn't concerned again and put this all down to health anxiety and checked my blood pressure, pulse, heart rate ect and said all was normal. He said the best thing for me would be CBT. We were supposed to go on holiday in the following few days and told me I needed a rest and to go with my family. In the meantime we booked CBT for in the next 2 weeks.
The days leading up to my holiday I was still having pains and aches all over the place and in different places and my right side stomach pain was still there although I did not have any trembles.
We landed on holiday and on the first day when we were shopping I felt my left ear go "blank" it was like I went deaf in my left ear for a split second. I then started to feel really dizzy and had the feeling of being on a boat, I had left arm pain and pain across my heart area again so immediately though heart attack again. This time I did not go anywhere to any Dr's and thought I could "ride it out". I did ride it out and tried to get on with the holiday but still had this boat feeling all day every day. I also noticed that my head aches were more like migraines and pressure headaches that would come and go. Sometimes I would have them all day, and other times I would have them sporadically. I also started to prod and poke my self again around the neck area as it was still hurting from hospital. I noticed that my left lymph nodes were swollen compared to my right, and I was sure my left shoulder was swollen too. Still for the rest of my holiday I had all my original aches and pains, headaches, everything. I also noticed that I had difficulty swallowing food now and felt I was really concentrating on it "going down the right pipe".
After 10 days we landed back in the UK and not 4 hours later I started to tremble again, all my original aches and pains, and sensations were still here but I kept telling myself that it was this health anxiety.
I awoke the next morning to find my left leg was like a dead weight. I was experiencing what felt to me like blood flow issues in my left leg. aches and pains all over it. I was convinced I had either DVT or a blood clot in my leg as I was thinking about the hospital dehydration, the bit of plastic still in my vein, the late hospital blood clot jab and that I had just been on a plane for 2.5hrs. As this was Saturday I ended up back at the local walk in centre seeing yet again another Dr. I told him all about my feelings, my body sensations etc. He measured my legs, checked blood pressure - again all normal and no concerns at all. I still left feeling something is not right with me.
Sunday (yesterday) was at my parents house for roast and again trembling, pressure headaches, pain behind right eye, sneezing once or twice, chest ache, neck ache, arm ache/pain, feeling of being run down - I ate a roast potato and was sure it went down the wrong way because as I swallowed I had such a sharp pain at the bottom centre of ribs like where your ribs meet in the middle - I immediately thought that had gone into my lungs and I felt like I was concentrating on breathing again!
That all brings me to today.
I have booked at appointment to see Dr at 3pm today to go through everything. I have got CBT on Tuesday of next week as well.
I wanted to reach out to all of you as I feel like I just cannot get through is. I am just so worried about what is causing all of my sensations and feelings.
I am starting to feel sick now every time I eat something and within 6 weeks I have lost a stone in weight.
Just as I write this I have nose sniffling, pressure headache, chest ache, back ache, and neck pain where these "nodes" are.
Really worried it is something serious, and the only thing I cling on to is the fact I have had 2 blood tests in 6 weeks, a chest x ray, stomach x ray and a camera up my rear - all normal.
I cannot put this down to what happened 6 weeks ago and I just want it to go away! I used to be very outgoing and social but haven't been my self at all since this all started. To note - I haven't touched a drop of alcohol either in 6 weeks but I still don't feel any better.
Thank you for all your time reading my story - and I am sorry it is so long - but I really need help and need my mind putting at ease. I just don't know where to turn next.
Thanks all.
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