Just revisiting this with a quick update.

I few mornings ago, I woke with intense pressure on my chest, and my entire left side felt wrong. Painful, then numb, then like hot water was getting poured over my fingers. I tried to ignore it, and carry on with my day, but it just got worse. Then that weakness I described hit me really hard. Tried to power through, and tell myself it would pass.

It got worse and worse during the day until I ended up in hospital. I had been advised to go in after I was finding it hard to even walk up the stairs.

They checked my heart, ran lots of bloods and were happy I wasn't having a cardiac episode or stroke.

I was fully expecting the doctor to tell me I was anxious, but to my surprise, he sat me down and asked me to go through everything from the beginning. When all of this started, how it had progressed, and what my GP had ruled out/ruled in. So I told him everything, and he said it wasn't anxiety, that the symptoms were very real, and he has worked with patients with very similar problems. He said anxiety and stress are certainly playing a part in how I feel when they happen, but there is definitely something going on. He told me it's more than likely my immune system reacting to food. My left side seems to be where it flares up the most when it happens, along with the all over weakness/fatigue, hair loss, rashes and joint pain.

He put me on a strict diet and a routine to follow. As I have family members with autoimmune diseases, he told me I'm likely genetically predisposed to having an autoimmune type response to certain triggers like food and environmental factors. My mum has an autoimmune disease that attacks her digestive system if she eats a certain trigger food, so it makes sense that a gene or two had been passed down to me.

I was both relieved and terrified, relieved that somebody had finally listened, and terrified as autoimmune issues can vary between manageable and well... not so great. I mentioned things like Lupus and MS, but the doctor thought that my issue sounds more reactive and low grade. Obviously my GP will need to run some tests to rule out the major autoimmune diseases, but I trusted this doctor more than any others I'd ever seen. They specialised in this particular issue, so in a way, I was really lucky to end up in hospital that day!

I have to follow this routine to see if anything helps. I have to try and manage my stress response to the symptoms when they do happen, but now that I have a potential answer, that will hopefully be easier to do. I'm slightly scared, because I don't want to it to end up being something like Lupus or MS, but I'm trusting the doctors expertise that it's a less devastating one that I can manage. I'd eat cardboard for the rest of my life if it meant those symptoms going away for good!