guess my health with me: new symptoms

This is a hunch! A guess! A hypothesis, if you will!

I am that girl at the dinner table that always orders a salad or meat. I believe in the “shop the perimeter of the grocery store,” focusing on buying produce and Whole Foods (I literally cannot type that without it autocorrecting into the store). I am the vitamin aisle’s biggest fan (shop trusted supplement brands pls n ty).

I’m always surprised when my results come back with vitamin levels, such as b12 and d3, at the lowest possible level considered normal. I eat meat, eggs, low-fat dairy, and fish. My ferritin is JUST there, and hemoglobin, too.

I experience chronic fatigue, tingling in my hands and feet, lightheadedness, brain fog, joint pain, and insomnia on a daily. Also, my ongoing stomach pain, heartburn, and nausea I experience? When I do eat so healthy?

The urge I get to just let all hell lose sometimes.

To just eat every day with lower nutrient foods that sometimes taste better (I will admit!). And then have my results haywire. Maybe they would truly reflect exactly what was going on. But only God knows just how messed up I would feel in my day-to-day life.

I’ve been waiting on my endoscopy results for almost 2 weeks now. This is like the NFL draft and your team has the first draft pick. We’re looking for Celiac, allergies, and any other abnormality that may pop up. The allergies are what my gastritis looks consistent with (my GI DID say this) and may explain some of the malabsorption (though he did not explicitly say this).

I’m not sure if this is the oh-so-sexy scleroderma coming into play, but the lower part of my esophagus presented with “harder” cells that had a little more “tug” when taking the biopsy. Thank god I don’t know the most efficient way to ask Google if this is cancer.

My favorite part about all of this is that it is currently 4:16 am and I’m up with heartburn typing this. I can literally feel it when I breathe it’s like blowing bubbles in my throat.

the point of this post?

What I am trying to say in this post is, the unknown can be so frustrating. Having a chronic illness means trying to get to the bottom of your issues because doctors may not be able to. I’ve been trying to come to terms with it all relating to my autoimmune disease, rather than a separate entity in itself. Using this blog as an outlet will help get these feelings out, and I encourage you to explore this theme as well! No matter how wacky it may seem in the moment.

I swear, I should be a question on the MCAT.