Symptom Diary

07/02/2000 - 07/08/2000
07/09/2000 - 07/15/2000
07/16/2000 - 07/22/2000
07/23/2000 - 07/29/2000
07/30/2000 - 08/05/2000
08/06/2000 - 08/12/2000
08/13/2000 - 08/19/2000
08/20/2000 - 08/26/2000
08/27/2000 - 09/02/2000
09/10/2000 - 09/16/2000
09/17/2000 - 09/23/2000
09/24/2000 - 09/30/2000
11/19/2000 - 11/25/2000
11/26/2000 - 12/02/2000
12/10/2000 - 12/16/2000

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Saturday, August 26, 2000

22:44 Another up and down day. More irritable bowel, coccyx is incredibly painful. Feeling better than I was, but still fragile, still far too easily upset, far too easily pushed over the edge from coping to non-coping. Bad night's sleep, stayed in bed all morning, got up at lunchtime feeling like I'd been hit by a train, still with that taste in my mouth of intense dreams. Dehydrated. Getting frustrated and restless, desperate to get out and about, go walking, get out of the city into the hills.

Have been entering stuff into database rather than spreadsheet. Hopefully together, this and that will help me track down triggers.

Friday, August 25, 2000

21:50 An up and down day. Have gone from feeling like I can cope to utter despair in the course of a sentence, a blink of the eye. Pain bad in lower back and around bottom of torso. Vision has been quite blurred. Had a severe nausea attack earlier, mid-afternoon. Lump in my face was badly swollen this morning, appears to have receded a bit. Bad night's sleep. Legs achey, but lower back and coccyx are the worst today, almost excrutiating to sit down. Have been too hot.

Thursday, August 24, 2000

22:42 The lump is, apparently, a swollen lymp node. Nothing to worry about. I'm still worried.

Doctor is referring me to a new consultant with a special interest in chronic fatigue-type illnesses.

I am going to start trying to rate things on a scale of 0-5 so that I can construct some sort of spreadsheet and maybe work out some sort of time pattern or other pattern to my symptoms. I guess that means recording things like weather and such like.

Pain today has been particularly bad in back. Shoulders are extremely tight and getting tighter. I'd rate the state of the musculature in my back at being about 4.5 (assuming 5 is total seizure, as one might get after an injury). The pain is around 3·5. Not the 4·5-5 it has been for the last week. Nausea has reduced from 5 yesterday morning (vomiting) to about 1-2 today. Vision problems have been at around 2, blurring, wobbliness, with a suden appearance of the webcam effect. No synaesthesia. No skin sensations. Have only been shaking a little, about 1 for the whole day overall. Words have come ok, so I'd rate that as around a half. No other mental problems, although memory has been annoying me - about a 2.

I'll probably just stick this straight into the spreadsheet from now on, but at least this gives an idea of what I am up to.

The weather today has been fine and hot. Too hot.

Wednesday, August 23, 2000

16:34 After a morning of being sick, shaking, and in terrible pain, I think it might be breaking. It has taken more than a week. I don't feel quite so bad this afternoon, but I am still weak and I feel rather sick and my joints hurt quite a lot.

Sadly, however, I found a lump at the back of my right lower mandible yesterday. It's right below the lobe of the ear, and quite large. It's definitely below the skin and does seem to have limited movement with respect to the structure underneath. I'm quite worried about this. It's the last thing I need on top of everything else.

Have made a doctor's appointment for first thing tomorrow morning.

Monday, August 21, 2000

15:13 If you can imagine being pinned to a wall by someone shooting you with a nail gun, through the shoulders, in the dip below the distal end of the clavicle, through the wrists, just below the palm, through the sides, just below the rib cage, through the calves, pressing the flesh to one side and right through the middle, through the ankles, and through the feet, and then add to that the pain you get when you smash your elbow against something, but spread throughout all the long bones, and the sensation of having pulled every muscle in your body, and being pelted by children using cotton wool soaked in acid instead of snowballs, then that is what this is like. But only some of it, for there is more than that. There is also the sensation of a long metal needle being inserted through the right temple and into the back of the eye I do not have, the burning in my lower back and the feeling of someone standing on my sternum so that I cannot breathe properly and my heart thuds painfully. And this is just the pain. There is more. The vision loss, the dizziness, the intermittent nausea, the loss of memory, the loss of motor co-ordination.

I am shaking quite badly, and am very weak. I am using a stick to help me get about today because there is no strength in my legs. Bowel very irritable today (as most days). Sleeping has been disturbed and full of vivid dreams again. Have been trying to write a letter to my Dad and it takes concentration to form each letter. The words keep blurring on the page. If I had a printer I'd type it, which would be so much easier.

Very tired, quite sick. Can't find a position that is comfortable. Find myself in the depths of despair. The radio noise hurts my head, makes my eyes jump, or the picture they see (it sees), but it is marginally better than silence. Feel weepy but haven't been able to cry. That's worse than crying, I think.

Sunday, August 20, 2000

22:43 Pain continues to get worse. Same pattern. Feel slightly better in morning, gets worse steadily through day, but particularly bad in waves every 3 hours or so lasting an hour, hour and a half. One step forward, two steps back. Been in too much pain, too weak to do this today. Appetite suppressed but still there. Have hand-written list of today's particular symptoms, will copy that up tomorrow if I can.

Seriously thought I was dying today. Breathing difficult, pain extraordinary.