Mystery Illness — someone help!
Hello!! I am 24 y/o female, 5’3”, 190 lbs, and a non smoker. I have only been diagnosed with Hashimotos and currently take 88 mcg of levothyroxine. Thyroid levels are currently stable.
So far, I have been to my PCP, an endocrinologist, an ER, and now an allergist/immunologist. No one has any idea what is going on… I am currently waiting on some bloodwork to come back from the immunologist, but wanted to pick everyone’s brain.
For about a year now I have been experiencing the following symptoms:
Worst symptoms—
- Extreme bloating, especially after eating (doesn’t matter what I eat. Could be crackers could be a whole meal)
- Nausea and diarrhea
- Loss of appetite
- Muscle pain/aching
- Random hot flashes with sweating
- Skin gets flushed, hot and burns
- Itchy hives on skin
- Terrible brain fog
- Can’t concentrate and lose my train of thought frequently
- Irregular and heavy/painful periods (cycles range from 38-60 days, periods last about 8 days and are heavy the whole time)
- Extreme fatigue and tiredness that don’t improve with any amount of sleep
- Dizziness
- Heart palpitations
- Insomnia
- Shortness of breath
A lot of my symptoms seem to happen in “flares” through the day. I will get hives everywhere, skin is hot and burning, I start sweating, I get dizzy and nauseous, basically just feel awful like I have the flu plus hives, then after like 25 minutes they go away and come back throughout the day. Other symptoms are constant. I have constant, debilitating itching even when hives are gone. They started off only happening in the evenings usually… gradually have gotten to the point where they’re all day almost every day. My diarrhea happens quite literally as soon as I eat anything. This has resulted in me mostly just eating ice chips every day. I have started doing 2 Allegra with a famotidine in the morning and the same at night. This has helped slightly but has not completely eliminated my hives.
I am at the point where I genuinely feel like my quality of life is being affected. I don’t sleep well, I get hot flashes and sweat all day and night, my stomach always hurts, and I’m always breaking out in hives or flushing on my face. I’m always tired and achey and I feel dazed every single day. I just really want to know — what could be causing this? I don’t believe it’s my hashimotos as my TSH started off at 31.7 and is now at 2.9 and my symptoms have not improved at all.
A few other things that might be worth mentioning
- negative ANA
- negative tick panel
- no allergies (have never had so much as seasonal allergies)
- haven’t made any recent changes to soap, detergent, etc.
- CBC and CMP were basically normal
- vitamin d deficient
I have added a picture of the hives for reference.