February 2018

Turned 28 years old. Got some kind of sickness starting on the 5th, doctor guessed it was exzema, made it difficult to do much for quite a few days. I had to cancel my work hours, and got little else done. As of the 22nd, I am finally almost back to normal, with minor symptoms remaining. Full story below:

The sickness had approximately three stages:
 * 1) major swelling (approximately February 5th to the 8th)
 * 2) debilitating muscle pain (approximately February 9th to the 21st)
 * 3) red areas on skin, itchiness, occasional moderate swelling (approximately February 21st to the present)

Major Swelling
When I woke up on February 5th, my fingers were very swollen. The night before, I noticed very slight almost imperceptible swelling in one or two of my eczema affected fingers.

I immediately went to my doctor. That visit was not especially useful, mostly left me disappointed and perplexed by how useless it was. I contacted my employer to cancel my working schedule.

Over the next few days, other random areas (such as my ears, eyelids, and lips) would swell in turn, and then recover.

At some point on the 7th, I seemed mostly recovered. I went and got groceries. But my feet were getting a bit sore, I figured it was their turn to swell.

It was a good thing I got groceries then, because stage 2 was about to begin.

Debilitating Muscle Pain
Next, it became sharply painful, and thus practically impossible, to move certain affected muscles. I think it started with my hands again. Very painful to move them in certain ways.

My left hand could grasp, but not lift. And my right hand could lift, but not grasp. To remove items from the fridge, I had to use them together, one grasping the item, one lifting the item. At night, even moving my pillow into place was a painful struggle.

My feet also got sore. I soon realized it was a good idea to stay in my desk chair, which had wheels. I just pushed myself around in that, and it was less painful than walking.

Soon, it was even more necessary to use the chair, as one leg and then the other suffered from the same muscle problem. I created a cardboard cutout to place underneath the slipper on the affected leg, in order to allow it to slide and reduce friction as I moved about. Even getting in and out of bed was a painful struggle. I used a belt wrapped around one foot to help me lift my leg when I needed to.

Finally, on the 12th, I was recovered enough to do things like washing dishes.

Some sore back muscles made me wonder if it would become impossible to breathe, but nothing major happened there.

A jaw muscle became too sore to open my mouth much, so I had to eat soft food and very chopped up meat for a few days.

Stage 3
Red areas on skin, itchiness, occasional moderate swelling (usually swelling when I wake up, decreases during the day)

So what is it? Doctor?
Who knows. Symptoms do seem to be like eczema...except the weird muscle pain bit is apparently not supposed to happen?

I got a blood test (during stage 1 I think, so I couldn't make a fist when the nurse asked), no results. I tried anti-allergy medication (during stage 3), didn't seem to make any difference.