It’s been over four months searching for answers about my health condition starting in early May, consulting many different doctors and getting many tests. My symptoms include in both arms and legs nerve and muscle pain, weakness, fatigue, walking and balance issues, etc, resulting in one of the hardest emotional trials of my life.
As of today, here is what I know. One of my low back vertebrae is not directly over the vertebrae below it, but at some point moved backward. It is grade 1 which means less than 25% movement. I haven’t seen the MRI so don’t know yet if it’s just a little displaced or up to 25%. Often it doesn’t cause serious symptoms, I’ve read, but it can depending how bad it is. I also have several other serious issues in my low back classified as spondolyosis, basically breakdown of joints due to age, weight, past injuries, etc. Tomorrow I get an MRI of my upper back. (Update: 9/21, got upper back MRI today, in better condition. Two bulging discs but no nerve impingement, stenosis of cord, sign of MS or vitamin deficiency lesions).
Also at this point I can say from tests I don’t have MS, heavy metal poisoning, diabetes, peripheral vascular disease, or Lyme disease, among other things tested for.
Also, one doctor suspects in addition to back issues, that the gastritis I dealt with from February through the summer may have led to B vitamin deficiencies causing neurological damage. Potentially reversible still at this point. She called it a hypothesis. That may be true considering extreme fatigue and brain fog, but that symptoms have improved with supplementation and diet, and the gastritis resolving.
An urgent care doctor thinks I have periodic leg movement disorder, your extremities moving at night due to low oxygen from sleep apnea, which I have, now using a CPAP machine. Symptoms can include weak arms and legs and nerve pains.
Yet two doctors, two physician assistants, etc think part of the cause is psychosomatic disorder, caused by a history of trauma, in which the brain responds to physical illness by magnifying the symptoms, or even creating them.
So as of today, from the sum total of tests and evaluations, I’m dealing with a) back issues, not sure yet how serious, but it looks serious, pursuing physical therapy if not surgery, plus major weight loss, b) B vitamin deficiencies, causing neurological symptoms, me supplementing and eating a lot of vegetables, c) sleep apnea causing periodic limb movement at night, working on getting used to wearing CPAP mask, d) a psychosomatic response to severe stress beginning before all this started.
Folks, please pray for me. This is a lot going on converging in a short period of time. Please pray I can generally get my health back, go back to work, and in my profession still somehow (PT), but also that I have the strength, fortitude, courage, faith, and hope in the good Lord to preserve my mind and soul if this turns out long term or worsens. Or for however long. Even pray for a general, full recovery and soon, which would seem like a miracle, but God can heal so please ask for that. I pray myself daily to St. Padre Pio, St. Rita, Blessed Alexandria, and Sr. Wilhelmina. Please invoke them too.
This feels like the devil oppressing me physically. And I am at least in part at fault for giving into that oppression not at times taking good care of my health, though God knows how much has been outside of my full control.
I’ve dealt with depression for years, and as a result low metabolism and a high appetite leading to weight gain in my youth. Partly my own fault, but largely due to the illness of metabolic disorder from depression. God knows how many times I’ve tried to lose weight, which for most obese people is very hard to to do. But the devil still has oppressed me for decades with a life of set backs, in career, with bad experiences with bad family members and friends, despite being a generally diligent, responsible, intelligent, motivated person and devout Catholic, despite still my many sins and failings.
I went through a similar health crisis six years ago which seems by a miracle resolved. I had hurt my back, then weeks later a nerve in my face, then weeks later developed chronic TMJ disorder, then a few nights later chronic tinnitus, all leading to severe insomnia and anxiety, then days more later a sudden outbreak of the same pains in both arms and legs, followed by extreme fatigue and weakness. I thought whatever it was was permanent, but somehow it all resolved after six months or more.
But now I’m in another similar health crisis beginning in February with major GI illness, then severe stress, financial hardship, car stolen, then quickly this condition. This summer with the heat and stress I developed a painful Rosacea in my face combined with everything else was extremely overwhelming. I feel again like I’m being targeted by demonic oppression Just the other weekI got ear aches and now my ears feel full all the time with hearing loss, I expect temporary from remaining fluid clogged by sinuses inflamed right now by seasonal allergies.
God knows how much I truly deserve this. I know it is better to suffer now even horrible crosses than in hell or even purgatory. So these circumstances, part of God’s Providence, is for my own salvation and that of those in my life, even for those of you reading this and keeping me in your prayers.
Part the cross I’m acutely aware of lately is the devil standing there tempting you while you carry it. As he did of Christ. In our darkest hours, he tempts us to doubt, confusion, anger, cowardice, discouragement, despair, and ultimately to give up on life and turn forever away from God. I’m very aware how the devil uses your weaknesses to draw you in. Ultimately, he literally wants you in a state of mortal sin, dark despair, and to die in that state, so he and his minions can drag you down ti hell to your eternal torture chamber.
God help me to carry my cross, and not with feeble effort but with strength, and if I should fall to use that humbling experience to rely on God’s grace to pick me back up and sustain me.
I’m not sure what else to say except please pray for me, as I do for readers, and I’ll keep you posted as long as this lasts.
Onward and upward.