New Symptom, Old Problem

One of the difficulties of chronic medical conditions is that when new symptoms crop up, you can't always know if it's part of an existing issue, a complication of a medication, or something unrelated. This can be especially confusing when you have multiple chronic problems that have overlapping symptoms. Because of this, I spend a lot of time on WebMD.com. I also call my doctors often, but because my worst conditions cover three different departments (Gynecology, Rheumatology, and Psychology - my joint issues are pretty stable) getting a consensus can take more than one phone call.*

This morning, I woke up with the shakes. It's becoming more common, though they generally pass after an hour or so. I've noticed it happens more when my fibro is acting up, so I have reason to suspect it's related to that, though the way that other problems interact doesn't allow me to rule those out completely. The initial glance at WebMD.com suggests hypoglycemia, though I've always had good blood sugar. If that's the case, it's easily maintained and not a big deal, so I'll bring it up next time I go to the doc.

Doctors run into this problem too. When there's a mess of symptoms, it's hard to work out what's a result of what. This leads to a lot of "let's try this treatment and see if it works" kinda thing. My fibro went unacknowledged for over a year because it was hard to suss out from the Endo and PTSD. We did eventually (so. many. tests.), but this sort of thing is very common (as is over diagnosis). Medicine may be a science, but it's inexact at best. I feel very lucky that this was all done at the VA, where my doctors aren't incentivized to test and medicate me for the sake of the insurance payouts. The only medication I'm on regularly is the NuvaRing, which serves as a hormone regulator for the endometriosis, so we have one less variable. I'll reach a point where I'll need something for the fibro and I have Percocet for those days when the endo flares up, but the days of 20 pills are still (hopefully far) in the future (and in the past - we've walked that road before).


*I consider myself very lucky that the VA uses a unified electronic records system, so one doctor can review the records from another, which makes this less of an issue, but still annoying.