Hello babes! So glad that you are back! This blog post is a little bit different than the usual post I write about fashion and lifestyle hacks. But I thought it was important to explain the diseases I have and how they impact my life.
If you read my “About me” post then you will know that I was in car accident on April 10th 2017. I ended up breaking my sternum and had two patellar tendon bruises. I also had cardiac issues. Since that accident I was having all kinds of medical issues. For those of you that don’t know, If you have an underlying condition, when you go through trauma, the underlying condition can come out. Which is exactly what happened.
After A hospitalization in July of 2017 due to cardiac issues and feeling like I am going to faint. This is where is it all began. We saw a cardiologist and didn’t really get any answers as to what was going on. I ended up going back to college with a 30 day event heart monitor. I would come home almost every three weeks to see different doctors. This was stressful!
Finally, Christmas break rolled around and I was feeling horrible. I was having reactions to everything, my body hurt, I was having palpitations all the time, my legs would be beat red after a shower, I was so fatigued I was missing class. I ended up going back after winter break and stayed for a week until I decided I needed to move home to be closer to my mom and doctors.
I spent most days in bed, dealing with horrible fatigues, muscle spasms, horrible leg and back pain. I had no energy or appetite. I barely ate anything. I had to have help in the shower because I would lose feeling in my legs. I would have random rashes on my face.
We saw a specialist at the University of Chicago and form here I saw a neurology, rheumatology and cardiology. I had every test done that you could possibly do. We would be at the university of Chicago medicine almost every week.
After doing this for about almost a year, my rheumatologist refereed me to see a special neurologist at Northwestern University. So my mom and I fugues that we would do anything we need to do in order to figure out what was going on.
on March 9th 2018 I was diagnosed with Dysautonomia. Which is a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. I like to explain it like this, All the functions in our bodies that we don’t control like, breathing, heart rate, temperature, digestion, and your woman parts…..well my body doesn’t know how to regulate this function properly. So I experience A LOT of different symptoms.
Here are just SOME of the symptoms I experience on the daily:
- tachicardia
- blood pooling in my feet
- dizzyness
- flushing
- low blood pressure
- ovarian cycst
- dehydration
- fatigue
- brain fog
- nausea
- hair loss
- heat intolerance
- and money more symptoms.
A month later I was diagnosed with Mixed connective tissue disease. Which disorder characterized by features of other autoimmune diseases such as Lupus, disorder characterized by features of systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic sclerosis, and polymyositis. Basically my muscles are very stiff, which makes it hard to move!
Treatment includes being on heart medication, anti-inflammatory medication, an immunosuppressive medication.
Basically I was up everyday not knowing how Im going to feel or what my body will decide to bring that day! I am doing much better but still have days where I cannot completely everyday normal life things.
Treatment for both conditions includes being on heart medication, anti-inflammatory medication, and an immunosuppressive medication.
One thing to remember is that some people with an autoimmune disease experience different symptoms and some might not experience the “normal” symptoms of there disease but what they are feeling is still valid!
Thanks for reading this post! It means a lot to me!
XOXO
Totally Tori
