Just a ramble, you don't really need to read it. It's not exactly important or world-shattering. With the "warning, slight waste of your time" disclaimer out of the way:
So the past two (oh wait, guess it's three now) weeks, I've been feeling rather bad. Dizzy when I stand up, sometimes accompanied by nausea, occasional feelings of vertigo/room-swooping-around-me-ness when I'm laying down. That sort of thing. I realized this isn't really an isolated thing - for the past nearly-nine years (probably about eight and a half, give or take a few months) I've had random periods where I'll just feel really bad. Maybe once or twice a month (at least - sometimes it's several times a day when it's really bad) I'll stand up and get dizzy and my vision will go black for a few seconds. If there's something right in front of me that contrasts starkly with its surroundings, I'll maybe be able to see that, but anything that's even slightly in my peripheral vision (as in something I'm not staring directly at, not like off in the corner of my eyes) has no chance of being seen.
The first time the blackout thing happened was a few months after I became a vegetarian, in sixth grade. I got up to read in front of the class, only to look down at the book and have the whole world go black. I could still hear, and I didn't faint or anything - everything was fine except that I couldn't see anything. After a few seconds of waiting for my vision to clear, I gave up on reading and told the teacher I couldn't see. Someone had to take me by the hand and lead me to the office, where I called my mom and hunched down with my head between my legs. It took probably two or three minutes from when my vision went black to when I could see again. My mom assumed it was a lack of protein so she brought me home and fed me some refried beans and we considered it fixed.
Since then, it's happened a lot, just not as long. It usually only lasts 10 or 15 seconds, max, and by now I'm used to it enough that I mostly ignore it. If I'm somewhere that I know really well, I'll keep doing what I'm doing (walk blindly down the hall to the kitchen or the bathroom or whatever) and if I don't know the terrain really well I'll just stop walking and wait until I can see again. I didn't really tell the doctors or make a big deal about it for several reasons (I didn't want to be told I couldn't be a vegetarian anymore, for one, and I also don't like telling the doctor about an issue I'm not feeling right that second as I sit in their office. Since the blackouts are kinda random and sporadic, it's usually been a while from when I feel it to when I see a doctor, so then I don't want to make a big deal of nothing.)
Anyway, I mentioned to a friend of mine that I've been feeling really bad and she said I should go to the doctor, pointing out that it's not exactly normal to be momentarily blinded just because I stood up. So I went to the doctor, told him what was wrong with me, and he took some blood, telling me to come back next week (today). So the past few days, I've been feeling really low on energy, like I'll get home and have dinner at about 7pm and by 7:30 or 8 I'm exhausted and just want to curl up and sleep. It was annoying, but I was like "Eh, I'm about to go to the doctor - he'll tell me what's wrong and then I'll start feeling better."
Unfortunately, he apparently has no idea what's wrong with me. I'm "spectacularly normal." My blood pressure is right in the middle of the ideal range, my iron levels are fine, B12 is fine (if a little way towards the low end of the acceptable range), my thyroids are fine, my white and red blood cell counts are fine, the levels of a bunch of various minerals and chemicals (potassium and sodium and a bunch of things I don't remember) are all fine. He did some urine test things (I don't know what, exactly) and all of that was fine.
On the one hand it's nice to know I'm not anemic and my thyroid function is ok and all that but...at the same time, this really doesn't help me. So now I have to wait until next week to get some more blood tests, then the week after that I'll go back in to discuss the results of that. I'm hoping those show something useful but at this point I'm feeling kinda like "meh. Maybe it's all in my head and I'm just making it up. Maybe I'm healthy after all?" Except like...obviously not, because I don't know how I would have psychosomatically blinded myself.
Siiigh. I know it's not his fault or anything, like he's doing what he can, but it's just frustrating. Plus it makes me feel like a troublesome child making a nuisance of myself or something, because I don't have something he can easily diagnose. Makes me want to just apologize for bringing it up and using his time and slink back home to curl up on the couch.
/rant
ETA: Shoot... That was long. >.< If anyone reads through all that, they deserve a gold star.
So the past two (oh wait, guess it's three now) weeks, I've been feeling rather bad. Dizzy when I stand up, sometimes accompanied by nausea, occasional feelings of vertigo/room-swooping-around-me-ness when I'm laying down. That sort of thing. I realized this isn't really an isolated thing - for the past nearly-nine years (probably about eight and a half, give or take a few months) I've had random periods where I'll just feel really bad. Maybe once or twice a month (at least - sometimes it's several times a day when it's really bad) I'll stand up and get dizzy and my vision will go black for a few seconds. If there's something right in front of me that contrasts starkly with its surroundings, I'll maybe be able to see that, but anything that's even slightly in my peripheral vision (as in something I'm not staring directly at, not like off in the corner of my eyes) has no chance of being seen.
The first time the blackout thing happened was a few months after I became a vegetarian, in sixth grade. I got up to read in front of the class, only to look down at the book and have the whole world go black. I could still hear, and I didn't faint or anything - everything was fine except that I couldn't see anything. After a few seconds of waiting for my vision to clear, I gave up on reading and told the teacher I couldn't see. Someone had to take me by the hand and lead me to the office, where I called my mom and hunched down with my head between my legs. It took probably two or three minutes from when my vision went black to when I could see again. My mom assumed it was a lack of protein so she brought me home and fed me some refried beans and we considered it fixed.
Since then, it's happened a lot, just not as long. It usually only lasts 10 or 15 seconds, max, and by now I'm used to it enough that I mostly ignore it. If I'm somewhere that I know really well, I'll keep doing what I'm doing (walk blindly down the hall to the kitchen or the bathroom or whatever) and if I don't know the terrain really well I'll just stop walking and wait until I can see again. I didn't really tell the doctors or make a big deal about it for several reasons (I didn't want to be told I couldn't be a vegetarian anymore, for one, and I also don't like telling the doctor about an issue I'm not feeling right that second as I sit in their office. Since the blackouts are kinda random and sporadic, it's usually been a while from when I feel it to when I see a doctor, so then I don't want to make a big deal of nothing.)
Anyway, I mentioned to a friend of mine that I've been feeling really bad and she said I should go to the doctor, pointing out that it's not exactly normal to be momentarily blinded just because I stood up. So I went to the doctor, told him what was wrong with me, and he took some blood, telling me to come back next week (today). So the past few days, I've been feeling really low on energy, like I'll get home and have dinner at about 7pm and by 7:30 or 8 I'm exhausted and just want to curl up and sleep. It was annoying, but I was like "Eh, I'm about to go to the doctor - he'll tell me what's wrong and then I'll start feeling better."
Unfortunately, he apparently has no idea what's wrong with me. I'm "spectacularly normal." My blood pressure is right in the middle of the ideal range, my iron levels are fine, B12 is fine (if a little way towards the low end of the acceptable range), my thyroids are fine, my white and red blood cell counts are fine, the levels of a bunch of various minerals and chemicals (potassium and sodium and a bunch of things I don't remember) are all fine. He did some urine test things (I don't know what, exactly) and all of that was fine.
On the one hand it's nice to know I'm not anemic and my thyroid function is ok and all that but...at the same time, this really doesn't help me. So now I have to wait until next week to get some more blood tests, then the week after that I'll go back in to discuss the results of that. I'm hoping those show something useful but at this point I'm feeling kinda like "meh. Maybe it's all in my head and I'm just making it up. Maybe I'm healthy after all?" Except like...obviously not, because I don't know how I would have psychosomatically blinded myself.
Siiigh. I know it's not his fault or anything, like he's doing what he can, but it's just frustrating. Plus it makes me feel like a troublesome child making a nuisance of myself or something, because I don't have something he can easily diagnose. Makes me want to just apologize for bringing it up and using his time and slink back home to curl up on the couch.
/rant
ETA: Shoot... That was long. >.< If anyone reads through all that, they deserve a gold star.
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