Pathology - Need help and advice!

Author

Need help and advice!

stryped@hotmail.com

2005-05-24, 5:57 pm

Hi,
Someone told me there might be some helpful people in this newsgroup. I
am male and 33 years old. Starting around December 2003, I started to
develop flu like symtoms with a fever every 3 or 4 months. These would
come out of no where. I would have chills, body aches, headaches, fever
of 100- 102. The next day I would be fine.

This happened again recently. I went to my family doctor and asked to
be refered to an infectious disease doctor. I have been tested for HIV,
lyme disease, rocky mountain spotted fever, cytolomegalo virus, ebstein
barr virus, cbc, thyroid, liver function, etc. All was normal except
some of my lymphocytes were below normal on the percentage and
granuolcytes were high. One thing concerning was my C-reactive protein
which measures inflamation somewhere in the body was a 54 with normal
being 0-4. Went to the infectious disease doctor. She took another
c-reactive protein a week later which was normal and a test for
histoplasmosis which was normal. Said because of my age and symptoms
she was worried about lymphoma which scares the heck out of me.

She had me take a gallium scan. It showed a "hot spot" of gallium
uptake near the diaghafram and my left lung. She ordered a chest ct
scan last week. It was negative.

Now, I am charting my temperature and coming back in a month. I am so
frustrated. I had a low grade fever of around 99.2-100 sometime during
the day everyday for the last 4 weeks. Praise God I have not had a
fever in the last two days.

During all this time I have been tired especially in the afternoon but
not "debilitaingly tired" as I see normally classifies with cfs.

Can anyone out there offer me some advice or hope? Do you think I am
safe from cancer because of the tests I have had thus far?

I appreciate anything you can do!

Jason

2005-05-28, 5:52 pm

In article <1116728655.513447.32280@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
stryped@hotmail.com wrote:

> Hi,
> Someone told me there might be some helpful people in this newsgroup. I
> am male and 33 years old. Starting around December 2003, I started to
> develop flu like symtoms with a fever every 3 or 4 months. These would
> come out of no where. I would have chills, body aches, headaches, fever
> of 100- 102. The next day I would be fine.
>
> This happened again recently. I went to my family doctor and asked to
> be refered to an infectious disease doctor. I have been tested for HIV,
> lyme disease, rocky mountain spotted fever, cytolomegalo virus, ebstein
> barr virus, cbc, thyroid, liver function, etc. All was normal except
> some of my lymphocytes were below normal on the percentage and
> granuolcytes were high. One thing concerning was my C-reactive protein
> which measures inflamation somewhere in the body was a 54 with normal
> being 0-4. Went to the infectious disease doctor. She took another
> c-reactive protein a week later which was normal and a test for
> histoplasmosis which was normal. Said because of my age and symptoms
> she was worried about lymphoma which scares the heck out of me.
>
> She had me take a gallium scan. It showed a "hot spot" of gallium
> uptake near the diaghafram and my left lung. She ordered a chest ct
> scan last week. It was negative.
>
> Now, I am charting my temperature and coming back in a month. I am so
> frustrated. I had a low grade fever of around 99.2-100 sometime during
> the day everyday for the last 4 weeks. Praise God I have not had a
> fever in the last two days.
>
> During all this time I have been tired especially in the afternoon but
> not "debilitaingly tired" as I see normally classifies with cfs.
>
> Can anyone out there offer me some advice or hope? Do you think I am
> safe from cancer because of the tests I have had thus far?
>
> I appreciate anything you can do!

Hello,
I don't know whether or not you have cancer. It appears to me that you are
doing all that you can do to track down the source of the problem. The
only advice that I could offer you is to discuss with your doctor the
possibility of having an Abdominal Ultrasound or CT scan. This could help
identify any problems with those organs such as cysts.

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jwiljunk@yahoo.com

2005-05-28, 5:52 pm

Hello,
I'm sorry you're running into such a frustrating sequence of events,
but you are certainly not alone. Please clarify some of your case
history: you said you had flu symptoms every 3 or 4 months starting in
12/03. Has that pattern persisted til now without break?

I'm not a doctor, but I have some advice for you. Sometimes we do need
to just wait and see how disease progresses so that enough symptoms
occur that we can make a diagnosis. In the meantime, you should learn
everything you can about the "hot spot", lymphoma symptoms, and any
other things your local doctor feels are worth looking into. Try and
rule out serious diseases (like cancer) FIRST. Do not place too much
stock in a single test, negative or positive, especially a blood test
or a scan; always get 2nd or 3rd tests spread apart for comparison.
Get a 2nd opinion from a different doc. I agree with another post that
asking for a scan lower than the chest may be helpful. If your
symptoms start to change, make sure you contact your doc immediately,
and don't be afraid to demand a checkup sooner than some nurse has
schedule one.

Don't get mad, do some research! Definitely monitor your situation, by
you also need to work to control your stress level. Stress has been
clinically shown to be bad for you. :-)

Tell us how it goes.

Cheers, John