Thread Title: Cold and Flu Season BFS Nightmare

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MarioMasher

Well-known member
I thought I wasn't going to post here anymore, but man, when cold and flu season hits, my symptoms sure go haywire. This month suuuuuuucks.Here's my latest fun odyssey into BFS world.Now my throat, mouth, and esophagus have all decided to start twitching. No twitching there for 15 months, and now BAM. Every minute of every day. In fact when it first started happening, I didn't even realize it was twitching at all. At first I just sat there thinking, "Why is my breathing so shallow right now? WTF? Why am I having trouble drawing a complete breath?"Combine this with a lump in my throat, odd chest pains, and general achiness/fatigue in my esophagus and... you guessed it... another trip to the doctor.He said it sounded like acid reflux. So he put me on Prilosec. I tried it for two weeks and it didn't do anything. All it did was make me bloated and constipated. Great, so now I don't only have BFS, now I can't crap either. Way to go, Prilosec.I dumped Prilosec two weeks ago, and since then it has just been one weird twitch and ache and pain after the other. First it's my spine. Now it's my throat. Now it's my mouth. Then my esophagus will feel inflamed and scratchy, so I'll have a cough for about half an hour. Then I'll get all tingly for no reason and have pins and needles all over. Then for no reason I'll have to run to the bathroom. Oh yeah, and of course now I'll be nauseated for 3 or 4 hours at a time. But not in my stomach, like a normal person. I'll be nauseated higher up my digestive tract, like in my chest. About 8 out of every 24 hours I'll also have persistent nausea in my throat.Oh yes, and every time I vacate my bowels, I have full body twitches like a madman for about an hour and a half afterwards. And every time I eat? No twitching at all. Calories going in = no twitching. Calories going out = my body rebels. There's about a 100% correlation with caloric intake and my symptoms.It's no wonder I find myself eating so much.So what the hell is going on with me right now? Why have my symptoms suddenly gotten so wacky? Is this ALS? Is this a fatal neurological disease? Am I doomed to be crapping and nauseous and tired and fluttery the rest of my life?Of course not.It's called cold and flu season. Or, more specifically, cold and flu season plus BFS.In the past 2 months I have had more blood tests, some heart tests, a stress echo, a treadmill test, and a message from my neurologist that he "doesn't want to see me anymore because he has no more neurological advice he can give me." None of those things have helped me (or told me) one bit. The only thing that does help at the moment is to remind myself that A) BFS sucks. B) Cold weather with BFS sucks. And C) Oh well, my life could be worse. At least I don't have swine flu.Sorry. I'm done. I just wanted to vent a little bit.BFS can bl0w me.Now back to your regular message board.
 
Hey stud!First visit here in 4 months due to more jaw fatigue. Gotta love this sht huh?I'll pm u on facebook. But all is good. adios
 
Hey Mario,I was gone for a few weeks too.... but its like clockwork right? When the days and nights change, and the weather goes haywire like this things just get back. I have achy joints (particularly my hips and back), tight and sore muscles, twitchies all over (especially in my throat!), my weird headaches, and insomnia like its nobodies business... I think I am actually suffering from exhaustion... I can't focus anymore and my short term memory is getting bad. I really need a week to go to a luxury spa and rejuvinate!!!I feel your pain, and I am poking around here too, in case you need someone to talk to. I think that our insurances should pay for rest and relaxation treatments, don't you???!!Take care, make sure to take a good multi-vitamin too, it sounds like you might be loosing a lot of nutrients right now (you know, the prilosec.....) Plenty of sleep, warm baths, yoga, you know, all that stuff you probably know about anyway :D)
 
Sorry you're having such sucky symptoms. It's nice to see you back though...this forum needs knowledgable veterans to keep things running smoothly.
 
Hey everyone, thanks for the comments. I feel a little better now, two days later. I'm not sure what was going on with me there. Other than twitching, my symptoms are generally pretty mild. I think what happened is that I ate some mystery food (spicy pickles?) that set off my Crohn's Disease, which in turn joined forces with my BFS to give me a short month long ride through hell. Luckily a couple days of extra rest, extra vitamins, more sleep, and plenty of Quinine from tonic water seemed to sort everything out. Now my symptoms seem to have been beaten back down into submission. I beat them down just like the proverbial red headed stepchild. In other words, as Michael Palin said in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "...... I got better."Yay!Thanks everyone. Now back to your regular unflappable Mario.
 
Glad you feel better Mario - I think my bad time is slacking off a bit too. Maybe there is a seasonal aspect shared by more than a few of us? My relapse was mainly random cramping and some consistent vibrating which I haven't had in a while. Guessed it was my body fighting off some Fall flu or something that was increasing stress on my system. It was kind of a letdown as I'm just starting to get with it physically again and it has kept up a few weeks throwing me off. It was every morning back in the body dregs with the old symptoms going into joint stress and swelling and nausea blahblahblah. I really really did not want to go to the neuro as I've had about enough of those guys (whenever I think about going back I just pull out the insurance sheet to see how much they charged not only for their office visit but how much the inconclusive tests were). Maybe optimistic of me to think it is getting better after one day with feeling OK but I'm looking forward to getting off the ibuprofen again.No more spicy pickles for you!
 
Yeah unfortunately I hadn't had any bread and butter pickles for about 5 years, but then one night on a whim I ate about 30 of them. I suppose that was as good a time as any to figure out that sweet pickles are incompatible with Crohn's Disease. Prior to this month I had never known that before. Oh well, live and learn.Glad to hear you are feeling better as well.
 
You know, BFS is a funny thing. Read this post and you will get a laugh out of it. I'm sure many of you can relate to this.The past 3 weeks of my life I have had a really nasty sore throat. I have also had a really nasty throat twitch. It just sort of started out of the blue one day, and ever since then I have been sitting here dreading what is going on and of course dreading how bad it is going to get. Like every BFS person on the face of Earth, as hard as I try not to be like this, of course I am very familiar with the thinking of "oh sh*t, when is the other shoe going to drop?"So anyway I have been suffering through this throat crap for about 3 weeks. Sore throat. Achy neck. The feeling like food is getting caught in my throat, The feeling that I can't swallow. A persistent feeling of nausea in my upper chest. Intermittent shortness of breath.I have been agonizing this for over three weeks, just waiting for it to go away. It hasn't gone away. My doctor thinks I have an upper respiratory infection.So I came to the BFS board today to write up a post. I wanted to sit down and write a big long venting post talking about how much BFS sucks, and how much crap it gives me this time of the year when the weather changes. I wanted it to be my big long farewell before I decided to leave the board for a while.And then a funny thing happened.I did a little research on throat symptoms. And, as you will see above, it turns out I already wrote about them. In fact, I already wrote this exact post. I wrote it almost word for word ALMOST TWO YEARS AGO TO THIS DAY.Seriously, look at the original post above that I wrote on October 22, 2009. I could have written that today. These are the -exact- same symptoms that I am having right now. And what's funny is that I don't even remember writing that post. When these throat symptoms popped up three weeks ago, I thought it was the first time I had ever had them, and that (like all BFS people) "the other shoe had finally dropped."Oops. Turns out this happens to me every year around this time. I guess I had forgotten that.Seriously though, I don't even remember having this before. That's how much of a mindf*ck BFS can be. It can mess with your memory!In any case, thank you to Alonzo and Gary and MikePi for this site and for the fact that it has a search feature. I honestly might have driven myself crazy if there hadn't ben a written record that I already wrote the exact same post I was planning to write today. It's amazing that I don't even remember that I had this before.Oh yes, and in case you are wondering: Peppermints, chewing gum, quinine water, and lots of sleep. And time. That's what helped two years ago. I'm sure it will help next year too.F*ck seasonal BFS changes.
 
I haven't been here in a while and just recently have had a bit of bcfs relapse - cooler weather, viruses, change of seasons plus this time of the year life does seem to get stressful. Holidays, end of year work stuff, taxes, etc. Add it up, mix well, and the resulting concoction is cramps, twinges, a few twitches, and more little shocks and tingles than in many months. But this is just the way I am handling it. A co-worker has vision problems (unexplained), some I know have lethargy, and some headaches, acid reflux. So my channel is different than theirs but it is all the same music as far as I am concerned (most would not agree with me I know). So I'm taking a few days off, getting stuff done that is irritating me, catching up, and doing a little relaxation. Feeling better already. Oh, Hi Mario :D)
 
Hi MarioJust wanted to say that your attitude on this board has been HUGELY helpful to me. Like you, I appreciate it the most when my doc tells me I'm being ridiculous and sends me away. So please don't stop being your positive self, and making light of BFS.Hope your feeling better :)Yasmin x
 
Sure enough, just like clockwork...I was doing so well and had conquered just about everything that was going on. I was feeling great. Yesterday I was walking around without a symptom in the world.Then today, of course, I caught a cold. Welcome back BFS.Man I hate this time of year. I think you might be right about Seasonal Affective Disorder.
 
For me it seems like I either have BFS symptoms or acid reflux symptoms. Sometimes they like to join in harmony but its like I focus on one and then the other flares up. The last week I have actually been better in terms of twitching/ aching muscles but my reflux kicks up. I have pain in the center of my abdomen and its tender to the touch. I have had 4 upper endoscopys, an acid test where they stick a tube through your nose and into you belly. It stays in your belly for 24 hours and you report when you have a problem. I had a mammatry study where they stick another probe down through the same nose and test your muscle strength, etc. Every test always comes back negative. Four years ago I did have one endoscopy where I had mild gastritis in my stomach and esophogitus (basically there was small levels of inflamation). They put me on prilosec (which I did not think really helped me much). They told me I had to stay on the medicine for the rest of my life. 4 years later I started to have bad side effects from the medicine. It made me really dizzy (brain fog like feelings) and threw off my balance. I quit cold turkey but noone tells you that its easier to withdraw from heroine than from this medicine. I lost 15 lbs after stopping the medicine and had lots of gas, bloating and cramping and every other form of digestive tract discomfort. I had every blood test, ct scan, mri you can think of. Its no small wonder that I had extreme anxiety and that's when my bfs kicked in! I saw that you have Crohn's and it does make me wonder if many of the people on the forum started BFS due to digestive issues.
 
I have long since suspected that my digestive issues were what set off the BFS. Because really what else could BFS be (all over symptoms, random, everywhere) but some sort of a vitamin or nutrient deficiency? My theory is that anxiety or a virus set off some sort of an auto immune reaction in my system (where I think I'm sick even though I'm not). And then you get stomach issues, digestive issues, acid issues, which just makes nutrients harder to absorb. And then, voila, BFS.And then of course things get better when your body settles down and you aren't having any stomach issues. It is all just cyclical.
 
I usually don't complain on this forum but today really sucks!!!!! My legs are on fire:/... not sure why....Maybe because I had a stressful day and actually allowed myself to have one coffee and some chocolate? :p ......just wanted to share :rolleyes: How are you doing??................ At least weather is great!
 
Weather is better, symptoms are better. Same as every year. I went through a weird phase of having esophageal spasms for a while, but I also learned a really neat trick to help when that happens. If you just shock your throat with cold water, the spasms stop. I love easy fixes like that.
 

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