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Just thought I'd share.
After a long ride (5+ years) with symptoms which bore a resemblance to hEDS (brain fog, easy injury, reduced strength, agitation at night, poor memory, intracranial pressure), I've taken a turn for the worse.
I took some antibiotics recently, as they previously helped me achieve a remission of symptoms some time ago. This caused a pronounced worsening of my connective tissue symptoms. First, my intracranial pressure got worse. Then, the pressure migrated to the neck instead of the head. Subsequently, the neck/head junction area would become very easily injured, basically CCI symptoms - I had never previously had these symptoms, though my neck started getting more crackly a few years ago.
Fatigue started occurring. The fatigue is correlated to the neck pain and fragility / pressure (one false move and I hear a giant crack with pain) in terms of timing. There are other things which can make the symptoms better or worse. I'll spare you my reading of the tea leaves for each individual factor (unless you're interested in this), but my suspicion is that the antibiotics caused a shift which dysregulated my gut, causing my immune system to go into overdrive, periodically weakening connective tissue. This connective tissue weakness may be causing problems as well, whether it's from mechanical pressure on the spine or compression of some nerve.
I've always thought my symptoms seemed like "CFS without the fatigue", and now it seems that part is coming as well, though I recognize the presentation seems more aligned with some connective issue disorder. The fatigue is not post-exertional, for now.
Thought you might find this interesting.
FYI the major risk factor that kicked everything off I believe was exposure to pesticides.
I plan to do a fecal transplant and see if things improve, but let's see.
After a long ride (5+ years) with symptoms which bore a resemblance to hEDS (brain fog, easy injury, reduced strength, agitation at night, poor memory, intracranial pressure), I've taken a turn for the worse.
I took some antibiotics recently, as they previously helped me achieve a remission of symptoms some time ago. This caused a pronounced worsening of my connective tissue symptoms. First, my intracranial pressure got worse. Then, the pressure migrated to the neck instead of the head. Subsequently, the neck/head junction area would become very easily injured, basically CCI symptoms - I had never previously had these symptoms, though my neck started getting more crackly a few years ago.
Fatigue started occurring. The fatigue is correlated to the neck pain and fragility / pressure (one false move and I hear a giant crack with pain) in terms of timing. There are other things which can make the symptoms better or worse. I'll spare you my reading of the tea leaves for each individual factor (unless you're interested in this), but my suspicion is that the antibiotics caused a shift which dysregulated my gut, causing my immune system to go into overdrive, periodically weakening connective tissue. This connective tissue weakness may be causing problems as well, whether it's from mechanical pressure on the spine or compression of some nerve.
I've always thought my symptoms seemed like "CFS without the fatigue", and now it seems that part is coming as well, though I recognize the presentation seems more aligned with some connective issue disorder. The fatigue is not post-exertional, for now.
Thought you might find this interesting.
FYI the major risk factor that kicked everything off I believe was exposure to pesticides.
I plan to do a fecal transplant and see if things improve, but let's see.