Published on 12, July, 2020
I have this odd sort of seasonal affective disorder where I get it in summer rather than winter. I over heat, my BP drops and I can't cool down, my skin itches and feels like it's burning, the sun reigns hammer blows on my head even when I'm inside. I have trouble swallowing and have to force myself to drink enough, but I'm thirsty all the time and sweat loads. I can't sleep properly and yet I don't see able to wake up properly either, I just exist in this twilight zone. I'm dizzy even when sitting and I ache all over and feel sick.
The doctors can find nothing wrong, I've tried researching it online and either get nothing or if summer sad is mentioned its said to be a depressive illness, because of course if you're not outside enjoying the sunshine you must be a miserable git and it's all your own fault, never could it be something actually physical!
Does anyone else get this? Could it be an autistic thing? Or a fybromyalgia thing?
I showed my dad (who’s a doctor. Hope you don’t mind) and he said:
“Maybe Erythromelalgia? I’m curious if there is any skin redness when this happens. It is a vasoactive disorder—I wonder if the person normally has blood pressure that runs on the high side. I think the SAD part (and potentially the sleep disturbance) is likely just secondary to the chronic condition. I lot of people with chronic conditions have changes in affect, especially as the experience their symptoms.
From this, you can see the fun part of medicine. People often describe a lot of symptoms, but you have to filter what might be related and due to the primary diagnosis and what may just be secondary effects. For example, someone with a heart attack may have chest pain, shortness of breath, abdominal pain, nausea, sweating, lightheadedness. These symptoms are all over the place (involve a lot of body systems). Learning to quickly filter which might be primary and secondarily causing the others is the fun part.“
Idk if any of that is helpful at all?
Thanks FH, I've just had a look at the symptoms of eythromyalgia, whilst it sounds similar I don't think it is that, the burning and itching tend be all over, my upper arms and body. As far as I can remember I've had it most of my life, I've never been good with hot weather.
I don't think it's allergy related, I think it might be more to do with fybromyalgia and not being able to regulate my temperature properly, fybromyalgia isn't well understood and the only treatment I've been offered was an antidepressant, I was told not to drive if it made me drowsy or operated heavy machinery, but I could operate a dustpan and brush! I sat in front of the unlit stove for about 20 mins trying to remember what I was doing with these things in my hands.
I've been tested for all sorts of weird and wonderful things, including lupus and some of the rarer rhumatiod conditions, everything comes back negative.
I do have a load of allergies, including an intollerance of antihistamines, they make me lactate, whilst it wouldn't stop me taking them for something major, it's enough to make me not take them for normal things on a daily basis. Lactating gets uncomfortable and then one time I got mastitis which was horribly painful and sore. The worst thing is that antihistamines don't seem to work, they don't reduce the symptoms of hayfever or anything else I've taken them for I just get the side effects. There are a few medications that don't work on me, valium is one, I can take huge doses with no more effect than a cup of chamomile tea, even a 60ml intravenous dose only calmed me down for about 30 mins before I started fighting again and I walked home. I get a similar thing with opiates they do calm the pain down but that wears off quickly and the side effects kick in, hallucinations, white noise in both visually and noise, white noise and everything getting bright and a bit cartoonish are the milder side effects, full blown hallucinations are horrible, I've never been so glad of my misspent youth as then, I knew it was the drugs and I just had to sit it out and wait for them to wear off, but it was horrible and I was a real pain in the bum when I became convinced the drip tube was sawing my arm off. In fact my veins had collapsed and a canual gets quite uncomfortable, by the way I've never been an intravenous drug user.
At least I mostly know what causes many of these things now, a mix of fybro and autism, apparently autistic women and girls are far more likely to show physical symptoms, such as allergies. I'm no longer told I should go on the pill, have a baby or HRT, and if they don't work antidepressants and stuff.