Hello everybody,

My name is Kady, I’m 23 years old and I started this blog in order to vent, in the hopes that someone understands. Even if your challenge is different you always have a place here. Ive had a mystery illness for over 10 years, and my doctors are stumped and would like to create a community with people with debilitating pain to talk and support each other.

When I was 7 years old, I came down with a really bad “flu” that lasted a month. During the duration of the flu I didn’t present the sniffles or coughing. Only the severely high fever, hot and cold chills, severe muscle and joint pain, nausea and tummy problems. When the “flu” went away, none of the symptoms fully did. Starting then, I had months where I could cope and lead a somewhat normal life but the majority of the year the symptoms were more intense and it was unbearable to get through the whole day of sitting at school or long distances in the car. Through the whole time I always felt like I was boiling inside like I had a fever. I didn’t.

Jump forward a few years the symptom just continued to get worse with few weeks of relief. When I turned 18 I had another bout of that “flu” that started the onset of the symptoms. Though this time the pain was worse afterwards and I constantly had a low grade fever. All those years I begged my family to believe me but they just thought I was trying to get out of school or I was depressed. No shit I was depressed, but it was the symptom not the cause. Once the fever was always there, my family began to believe me. I went to doctor after doctor, referral after referral, and none of the blood tests pointed to anything specific. My sed rate and white blood cells are always high when I go through my long sick phases, as well as other abnormal tests but the tests to diagnose my issues were always negative. They’ve tested me for everything. During that time I also kept getting MRSA, shingles, cold after cold and was hospitalized with sepsis from the MRSA once despite the fact that the blood tests don’t show a low immune system. I also was never hungry because I was nauseas and lost an obscene amount of weight. Before I almost starved to death I went to the hospital in Arizona (I live in San Diego) and they told me I almost died from malnutrition from the inability to go to the bathroom despite all the miralax and stool softeners, ect. Oh all of the things the did to get rid of the blockage was so painful because the meds they tried barely worked. I rather die quick than experience the feeling of dying on top of the invansive things they did to fix my stomach problems. I was in for a while and then was discharged and given a regime to try to poop regularly. Despite the fact that the meds knowingly don’t work????? I don’t even know what’s normal because I’ve struggled with constipation my whole life.

When I got home I could eat but I became depressed and anxious from the trauma and was given psych meds. I gained 40 pounds in a month eating what the normal person eats. I stopped the medicine and tried my best to deal emotionally but I just kept gaining weight. I’m 5’1”-ish and I was at 190 despite limiting my food so much. Then all the sudden I got even sicker and now I can’t eat more than a smoothie or Frappuccino a day usually. But hey, I’m losing weight 👌. I think. My clothes feel loser. I’m also sleeping all day and sometimes two days in a row because I’m so exhausted and in so much pain. My doctors know something is wrong but they have no answers. As I type this, I didn’t eat anything yesterday or today yet but I’m going to try and convince someone to get a Jamba Juice or Starbucks in the hopes that it will wake me up and stop the hunger pains. I have a meeting today and I have to be sweet and funny, which is much more difficult these days. Anyways, now that I’ve given you a pretty good explanation of my struggles (More like I whined the whole time), I would love if you shared your story and tips on how to cope if you are basically bedridden like me. Feel free to leave comments. Look forward to talking and hearing your stories.