For a long time I thought I was the only one with this problem. EVERY Fall, most specifically in OCTOBER I get Flu symptoms but I do not have the flu though I am incorrectly diagnosed with it. I feel like I am burning up with fever but usually my real temperature is BELOW NORMAL sometimes in the 93’s. I have body aches, I feel like I am going to die, I am too sick to DRIVE, and then I begin to WISH I was DEAD. It happens every year, and I am 63 years old. It lasts from a few WEEKS or until I get pneumonia and runs in to MONTHS. It along with some other things I cannot control has RUINED my LIFE!!!
I also get a second round of it in March, sometimes. I was born in 1951 and was sick every every fall and spring and was made to go to school ANYWAY, “gotta git them lessons boy”. I was sent home from school by the Teacher in the First Grade with pneumonia. I will NEVER forget that, I was only 7 years old and I was so sick I remember it WELL!!! Will never forget that.
They took out my Tonsils, my adenoids all of those things they did back in the 50’s they don’t do anymore. The older I got the worse it got. When I left home at 17 I had 7 day a week jobs as I worked with livestock, and I have been fired off so many jobs for absenteeism. Later I drove “Long Haul Trucks” and this strikes me NO MATTER where I am.
By the fall of 1979 I was driving long Haul trucks and noticed I could leave home feeling FINE and drive all of that night and be the next day I had a SORE THROAT and felt like I was burning up with FEVER. I ate and drank Nyquil and Dristans and amphetamines by the handful. NOT Methamphetamine but the Medicinal Amphetamines like Ritalin and the RJS capsules, Dexedrine, Dexamil, Ionomine et. These drugs COMBINED with an ANTIHISTAMINE COULD kill my symptoms I found out and I could drive and drive and drive. But as soon as it wore off I was REALLY SICK then. Oh GAWD, indescribably sick.
So in October 1979, I was living in Waco Texas and Driving trucks, I was in town and got sick, it was OCTOBER. I was bedridden the entire MONTH of Ocotober, I was fired from my job for being sick again. The truck cannot sit, if you cannot drive that truck goes back on the road with or without you. November went by, still bedridden, December comes and I am still BEDRIDDEN. So by now I think I am nearly DEAD. I believe I surely have PNEUMONIA again. In 1979 it was NOT as hard to get in to see a Doctor you don’t know as it is now, so I called a friend and got the name of her doctor and went to him.
I could BARELY drive there in my pick-up truck but I MADE it. He examined me, I was 28 years old, he asked me if I had “allergies” I said NO I am not allergic to anything, only hypochondriacs have allergies, that was what I was told by my third grade teacher. So he drew some Blood and took the blood with him and left. He came back in a few minutes and said, "You have hardly any infection at all but you have a ton of Allergy. I told him of all the times I have been to doctors they have NEVER told me I have allergies. "Well you have them and BAD. But I can fix you, I am going to give you an injection of ACTH and tomorrow I want you to come BACK and I am going to have the nurse give you a SECOND injection of ACTH.
Well, within MINUTES of getting that injection I started feeling better. I about 4 hours I was at a Bar Drinking Beer and shooting pool. I had NOT been out of the house in THREE MONTHS. I was BEDRIDDEN for THREE MONTHS!!
So, then the next big problem came. The doctor “recommended” an Allergist in Waco name Richard Fadal. I went to him for WEEKS and WEEKS and paid him THOUSANDS of Dollars, and he took my life savings, and he NEVER found what I am allergic too. He was USELESS and diagnose me with Von Hippel-Lindau Disease and told me I would die pre-maturely. Well, that was WRONG obviously, I have outlived my Father already 6 years. I do NOT have VHL. He just could not think of anything better to say, he had gotten all of my LIFE SAVINGS at the TIME!!
So I had to give up on Allergists for a few years, I tried then again later, same result I threw AWAY THOUSANDS but 100% INCONCLUSIVE, but every October the same thing happens. I nearly died in 1994 from Pneumonia when I got my early Spring version of the same thing, I got bedridden in late February, and I went for a Cortisone shot, several of them, they USUALLY knock it out, but not this time. By May I had Pneumonia AGAIN. I was bedridden all summer but I could NOT go in to the Hospital as I lost my Health Insurance in 1987 (another story). I told the doctor he could cure me at home, or I could die at home. I was sick in to January 1995, but the pneumonia finally dried up. But this seems to have permanently damage my health. That was a major step down, I AGED ten years that year, and in 1997 I had a Heart Attack and an Angioplasty with four stents, that put me in to Bankruptcy. Ans as these years go BY I STILL have the “October disease”.
I got sick a week EARLY this year, it came the last week in September 2014, it is January 15th 2015 I have been SICK since September 2014. I was at the Emergency ROOM TWICE this week. The first doctor gave me “Anti-Biototics” even though I had NO fever and was suffocating in my OWN MUCUS. Went to Another ER yesterday in another County, they gave me a HUGE injection of Cortisone and I prescription for some MORE Cortisone I am taking. I started getting IMMEDIATE relief, I was DROWNING in my own fluid. But, I have so much RESIDUE, even though I know I am getting better I still cannot leave the house. I am SURE I will TOMORROW. But I will be coughing that fluid out for WEEKS. Oh I use all of the Fluid REducing stuff, it does NOT WORK for me. Maybe it works a little bit, instead of producing 100 gallons I just produce 75. But I am still drowning and cannot get enough AIR. I have NEVER smoked. About 12 years ago I had ANOTHER health Collapse with my SPINE, it tuns out I have Ankylosing Spondylitis and Fibromyalgia too, both incurable. I have ALL of the Syndromes that go with AS too, Psoriasis on my skin and in my EYES, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and I have learned I have the HLA-B27 Gene and B positive Blood, the Blood type of the HUN (my people came from Scotland, cannot figure that out) but it is also the blood type of Auto-immune Disease.
All of this is CONNECTED. It took me 63 YEAR and a RUINED LIFE to find this out. Nobody sat down and explained it to me, I had to research it ALL. Doctors do NOT have time to 'explain" when you do not have INSURANCE. This is a very long story. I have just Scratched the Surface.
If you get sick EVERY OCTOBER you should see if you have auto-immune disease. I was BORN with it, and it punished ME for over 50 years until I even found out I had it. Even still there is NOTHING they can do about it really except bombard you with Cortisone. I have a TOO POWERFUL IMMUNE SYSTEM. it is eating me ALIVE. My OWN TOO Powerful Immune system is now eating the Soft Tissue OUT of my Spine and Breast Bone. I do not have words to tell how much this has destroyed my life. Even my own family does not think I am sick. “You don’t LOOK SICK”. That is ONE of the HALLMARKS of Auto-immune disease (some of them) you don’t look sick. Actually I had a doctor tell me not long ago, and I had NEVER met her before, she said, "You have auto-immune Disease, I can tell by looking at your face. A Glaucoma Specialist told me, “I can diagnose Auto-Immune disease with YOU by simply looking at you EYES under magnification, they look like a Cobblestone Street.” “They are a Textbook Case.”
This has ruined my life every which way. I managed to get a College Degree in Real Estate, but it has done me no good. I cannot even buy a house myself, my finances and credit has been DESTROYED by these Chronic Diseases and some other things. I am forced to live in a VERY HIGH CRIME area on family land, I cannot get away from that. The THUGS are constantly on the prowl out HERE all of the time.
The HLA-B27 gene is very common with people that have Lupus and Crohn’s and about 70 other diseases. More later. BB
