My long list

Symptoms & Treatments
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I have a very long list that I went to the doc with 2 years ago since all the little things were adding up…

So I have PsA… joints not anymore but tendons hurting and a tiny bit of psoriasis… always tired… but then the rest…

I get migraine auras

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which start out as tiny dots and grow as a circle until there behind my eyes… which takes about an hour… I get minor headaches with this and little naucious(sp?) But I pretty much always have headaches…

Visual snow, light sensitivity, flashes, palinopsia (trails), dry eyes, terrible vision in the dark especially with lights around, double vision within one eye (sometimes I can see 4 very clear letters all just slightly off center when it seems like a have blurry vision), floaters, flares or stars around light points, after images… and I’m pretty sure there’s more going on… It’s a terrible video but it gives an idea:

Tinnitus, sensitivity to loud or high pitch noises, sensitivity for smells (perfume, flowers), sometimes weird sun burned feeling in my skin, itching, soars in my mouth sometimes, stomach aches (very bad once), IBD, brain fog, heart palpitations, hay fever… oh and depression…

I feel like an out of tune TV… not just the vision but tinnitus, itching/burning as if there’s a constant static of action in my nerves/senses

I’m not sure if I’m just hyper aware of normal things (I see black when I blink and my vision wobbles when I walk, I constantly feel my clothes on my skin, etc which your brain is not supposed to notice) or if it’s actually worse then normal…

The brain fog and depression are linked to PsA… but I’m wondering about everything else…

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Hi Cynthia, as I read your post I found myself going uh-huh to alot of the symptoms you’ve listed, including the silent migraine aura, and then realised that what I was agreeing to - especially alot of the hypersensitivity you mention such as noise, smell, touch, sight/night vision/bright lights) is, for me, part of my fibromyalgia syndrome NOT my PsA.

I too knew I had alot of this going on but never really mentioned it to the docs because my PsA was the main event but once my rheumy decided that some of the residual pain, tenderness, tiredness and brain fog I had corresponded more to FMS and I started to read up on FMS almost every page of the book held an uh-huh moment. There is some great info on the Ben’s Friends Fibro site http://www.livingwithfibro.org/. The FMS book I’ve found most helpful is written by Devin Starlanyl … if you search her name you’ll find it.

Hope that you find some reassurance. I found it all much easier to deal with when I understood it better. Treatment wise for the FMS all I have is amytriptyline at night which, by improving my sleep, has had great knock on effects. And I should add regular exercise, twice a week in the pool, has been good for my PsA but wonderful for the FMS and I find myofascial release massage good for the FMS too.

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F… Well at least I won’t need ANOTHER kind of doctor to get that checked…

It does cover a lot of the symptoms… but I recognise the pain points as places my reumathologist pressed last week… but they are places that bother me when other pain is low…

Thank you for this… eventhough my head is very confused at the moment…

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Hmmmm … check out this thread

IBD is definitely something that we hear a fair amount about here. I had crazy IB symptoms which disappeared when I finally ended up on the right meds to get my PsA under control. And the fatigue … oh my, anyone who hasn’t experienced it simply has no idea.

I don’t know about the migraines: I had them for years too, but I don’t know if there might be a connection.

I’m a little bit worried about that “aura” picture. Does it really look like that? I’d say that street looks more like England than the Netherlands … :wink: sorry, I’m kidding now!

I’m waiting for @tntlamb to drop by with some words of wisdom.

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Thanks @Seenie another thing to add to the list of “the internet said I have this” haha

Hahaha the houses aren’t part of the migraine XD it’s not as sharp and black and white either… but it’s the best picture I could find…

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Hah, “but the internet said” is one of the more chilling phrases in our time, I think.

That’s quite a list of symptoms, all right. I can’t even imagine having half of them, even with your visualization aids.

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I’m in a Facebook group for people who just have the visual stuff and some people are in complete despair finding it almost impossible to cope… which feels so weird to me because I’ve had it all my life and thought it was normal (“everyone has trouble seeing in the dark” “nobody likes looking into bright lights” and everything else I never even asked about…)

Oh don’t get me wrong I’m really happy I live in an age with internet access! But I feel like doctors hate it when you come in with loads of articles…

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Does it hurt more to touch aluminium then other metals for you guys too? (As in it hurts in my bones way more then just the metal being cold “should”) I tried googling but I can only find “biting aluminium with silver coloured fillings hurts” and “to get rid of pain wrap your feet in aluminium foil” hahaha

I don’t know it feels weird enough to get a “omg yes me too” reaction here… haha

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You knew I was kidding about the houses … right on. That’s the kind of thing I sometimes say and people wonder what’s wrong with me. LOL

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OMG where did you find that picture of the house with the zig-zaggy lines??? I had tried to describe that so many times! The first time I had that I was grocery shopping and it started out with a bright light in my eyes, so all I had was peripheral vision…that was in the day when I used a checkbook and I couldn’t see the tip of my pen when paying for my groceries…got home, scared out of my pants something was seriously wrong–that’s when the zig-zaggy lines started–exactly like your picture. I called my doctor, thinking I was having a stroke. He told me it was a migraine without the pain and I should take whatever I take for headaches asap and maybe I wouldn’t get the migraine–I never got the migraine!!! I’ve had this happen 4 or 5 times since, and it’s scary if you don’t know what it is! About 5, 6 or 7 years ago (years are shorter the older you get) I suddenly started getting lightning flashes in my right eye–saw my ophthalmologist for it and he said it was a vitreous detachment and nothing to worry about! It was scary at the time, though…that continued to happen for a long time, and then it started in my left eye. Now it only happens occasionally and doesn’t persist. I’ve often wondered if this is all somehow related to PsA. I also have trouble with sore eyes, blurred vision and poor focus–I don’t read a lot because of it. Oh, and the FLOATERS!!! I have a really big one in my right eye. All this goes along with severe ear ringing, so bad most of the time I could go crazy. My doc told me to try Lipo Flavinoid for that, but I heard it doesn’t work so I didn’t waste my money. But, I’m now at the point of thinking about wasting my money on it because the tinnitus is gets overwhelming sometimes…say what???
I had IBD for several years and realized it came from eating salads at most restaurants…as long as I avoided them, I didn’t get the terrible cramps and diarrhea…finally, it all went away!
We sure do have the irritating, annoying things to deal with…

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That picture I found looking for visual snow and not migraines… I get what you mean I saved it ASAP haha

I never get the headache part of the migraine even without pills… I get really tired (and that’s from someone who’s always tired…) bit naucious… more sensitive to light/sound/smell… but nothing like the migraines you always hear about…

Do you ever feel like you can see trough things because they seem to flash like an old TV?.. is like they’re holograms… Especially with the after effects blurring where everything is…

@Seenie yes I knew :slight_smile: but I get that a lot from people… I just wanted to be as clear as possible about the lines I saw…

Oh I get terrible stumach aches sometimes but more then half of the times when we order food/eat at other people’s homes… I feel like it’s a spice that’s bothering me… but something that’s not in pre-cooked food from a store but restaurants and people do use… I can’t figure out what it is…

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Hmmmm, it would be nice if you could figure out what causes the stomach aches…it was something restaurants put on lettuce or fresh fruit to make it look nice and stay fresh longer, because after it happened a few times that was the one thing I always ate at different restaurants!
The stomach aches I get now are in my upper abdomen and they are horrific…I haven’t mentioned them. I had an ultrasound several months ago and it turned up negative for gall stones or anything serious with my liver, other than I have fatty liver, but they didn’t tell me how much fat. I’m not overweight (much) so I don’t think it’s serious fatty liver, but I do get some terrible pains, usually starting a couple hours after eating–lasting up to 6 hours. I had it two days ago. We ate spaghetti with sauce and meatballs at about 2:00 p.m. By 4:30 I had terrible pain…I was beginning to think I have an ulcer or something. Finally at about 8 p.m. I made myself some buttered popcorn (heavy on the fake butter) and my stomach pain went away and didn’t come back! So, IDK what caused it, it happens fairly often. I was thinking maybe the spaghetti sauce with all the tomato and spices caused it, but who knows…anyway…I hope you figure out what causes your stomach aches, too! It’s really annoying!

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That does sound like your describing my stumach aches… but I had one after pizza… one that was the best tasting pizza I’ve ever had… there were definitely spices on there…

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Dang that great-tasting pizza!!! :yum::scream:

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@Grandma_J and @Cynthia are we talking about upper abdomen, almost chest area pain here?

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I thought it was my colon since the pain is more across my back but the front is just beneath my ribs… why what are you thinking?

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If it was a little higher, I would be thinking gas pain. Not even kidding. About 6 years ago I started getting trapped gas which would basically lay me out until I managed to get the gas out (using OTC Gas-X or something similar). With it being the back and below the ribs, though, that’s less likely.

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Hmmmmmm I no longer have that pain since I had my gallbladder removed … ooohhhhh … sorry to have mentioned that.

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But the gallbladder is such a small organ… it feels much bigger…

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LOL when it is well and thoroughly inflamed, it doesn’t feel like the itsy-bitsy golf ball size that it is… It feels … HUGE.

I remember having pain across my back: the only thing that helped was pounding myself on the back. (As best I could, of course that was pre-PsA, when I could contort much better than I do now … ROFL)

Worth a mention to your doctor, I think.