Hi all, my husband has been ill in excess of 18 months now. We do have a specialist appointment coming up, but I would appreciate any feedback or opinions. He had a hernia repair op in November 2012, after which he got a staph infection. It ended up taking 5 operations and 8 months and a massive amount of intravenous antibiotics to get rid of the infection and have the hernia re-repaired. He appeared to be on the mend, when he suddenly began experiencing a myriad of unusual symptoms, which at first we didn't think were connected. After being fobbed off by a range of doctors and hospitals, we drove 2 hours to a private hospital in our State's capital, and we appear to have finally found a specialist who is taking the situation seriously.
They symptoms started with abdominal pain and chronic diarrhoea, pain when going to the toilet and very dark stools. This has been happening on and off for approximately 1 year. About 7 months ago he woke up with vertigo/Meniere's type symptoms which lasted several weeks, then just went away. About 6 months ago he woke up with arthritic pain in his joints. It moved from joint to joint each day. His hands seemed to be affected almost daily with weakness, and loss of movement. He was also experiencing extreme fatigue and periods of blurred vision. He eventually saw a Rheumatologist who put him on prednisone for approx. 2 months (during this time all his symptoms virtually disappeared, except he continued to feel fatigued). He was then weaned off the prednisone and then the stomach pains and gastric returned. He has also been experiencing tinnitus for some time. Things came to a head about a fortnight ago, when we headed off to Sydney to seek more assistance. He was given a CT scan, a colonoscopy and a endoscopy and several gastric polyps and colon polyps were removed, which the specialist is confident are benign. The polyps and other tissue has been sent off for biopsy testing. We are still waiting on result. Since returning home, he initially felt really good for a couple of days, but woke up one morning with an unusual rash on the lower part of his legs, which appeared like vaculitis (there were numerous patches of red type bruises - up close they looked like groups of broken blood capillaries under the skin). Over the next few days they have faded. Since then the arthritis has come back in his hand and elbow and he is in severe pain, and this morning when he had a bowel movement, it was black, and he passed a large amount of red blood as well . We suspect that he may have Crohn's Disease or something similar. We were wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this. Any comments would be most appreciated. We are getting desperate.
They symptoms started with abdominal pain and chronic diarrhoea, pain when going to the toilet and very dark stools. This has been happening on and off for approximately 1 year. About 7 months ago he woke up with vertigo/Meniere's type symptoms which lasted several weeks, then just went away. About 6 months ago he woke up with arthritic pain in his joints. It moved from joint to joint each day. His hands seemed to be affected almost daily with weakness, and loss of movement. He was also experiencing extreme fatigue and periods of blurred vision. He eventually saw a Rheumatologist who put him on prednisone for approx. 2 months (during this time all his symptoms virtually disappeared, except he continued to feel fatigued). He was then weaned off the prednisone and then the stomach pains and gastric returned. He has also been experiencing tinnitus for some time. Things came to a head about a fortnight ago, when we headed off to Sydney to seek more assistance. He was given a CT scan, a colonoscopy and a endoscopy and several gastric polyps and colon polyps were removed, which the specialist is confident are benign. The polyps and other tissue has been sent off for biopsy testing. We are still waiting on result. Since returning home, he initially felt really good for a couple of days, but woke up one morning with an unusual rash on the lower part of his legs, which appeared like vaculitis (there were numerous patches of red type bruises - up close they looked like groups of broken blood capillaries under the skin). Over the next few days they have faded. Since then the arthritis has come back in his hand and elbow and he is in severe pain, and this morning when he had a bowel movement, it was black, and he passed a large amount of red blood as well . We suspect that he may have Crohn's Disease or something similar. We were wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this. Any comments would be most appreciated. We are getting desperate.