Hi all,

I'm 24, and I've been trying to fight with the healthcare system in west coast Canada for awhile now, and I'm at a loss. Doctors are either confused, at a loss, accusing me of faking symptoms, telling me I should give up in my search for answers, etc. It is absolutely exhausting, and tiring. I've had an especially difficult run in with the specialists I've recently seen, but I'm trying my best to keep pushing, and to keep attempting to figure this out.

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The thing that is terrifying me the most lately is the dramatic worsening of my visual symptoms almost by the day now. Floaters, sensitivity to light, general blurriness is now worsening, slowly and almost by the day. However, here is a full list of the most persistent symptoms I'm dealing with are as follows:

▪️ Floaters in vision, such as translucent to transparent strings, specs, or webs of clearish floaters, plus small black floaters in some areas of my vision. The floaters are continually worsening.

▪️ blurry vision, ontop of floaters, my vision has generally become blurrier, and is worsening very slightly nearly daily, and glasses can no longer correct vision fully, even in areas where floaters are not present.

▪️ visual symptoms worsen in the evenings generally, sometimes eyes temporarily lose focus, and everything close and far becomes extremely blurry, making reading, or looking at screens difficult.

▪️ Bright objects or light now seem to cause some sort of glare as of recently ontop of the sensitivity to light.

▪️ eye pain, throbbing, stinging, or feeling like something is in my eye is common.

▪️ sensitivity to light in eyes. Even looking at bright text on a screen, and moving my eyes completely away from the screen, I can still see a foggy glare from the bright text, the type of glate you'd get from looking at the sun, except now it occurs even from text on a screen especially when it is dark.

▪️ general eye sensitivity, reading (whether on paper, or screens) and looking at screens in general, or being outdoors causes eye strain symptoms almost immediately, and symptoms worsen throughout the day, feeling less intense in the morning. It becomes more difficult to keep my eyes open as the day goes on. Especially in lit environments.

▪️ neck pain, and popping/scratching sensations in my neck, as well as pain in my head, especially when sitting, or laying down with a pillow, or when walking, or moving, these sensations exasperate, especially in my neck. An increase in visual blurry symptoms tends to occur alongside neck pain.

▪️ mild muscle twitching. Nothing dramatic, but eyes among other things twitch often. Rarely do more major arm or even more rarely, leg twitching occurs. Sometimes I feel twitching in the front of my forehead which is the weirdest feeling ever?

▪️ issues sleeping, mostly because it seems to be difficult to get in a comfy position nowadays, plus general restlessness when attempting to fall asleep, or occasionally waking throughout the night, or waking too early, though I do often reach 8ish hours of rest, with periods where it becomes more difficult to get that.

▪️ headaches are frequent too

▪️ also had one ocular migraine this winter/early spring after 9 years without no migraines (not since i was 15, when i used to get them regularly).

▪️ a general feeling all over my body with many joints constantly making popping, or clicking sounds and sensations a lot

▪️ skin issues, such as a mild rosaceae type skin issue on my face, and drier/flakier skin than usual on my hands.

▪️ quick to prune fingers. You know how your hands generally take a hot minute to prune when in water? Like for most, it may take quite awhile. For me, as of recently, they now prune in about 1 or 2 minutes of being in contact with water, and take about 30 to 45 minutes to revert to normal afterwards.

▪️ periodically, my ears randomly ring quite badly. This is not consistent.

▪️ i in general feel sickly with mild bodywide aches, almost as if i have a mild cold, but it has been months, to half a year of having those sickly feelings. They come and go sometimes.

▪️ i sometimes get a weird feeling in my stomach, though this is a rarer symptom

▪️ sometimes it feels like my heart is racing for no reason.

▪️ brain fog can become pretty intense too

▪️ mental health has directly been negatively impacted by these symptoms.

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Pain symptoms first started 2 years ago, visual symptoms started about 1 to 1.5 years ago, and initially progressed quite slowly, but now worsen quite quickly, exponentially.

Some things that exasperate my symptoms, include:

▪️ laying down in any position with a pillow or raised headrest. This causes increased neck pain, and for some reason, my eyes feel strained and vision can get blurrier too.

▪️ sitting on couch, or computer chair. This causes pain in neck, dizziness, that weird twitching feeling in my forehead, eye twitches, soreness in extremeties.

▪️ light hurts my eyes!

Most symptoms just slowly get worse day after day unimpacted by my actions.

For treatments, and exercises I've tried, along with corresponding effects, more info below!

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What have doctors tested me for? the results?

▪️ I've had several blood tests for lupus, sjögren's syndrome, lime disease, autoimmune markers, diabetes, inflammation markers, pretty much all vitamin and supplement levels, including vitamin D, B, iron levels, etc, and thyroid functions as well, ALL OF WHICH WERE NEGATIVE, OR NORMAL!

▪️ I've also had an MRI in November, which showed only a mild disc protrusion mild arthritis in the C4/C5 area of my spine, but no other abnormalities for a shoulders and up scan!

▪️ fine motor skills and movements have been tested, and it shows no signs of degenerative neurological conditions, such as MS, or neuropathy!

▪️ nerve conduction studies on wrists, arms, and legs have shown nothing.

▪️ optometrists, and an ophthalmologist have done thorough and full exams of my eyes, and they DID identify the floaters, but everything else test wise came back negative with no clear signs or reason as to why there are the floaters, or issues with my vision. Eyes were found to be dry too, I guess, but regular use of eye drops (including gel ones) have no impact or offer no relief of symptoms other than easing sore eyes just for a quick moment (but no impact on floaters and blurriness). Glasses also no longer fully fix my vision, especially the floaters.

▪️ ECG test which shows no abnormalities.

▪️ sometimes blood pressure is too high, or too low, but not consistently, nor is it impacted by sitting up, or getting up from a laying down position.

▪️ sleep apnea testing was done, and came back with no abnormalities.

That's everything for testing!

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When it comes to treatments and exercises, I've tried several things. However access to these is limited, due to being on disability income. Many have been accessed through subsidies or sliding scale situations if they are a service. So below, I have everything I've tried, plus the effects of each.

▪️ massage therapy (mostly from college students), has often left me feeling the same, or worse afterwards.

▪️ chiropractor, had some positive effects on mobility and range, but had no effect on pain, or vision. Only tried once because of cost. Couldn't justify a second treatment.

▪️ yoga, tried a free weekly yoga class which had no positive effects, other than slightly elevated mental health, after the classes were over. Also, I deeply struggled to keep up with the class as an unfit person in a fast paced class. I've hurt myself attempting yoga at home also, so I'm not comfortable doing it without the guidance of an instructor, or friend of which I currently do not have friends who can guide me in this type of exercise locally.

▪️ stretches and nerve flossing exercises seem to have positive effects on mobility, but do not seem to help with pain, or visual issues.

▪️ i take daily 1hr 30min walks 5 to 7 times a week, other than keeping me mobile, and keeping me sane, it seems to have no other positive effects.

▪️ i try to maintain a healthy diet too when eating meals, though I do struggle with my addiction to sugars and comfort junk snack foods oftentimes.

▪️ eye drops, sometimes relieve the pain but do not stop, or reverse the progression of visual symptoms.

I wish I could afford physical therapy otherwise that'd be what I'd try next.

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I'm at a loss. Whatever is happening is not responding well to these exercises, or treatments. I'm here asking not for direct medical advice, but what other conditions I can ask my doctor to look into. We've tested me for everything common, but doctors refuse to look into anything rarer, so give me some other conditions to research, and push for testing for! Or other tests in general that I haven't listed yet that I could push for!

Despite doctors and specialists telling me to give up, to just live with it, etc, I refuse to give up. Especially because symptoms are worsening daily now. It isn't exactly easy to "just live with" when symptoms progress daily now (though incrementally). Also, I've shown many doctors my list of symptoms, and I've been labeled as "obsessive" because I'm symptom tracking.

Specifically, I'd like to know more about other conditions that specifically cause floaters and visual issues of this nature. Asking Google only suggests conditions directly related to the eyes, like macular degeneration. So what conditions can cause these symptoms indirectly? Common, and rarer conditions? Like diabetes for example has a side effect of causing these types of visual issues when untreated, though as stated already, I've tested negatively for that. I'm just saying this as an example.

So what other conditions could potentially cause this, that are worth pushing my doctor to test for? Any non degenerative (or harder to diagnose) neurological conditions (that also don't impact fine motor skills)? Cardiovascular issues? Harder to diagnose autoimmune issues? I'm just at a loss. I'm also extremely terrified of reaching a point where I may no longer be able to rely on my vision (probably my biggest fear).

Thank you all for any suggestions, or ideas on how to navigate this! Whatever you all come up with will help me in my journey to fight the medical system for answers!

At the end of it all, I just want answers, and a new direction to point doctors in for this search.