Long Long Ago, in January of 2009, I was living happily with my newly wed wife and two stepchildren in a little condo off State Street. We were tight on cash because my job wasn't giving me any hours, but I'd just received a promotion and had been on a special Dell Minuteman team for a week when I got a terrible stomach flu. We All did actually, but I got it and good because the rest of my family wasn't stuck in the rest room the majority of three days straight.
I got better however, and returned to work. That morning my back was just killing me, hurting terribly but I said to myself "It's just because of the stomach flu, sitting on the porcelain throne for three days straight and not enough sleep." As the day moved on, my back started hurting more and more and the strangest weakness in my legs and arms started showing up, it felt like my legs were being sapped of strength. By lunch time I could barely stand and knew I needed to go home before I couldn't stand or drive. So I talked to my supervisor and left.
I spent the rest of the day at home and it went from bad to worse. Over the next 10 days, I lost most of my fine coordination motor skills, couldn't type, could barely talk, could barely walk and was extremely sensitive to tactile sensation, light, sound and my sense of smell was up there too. I went from a healthy, strong 30-something year old to a weakling and a gimp. My wife, parents and friends were all concerned, and I had to take a medical leave of absence from my work due to the issue. On February 10th, 2009 I went into the E.R., they did several MRI's and gave me 1 gram of solu-medrol (a steroid IV they use to treat MS attacks). They thought maybe I had M.S. or some other neurological disorder, and I was sent home, high on Steroids and with a follow-up with a neurologist. The Steroids improved but didn't cure my symptoms, and after a few visits with Dr. Foley, he determined it wasn't M.S..
I then started a long, pointless search through the neurologist Dr. Elena James (Whom I'll never recommend to anyone) whom after two visits had decided that all the symptoms I was suffering from were "normal" and that the problem must be psychological in nature (she didn't recommend this the first visit because she hadn't seen the psych history from my teenage years). I tried getting a second opinion but he performed the same examination my Primary care physician had performed and decided that it was all in my head. So I was trying Physical Therapy and later started seeing a LCSW to verify/discredit the psychological cause and my wife was saying "Well, it might be your teeth - they're terrible." So we went to a dentist and he agreed my teeth were junk and dentures would probably be in order. I had the first three teeth extracted by the dentist but due to the structure of nerves in my mouth, felt every single thing (which put me into bad shock) - and it perforated my sinus. Shortly after, we had a tragedy in the family and I ended up really messing up my mouth in the process.
Once it was all healed, in May I had the rest of the teeth knocked out of my head by an oral surgeon. Low and behold, four hours after my teeth were gone, so were the majority of my symptoms. Apparently, my teeth were the cause of all the high-end pain, weakness, etc that's been plaguing me for the last 2+ years. Sadly, none of those M.D.'s ever considered that my mouth could be the cause.
So, I'm left with a ruined job history, our family is broke, we lost our condo, and I'm currently trying to get myself back to work. I've got pretty new whites which I'm still adjusting to, and a new lease on life. My wife probably saved my life with her suggestions, and the doctors were freaking useless.
The End
This was all posted by request - Hope you enjoyed Katia, and anyone else who was wondering.
:)
-Andy-
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