Very sick new member needs expert advice

[Guest guest]

I believe I am suffering from exposure to a water damaged shower in my home.

The shower pan leaked and wicked up the side of the shower and into the attic

and affected what I believe are all the belongings in my home. Once this was

discovered, I moved out of the home and into a suitable hotel with few

allergens, and began to feel a little better, while my husband tried to

remediate things at home. I am renting a home now (I will never be able to move

back home) but can't seem to shake this illness-it seems to keep morphing into

new and equally debilitating symptoms. Is there a doctor/expert out there who

can review my symptoms and give me some advice? I have seen many doctors where

I live and while they try to help, they admit they have never seen or treated

patients with this exposure problem before.

My symptoms - began about two years ago, with eye, mouth and gum irritation. My

eyes grew so painful, I had to put cold washcloths on them to sleep at night.

The mouth, gums were irritated and upper salivary glands were swollen. The

orbital tissue felt swollen and the tissues felt rotten. My left pupil was

slightly larger than the right. Many visits to the eye doctor only found

inflammation, unknown cause. Fans bothered me, so I moved out of my bedroom with

my husband into another bedroom, with no relief. Then I began to get such

horrible inflammation in the nose and sinuses, I had to isolate myself in one

bedroom, wearing masks and goggles for most of the day, closing the vents and

providing a separate a/c system for this room. My whole face was painful under

the surface. Breathing was like breathing fire - I tried to put vaseline in the

sinuses and at times had to plug my nostrils and breath through my mouth so air

would not pass over them. Ink from magazines was nearly intolerable. My

breathing became shallow for months, because it just hurt to pass air over the

sinus tissues. I began to worry about my lungs - I knew if my lungs became

inflammed like that I would be toast.

I developed a ball of inflammed tissue in the left ethmoid sinus which hurt so

bad, it sent me into a screaming fit. Several ENT doctors just thought it was a

booger-I finally had to see a head trauma specialist to get a proper diagnosis

of 'sinus disease with lesion, with signaling'. I was also developing

intermittent double vision and was diagnosed with allergies to many airborn

things (just about everything present in and outside my home, including my cats,

weeds, trees, feathers, all molds, grass, pollen-odd for an older lady who never

had allergies before). I had to see a facial cranial surgeon who agreed to

remove the lesion in my sinus, upon biopsy showed as simply inflammed tissue.

This was sitting on a nerve and blood vessel over my left eye. I remember

resting upstairs after the surgery - and then my husband mowed the lawn for the

first time that year. It was as though a bully had thrown sand in my eyes, me

in a panic trying to understand what was happening to me. I had grown

hypersensitive to the molds/grass that was stirred up in the mowing. I made the

husband put plastic up over all the windows in the house after that incident.

The double vision improved for a while, but would return after every allergy

shot. I began the allergy shots shortly before the surgery and they seemed to

help the horrible sinus inflammation after several months of accelerated

treatment. After about 14 months of shots, I started having intolerable side

effects and had my last and final shot about three weeks ago.

I developed extremely oily skin in about Jan of this year while at the hotel.

All the pores have filled up with white, waxy sebum which is not normal for me.

I have these black hair-like things in the pores of my chin, like a blackhead

but not. More like a hair without a root attached. The skin continued to worsen

into pustules, improving some when the shots stopped. I have terrible joint

pain in the elbow and sometimes finger joints that came on over the last couple

of months, pain and burning skin sensations at the injection sites and below

toward the hands. I am so hypersentitive to my environment, I don't go outside

in the summer (had some skin burning issues with the pollen season-afraid to go

out). Allergens have horrible odors, cause blood to ooze from the sinus,

usually accompanied by burning eyes, pins and needles in the mouth, lips, asthma

attacks, tightening muscles in chest, stomach and throat. I have lately

developed an occasional cough, white discharge from eyes and nose that is thick

like elmer's glue. Sometimes I get nauseated, hot sweats, dizzy, diareah,

actually vomited one morning after getting up.

I have to mop the floors just about every day with a sore elbow, use my air

cleaners, shower before bed, keep linens clean, use dehumidifiers to keep

humidity under 50%, etc. It's killing me, not sustainable forever. If I don't

keep my environment spotless it irritates the sinuses and can cause asthma

attacks. My sense of smell has been magnified about 100 times, which is mainly

bad except when I eat, and food is intensely flavorful. I have trouble visiting

with my family-they have to scrub in the shower and wear sanitized clothing

first. I am currently seeing an infectious disease doctor I trust, he is

treating with tetracycling and testing me for some previous serious infections I

have had. The antibiotic doesn't seem to be helping for these symptoms (about

three weeks now). Tried inhaled steriods for a while but broke out in a rash

each time, each time sooner and more severe so had to abandon the steriod route.

My life revolves around mopping, cleaning, watching TV, avoiding people as they

carry allergens on their clothes and skin that make me sick. This is not the

way I want to live.

PLEASE SOME EXPERT NEEDS TO HELP ME GET OUT OF THIS NIGHTMARE and get my life

back to some extent....ANY TREATMENTS FOR ME?

Signed - Isolated,suffering and frightened new female member