Have you been checked for hypercalcemia? Many of your symptoms are fitting. If it is hypercalcemia there are a number of causes.

The hair loss is not likely to be directly related. Look at how your your is falling out though. Is it falling out in patches? This can indicate an infection of the scalp. If it is primarily coming out around the temples and top of head particularly near the back then this would be from male pattern baldness (MPB). MPB results from elevated dihydrotestosterone (DHT) levels that lead to death of the hair follicles. Overall hair loss is most often from hypothyroidism, which is often missed during lab tests for the thyroid, or from autoimmune alopecia..

You should go to the doctor is the main thing i would do, but you need to sit down and stay off your feet as much as you can to stop swelling in your feet, but part of your problem sounds like a circulation problem, you need to get blood medicine from your doctor.

VampsDes, since you have been working as a nurse, one thought might be to consider what you might have been infected by due to some of your patients. In spite of all safety precautions it is easy to come into contact with blood, bodily fluids, etc.

Your symptoms do resemble in many ways an autoimmune disease. Have you been tested for HIV? How about such things as lupus and chronic fatigue syndrome?

Your thought that you might be reacting to the drugs themselves also seems to the point. Certainly Prednisone is not great to take over the long term. I've known one person who nearly died from a reaction to a cortisone drug prescribed for her carpal tunnel system. Blood pressure drugs can be so over-effective that they actually cause anemia.

There is also the question of how your emotional reaction is feeding into this. Autoimmune syndromes often seem to turn up in people who have a lot of repressed rage, and you have suggested in other questions that you have a lot of family problems. Fear and anger are certainly making anything you have worse.

I have to admit I have a strong personal prejudice of my own towards natural healing. I don't want to advise you to throw your drugs out or to go without conventional medical treatment. Still, I would like to suggest that you look into alternative forms of healing. You might start by switching to an organic diet, with lots of fresh fruits and veggies, to the extent you can afford them, and no alcohol, recreational drugs, or soda, and a minimal amount of processed foods. Take lots of vitamins and mineral supplements. Given the extent of your pain, you probably can't do much in the way of yoga or exercise, but try to meditate and relax. Medical massage might help, especially focused on the lymph system, which is often involved in joint pain. You might even try acupuncture.

I have had my thyroid checked about 4 times thoroughly. The only electrolyte I've been a little low in at times is potassium. I've also been checked for infections of all kinds. They are currently testing for Lupus but it's a very difficult diagnosis to make.

I'm not sure what other responses you are referring to AuntCoffee but I've been happily married now for 2 1/2 years. We have our petty arguments on occasion but other than that we are very content with our lives. We have financial difficulties but really who doesn't in this day.

I realize I'm under more stress due to being sick and not knowing why and our financial problems, this I know doesn't help. I currently drink 2 large glasses of fresh vegetable and fruit juice every day. We try to eat healthy (fish, vegetables, bakes chicken) as much as we can. I rarely drink soda just tea, fresh juice, milk, and water.

My thoughts are probably Lupus, which actually does fit with the hair loss. I'm not sure what could have triggered it though. I gave birth 2 years ago and have been treated multiple times for respiratory infections since then. I suppose either one of those things or something else could have been a trigger. I just need a diagnosis and treatment as soon as possible and it seems like these specialist and test are taking forever.

Hi Vamps Des,

I based my remarks about your previous responses on these other posts:

http://www.webanswers.com/legal/children-and-the-l aw/child-support-being-held-out-of-paycheck-after- child-is-adopted-045a42

http://www.webanswers.com/jobs-careers/new-ways-to -earn-an-income-d5d20b

It looks to me as though the first of these was posted about six months ago - just about the time you began feeling ill.

If you are feeling intense rage at your husband for having let you down, and for having to carry the entire financial burden yourself because of his debts, while you are simultaneously trying to take care of a toddler and work full time - but you don't dare express this (justifiable) anger to him, either for fear of destroying your marriage, or because you are trying to be a good Christian - then yes, it sounds not only possible but probable that you have turned that rage inwards on yourself and are literally eating yourself alive rather than speaking out.

Under these circumstances, stuffing yourself with drugs is not going to do you any good - as you already realize, the drugs themselves are beginning to cause you problems.

You need to find the courage to speak openly to him. You also need to find counselling of some type. Therapy may be available to you through your job, or if you are religious you might want to consider pastoral counseling. But you need to come clean about your worries and your anger. I'm not saying that you should run out and apply for divorce immediately - if your husband didn't support his other child, no reason to think he would cough up for this one. But you do need to be able to talk to him honestly about how you feel and what you expect from him.

Happy Valentine's Day.

AuntCoffee I appreciate your taking the time to look over my responses and help me. I just don't have any intense rage toward my husband. The remark about child support was something we went through together. My husband did support his child and we begged for visitation rights and tried to get custody. We had just never been through anything like that, we were inexperienced and the other family that adopted him were lawyers. This made it almost impossible to get help because it was a conflict of interest for everyone. The whole process of losing the child and knowing all the money we had paid that should have went to him went to the mother and drugs most likely, was very hurtful. We had already been dealing with that for 1-2 years.

My family does rely on my income mostly to live because I make way more than my husband does. As far as debt goes, I took him and all his debt when I married him. He took me and way more debt when he married me. We are in this together. My husband has waited on me hand and foot, taken care of our son, cooked and cleaned, and worked every time I've been down sick and hurting. I just honestly love him to pieces and have no feelings of anger or rage toward him. I quite frankly can't imagine my life without him and I would never consider divorce.

As far as the medications go I do agree to an extent. Taking this many medications is not something I want to do. You make it sound as though I'm running to the doctor begging for these medications and I can assure you I'm not. We have talked about every medication that I'm currently on and I have agreed to try them. There have been 3 times that I've refused the medication they wanted to give me but I can't just stop everything I'm taking nor can I tell them no every time they want to try treating me with something, this would be a sure way to lose my doctor and possibly make me very ill.

As I said thank you for taking the time to post some thoughts to my question and happy Valentine's Day to you as well!

You are right, Vamps Des, I got a little carried away and I apologize. I do sometimes tend to make too many assumptions about what lies behind a question.

Knowing that it is purely physical though makes it even more important to check every possible source, including adverse drug reactions and infection from a patient. Needless to say your employer would deny very hard any such claims.

Maybe going back and making a timeline and flow chart of your symptoms and just when they appeared, compared to the other things you were doing at the time, would help.

Hope your Valentine's Day was a very happy one.

No worries, it's really easy to make assumptions on here. I think I will go back research infections and make sure there's no way it could be something like that. I also think a timeline is an excellent idea. I've kept a journal but it's very erratic. I've been so forgetful I'll probably have to have help but I think I'll start working on that very soon so I can take it to my next doctor's appointment.

I offer up a suggestion for managing your pain and symptoms. This is all natural. It's called Xango and is made from the Mangosteen fruit. Studies and testimonies show it is a highly effective anti-inflammatory and is on par with prescription med prednizone. Believe it or not. It's up to you. However it's easy to take in juice form, and what have you got to lose? It's all-natural and will not disrupt current drugs that are being taken. This product changed my mom's life around. She has fibromyalgia so trust me, it does wonders. Her website is "brussell dot mymangosteen dot com". Best of luck to you. It's worth taking a look at least.

Thanks for the award, Vamps Des. Sorry for being late in responding, had extra work the past couple of weeks. Hope you are feeling better.