I've been dieting for a couple of months now, and am weighing myself once a week. The numbers have been moving a bit more erratically than the other time I dieted, but hey, bodies vary, I wasn't worried. Yesterday I hopped on the scales and was a bit surprised to see that the number had gone up. I made a mental note that if I'm still gaining in a few weeks I'll rejig my diet, and then went back to trying to get on with my day. This became increasingly more difficult. I'd been feeling off for a few days, and suddenly got a lot worse, with all sorts of weird things including being barely able to walk or talk, strong tingling on the top of my head, shaking uncomfortably, and feeling that something was terribly wrong. I have home care workers as I have severe ME/CFS, so she called my partner home, my partner called an ambulance, and we spent the rest of the afternoon in A&E. Thankfully it wasn't a stroke, though they checked me carefully for that, and they reckon it was some sort of silent migraine. I've been having migraines for 24 years and never had one remotely like that - they're less weird, and they hurt a lot where this didn't hurt at all!
Anyway, I remember the weight and weighed myself again this morning. Down 1.6lb. A few things clicked into place. I had about 1.7l to drink before going to the hospital, which is loads, but my body was acting as if I was horribly dehydrated. I kept going to the loo - really effing awkward when you can't actually walk unaided - and my mouth dried up like the Sahara, with my lips going from normal to incredibly dry and cracked surprisingly quickly. When the nurses were triaging me, they had trouble getting blood out of me, which has never happened before either. The first one gave up on my elbow, spent a while warming my hand trying to get a vein on there, and had to get another nurse to help. So there were two big, burly men wrestling with a tiny vein on my hand!
I don't think I've ever noticed fluid retention before, apart from the way my breasts are suddenly VERY MUCH HERE HELLO before my period, and they weren't joining in the fun. I've got dysautonomia, so while the rest of you are mostly avoiding added salt, I need loads of it and even have to salt my drinking water. Has anyone else had something like this happen?
Well, I'm not a health professional but I would probably continue to discuss with a doctor because that sounds like more than a migraine. I had an asymptomatic migraine once and wen't temporarily blind in my right eye (with no pain involved at all) and freaked out and didn't find out until much later what actually happened. I went to an eye doctor who ran a bunch of tests and was clueless, but my GP knew immediately what it was when I mentioned it to him at a subsequent visit. Asymptomatic migraines can happen, but the dehydration, extreme thirst, cracked lips, etc. don't sound like they have anything to do with a migraine. And if they didn't, then it's possible the rest of it didn't have anything to do with a migraine either.
I hope they at least ran a CBC and a basic metabolic panel on you while you were there and checked your electrolytes? That's very concerning.
Last edited by EagleRiverDee; 03-24-2017 at 07:11 PM.
I'm also not a doctor, but I'm wondering if your electrolytes were out of balance. Perhaps you have a potassium deficiency? I had low potassium when I was pregnant and I had the tingling, shaking, and weakness. I don't know what kind of diet you're on (low carb, low fat, etc.), but perhaps you could add some high potassium foods like cantaloupe, avocado, and spinach? And eat a lot of them. Bananas have less potassium and a lot of sugar, so personally I avoid them, but YMMV.
I drink electrolyte drinks all day long for the dysautonomia, so they shouldn't be getting out of balance. Vegan wholefoods diet (longstanding, not a recent change), only a mild calorie restriction, plenty of veg.
I have no idea what blood tests they ran, they just told me they came out fine. No one was interested in the weird dehydration symptoms, and it's not usual to do an electrolyte workup. The migraine helpline hadn't heard of them, but they do have "increased urination" listed as a possible symptom.
Unfortunately my GP is useless and I haven't seen them since July despite being severely disabled. It's going to take a while and an advocate to get me in at a decent GP practice, it's not something I can sort out immediately. It's very common for patients with ME/CFS to be given the brush-off, sadly, and probably a major factor in why it knocks 25 years off your life expectancy.
I'll ask on Neurotalk, there are some good people on there including a few medical professionals. And I wrote the whole thing up in details, down to what I'd eaten in the last 48 hours.
There's a website called Healthboards where people can share information about their medical issues- you might also try that, see if anyone else has ever had something like that, maybe you can get some answers from a fellow sufferer.
Have you ever seen a Naturopathic doctor? I switched to one as my primary care physician because I, too, was failed by normal doctors. My ND has literally saved and changed my life. You might consider adding one to your quiver. I have what I call my "team"- My M.D., my N.D., an N.P., an LAc (acupuncturist) and a masseuse.
Bizarre reasons for sudden fluid retention
