problem?

Sometimes I feel like I'm a magnet for moderate recurring medical problems that are disruptive and very uncomfortable but that defy diagnosis and treatments. I've finally gotten a mysterious fifteen-year coughing fit under control with an asthma inhaler (even though it isn't asthma) but no doctor in all that time has ever been able to say what it actually is or what causes it and the inhaler is just suppressing the symptom without treating the problem. I had as many diagnoses as I had doctors and they ranged from bronchitis to pneumonia to whooping cough to accusations of faking it (I have no idea how that made sense). After fifteen years I'll take what I can get but it's still frustrating and worrisome to have such an obvious problem for which there is no answer.

Since I have that out of the way another peripheral problem has flared and become way more problematic. My knees are killing me. I mean I am in more pain than I can physically tolerate and I've run out of things to try to alleviate it. There isn't any obvious cause--I'm not an athlete and haven't injured them and I've been checked for arthritis--but that doesn't make it less of a problem. It kind of makes it more of a problem. Reporting to a doctor for mysterious joint pain that leaves no physical signs, doesn't cause limping, and has no immediately apparent cause looks extremely suspicious and I've since stopped trying to get medical attention for it after being flagrantly accused of faking it for drugs. (The irony is that I have a drug problem--I accept that, but I don't like being accused of it. It's against my principles to abuse urgent care clinics or emergency rooms for that. If I go to a place like that, it's because something is wrong.) I don't completely blame anyone for doubting me, though. The symptoms are completely mystifying.

I can walk just fine and my knees don't lock or give out like they would if I had an injury. Weirdly, the pain is slightly relieved by being on my feet instead of sitting or laying down. Something about the weight or compression makes the pain a little less intolerable, though not by much. Of course, the fact that weight helps with the pain eliminates the only potential cause of it I can think of, which is that my joints can't cope with the insane amount of weight I put on them. I'm pretty significantly overweight and knee pain is often synonymous with that, but if that were the case I would be in pain all the time and I doubt being on my feet would do anything but make it worse.

Most of the time I'm not bothered at all. It's not even like the pain is negligible or less noticeable--it just plain isn't there. (Which also flies in the face of any conventional diagnosis because an injury or strain or joint disorder would hurt all the time.) But when it flares up, it makes itself noticed. Out of nowhere for no reason my knees will start to ache, which then quickly escalates to constant pain so bad it sometimes makes me throw up. (The only other kinds of pain that do this to me are migraines and kidney stones, for the record.) It isn't even an obvious place to be in pain, like the kneecap; it's in the squishy part just below it, where I'm reasonably sure the joint fluid is. For lack of a better descriptive term, it sort of feels like that sharp ache you get when it's really cold outside and your joints seize up and hurt, but way worse and it won't stop.

Normal methods of pain relief are ineffective or make things worse. Everyone and their mother says you should put ice on muscle or joint pain, but doing this intensifies the pain until I'm in tears and I refuse to do it anymore. There's absolutely no way it was doing any good and it kind of seems like a case of the treatment being worse than the disease. A heating pad helps a little bit, but it only lasts as long as I keep it on my knees and doesn't make more than an incidental difference anyway. There's no favourable position that's more comfortable or hurts any less, no elevation or angle of the leg, so finding a tolerable way of sitting or sleeping is impossible. Even the most powerful painkillers I can get don't make them stop hurting.

The one thing I can do that sometimes offers a little relief is to firmly--probably dangerously firmly--compress both knees completely. Based on the fact that standing up and having all my weight on my knees is less uncomfortable, I tried squeezing one out of sheer desperation and after holding it for a while it actually began to hurt a tiny bit less. Enough to make it worth my time to keep doing it, at any rate. I tie a blanket or towel very tightly around each and after an hour or so it lets up a little bit. Of course, then I have something tied around my legs and I don't really like that, but it's the lesser of two evils. It doesn't cut off my circulation, but I still can't imagine it's very good for me. I'm just really, really desperate.

Otherwise I am completely out of ideas. Even the Almighty Google doesn't offer and helpful answers and none of its suggestions seem close enough to be a step in the right direction. The only outward sign that anything is going wrong is that the fleshy parts of my knees swell, even though it doesn't hurt or bother me at all to prod at them.

I accept that the weird symptoms and random nature of the problem make it hard to even believe it exists. That's what makes it so frustrating. Nobody is inclined to believe it's real because it makes no sense at all and frustration at being accused of lying makes me reluctant to go back to the doctor for it. I'll just leave frustrated and embarrassed and won't get any answers anyway.

I don't know what else to try and am once again left to deal with a problem that interferes with my daily life but that I can't even identify. Even in the event I find some relief or the latest rounds of torment are over, it still doesn't actually solve my problem.

Which I hate.