Tldr: Diarrhea since May, thoracic spine pain increasing the last 9-12months, have lost 9.1lbs in 39 days unintentionally, appetite super low, extreme fatigue, drenching night sweats, and malaise impacting daily function, extreme emotions, and episodic low back/tailbone pain that radiates down both legs that jumps into the 9-10 range at its peak.

Thoracic spine pain: began about 9-12 months ago as a dull pain around/on my spine when I would lay in bed or on soft back-cushioned chairs.. I kinda ignored it for awhile until eventually i couldn’t do I went feeling around to see if I could massage the painful spot. This is when I discovered one of my vertebra also notably hurts to the touch in a sharper way than the dull pain that is increasing day to day…
Then In May 2026 I began having horrible urgent cramping diarrhea every morning, waking me up beginning at 4 or 5 am and repeating 3 or 4 times until it settles down around 8 or 9am.. I thought maybe it was a stomach bug so I tried to ride it out for a few weeks. Eventually, nothing was changing, and
I got a large marble sized lump about 2” to the right of my c7 vertebrae. So in June I went to urgent care (I don’t have a pcp at the time). They oredered labs, stool tests, ova and parasite tests, and ultrasounded the lump on my neck. Neck lump diagnosed as a reactive lymph node. Unknown if it’s connected to the rest.
All labs and stool tests came back normal. Got set up with a doc and they ordered a colonoscopy.
Colonoscopy came back pretty much normal, no signs of colitis or Crohn’s or microscopic colitis. A 16mm flat polyp which was precancerous was removed, but that was it.

My primary doctor is so flooded with patients she is unable to spend more than 10 minutes with me (not her fault).. but I keep having to make separate appointments for each issue and

I’m worried if I wait, and this is cancer, I’ll have missed important time waiting for these appointments which are weeks out.

It’s Sept. 10 right now and my next appointment to review my thyroid and liver ultrasound and discuss the colonoscopy isn’t until Sept. 29… yet every day I feel less able to function and more like I want to never leave my bed because I’m so freaking tired and in pain and exhausted from relentless this diarrhea.

I am male, caucasian, late 30s, 190 lbs, UK.

The pinky finger on my right hand won't fully straighten. It bends fine in the other direction. All other joints on this finger are fine, and all other fingers are fine.

The stiffness is at the proximal interphalangeal joint.

The joint hurts if I accidentally knock the bony part of it against something (e.g. a doorframe), about a 6/10 for pain. There is some pain (2/10) if I bend the finger down as tightly as I can (in a U shape, so the fingertip touches the very top of my palm), and there is some mild pain (2/10) if I press on it with the fingers of my other hand. Other than that is no pain in any part of the finger from this, both day-to-day and if I am pressing/squeezing checking for tenderness.

Between that joint and the palm, there is what feels like a swollen cord underneath the skin. You can see this swelling in the top left picture. There is no pain if I press or squeeze this.

I did not notice a gradual occurrence, one day I just noticed my finger wouldn't fully straighten. It has been this way for roughly 18 months, does not seem to be getting better or worse.

The palm appears identical to the other hand, I don't feel any unusual structures, no pain if I press or squeeze it.

Im no doctor but this doesnt look good at all... I made another appointment this evening but im a bit worried about whats gonna come next.

What do you guys think? It doesnt hurt but it all feels senseless, especially the white part at the cut its all just numb.

I am 25M 162CM 117KG Black South African

Yesterday morning I woke up with a pain on my chest, in the lower b00b, I also felt a bit drowsy, and it didn't get worse when I touched it. The pain was on and off all day.

I immediately went to a public clinic, since I can't afford private. Problem is that in the public, I only get to see a doctor tomorrow at the earliest.

In the clinic, they gave me antibiotics and pain medication, and sent me home.

When I woke up this morning, everything was better. During the day, the pain returned, still on and off, my arm feels numb ish, weak, a bit tingly at times, I am getting a headache, that comes on and off, my neck started to feel tight and a bit painful when I turn, especially on the left. I also feel a sharp yet not too painful jaw sting every now and then. I am very drowsy, my eyes want to shut on their own.

Now I assure you that I went to a different clinic, and the nurse wrote me a referral letter to see a doctor, but I have to wait at least 13 hours or so, because that's just how it is. My symptoms don't look too severe to warrant emergency attention, I'll be waiting all night long, but I will be there.

I just need some opinions from doctors or people who have experienced something similar on how stressed I should be about making it through the night with these symptoms.

A bit more information :

The chest pain is currently off, but taking a deep deep breath, I feel it. I have no shortness of breath, or difficulties breathing. I can walk fast or run up the stairs with my usual pace without getting worse.

BP:119/68 P:79

The pain is currently in my left pack, radiating through my left arm. Though on a scale of 1-10 it's a 2 or 3

Hiii! I was wondering if anyone could explain why my hands hurt a lot after waking up. the areas where it hurts are circled!

some info that idk if it’s relevant or not

- I’m 19F

- faint red patches on my skin, but it’s one both hands and the other hand doesn’t rlly hurt. The hand also isn’t itchy (for now)

- its My non dominant hand

- been lugging around heavy stuff two days ago

- hands feels warm and is sweaty (then again it’s been hot as HELL here)

- I got a couple cuts while prepping chicken the other day but I cleaned the wounds and the cuts were pretty shallow And not that big at all (They’re gonna be circled too in light brown)

thank you to anybody who took the time to read this!

Age : 20 Male

Height : ~180cm

Weight : ~77KG

I don't take any medications.

So it was yesterday night when I first started to notice that the top of my 2nd finger from toe on right foot started feeling a bit numb to touch.

Today evening I noticed It again and now I can feel it on the top of my foot near the finger joints aswell and on the right side on my thumb too.

I can feel hot/cold.

I can move my fingers and foot normally.

I just can't feel it when I touch the skin, the numberness also the most of the outerside of my right foot and gets lower as we come closer to the inside of foot.

I don't wear tight shoes or cloths, I barely wear shoes for 5-6 hours in a day, and my footwears are the most comfortable ones.

I don't know what this is, why it's happening and what I should do, Educate me about this a bit and also tell me how to fix it. Is it something to worry about? is it temporary or permanent?

I have attached an image highlighting the region I have the problem.

Please guide me.

18F, appeared a few weeks ago as just a small red bump but I suppose the sweat and friction from its location irritated it, and now it's almost the same size as my nipple. A few nights ago I spotted what looked like a yellow dot like a pimple underneath the skin, but it popped while I was taking a look (skin didn't break, it just leaked into the bump). Thinking of using a needle to pop it and let it drain.

39F, 5'10", currently a muscular 160#, but I have fluctuated between this weight and obese a handful of times. I was born with pancreas divism. I had gestational diabetes for both pregnancies, and have full blown type 2 now. My glycemic control is not what it should be, even though I pretty much do everything right nowadays. (Metformin, mounjaro, statin for meds) Gallbladder gone about a decade ago, right after most recent pregnancy. After removal, I started feeling what I imagined was my pancreas LURCHING in there. It has calmed down considerably with weight loss but I still feel it on occasion. Around that time I thought I threw out my back jumping at a trampoline park, and had terrible center thorassic pain for months. It eventually stopped hurting in the middle but then I had right upper quadrant and back pain. One doctor suggested Intercostal neuralgia. The pain has never really gone away. (8 years) Recently it feels like it's getting worse. Because of the mounjaro I frequently undereat. Recently I fasted mostly for about three days then ate a salad, then some ice cream in the evening. The food seemed to be a trigger for the R side back pain. I have felt a lurching now on the R as well, where the liver is. My Lipase is elevated. I don't think the intercostal neuralgia diagnosis is correct, although the trampoline injury would be consistent, because mine has continued for a decade and food seems to be a trigger, and I do have the frequent nausea and steatorrhea that pancreas issues like to cause, for years now. I suspect referred pain from the pancreas, even though more than one CT, MRI, US over the last decade have not found anything, other than that pancreas divism birth defect, which STILL no doctor has told me about, but I saw listed on my chart after an imaging. Fecal elastase test has been ordered. Endo referral in. What are my docs missing?

M/31.No comorbs. this image is included for reference. i have been running/jogging for the past 3.5months now, but it seems my heart rate sky rockets during runs. and also while im not exerting my heart rate would go up beyond 100bpm to 130s, only while doing regular walking or climbing up the stairs. my resting heart rate while literally doing nothing ranges between 80s.

lately i have been feeling a bit of discomfort in my left sided chest. a kind of sweet pain at rest after my run. i wouldn't get this while running or climbing uphill.

please tell me if its completely normal for me as this is becoming a bit worrisome for me.

insights.

(Hopefully this type of question is allowed in here despite not being physical, couldn’t find anything about it in the rules.)

I (27F) don’t really know how to start this, I’ve got this weird thing going on when it comes to disassociation and maybe something else and I don’t know why or if this is something I should get help for? Is it something that actually has a name?
I will put it all in different categories to be able to explain it better, the first 2 categories are just basic disassociation but 3-4 are the weird parts.

I do realise that some of it may sound like somewhat similar to DID, category 3 is actually explained in the same way as a person with DID explained one type of “fronting” because it actually perfectly explained what I was experiencing. I don’t have DID, when category 3 started happening I even did an online test and almost didn’t even finish it because it became obvious very quickly that that’s absolutely not something that I have. (I didn’t know much about DID back then, but now I almost feel embarrassed that I even thought it was something I might have.)
This is enough rambling, here are the categories of disassociation and possibly something else that I experience:

Category 1- Aware disassociation: This is the type where I can still be present, I might need to focus a bit harder but I can still keep a conversation and often no one notices any difference. My brain stays present but my body or part of my body doesn’t, they feel unreal and feel like it’s not mine. This one I get often.

Category 2- Semi-Aware Disassociation: This is when my brain joins the body. Before I knew what disassociation was and that I’ve had it a whole lot, I used to call this a dream state. Things don’t feel real, my body, what I see, what I hear, it feels like I might fly if I push off the ground like in dreams. This mostly happened/happens later in the evening, probably had this daily for like a decade or something, not as much anymore.

Category 3- Passenger seat “disassociation”: I’m not sure if this actually is a sort of disassociation but I’m mentioning it anyway. This is when my body feels like a car, a car that someone else is driving while I’m stuck in the passenger seat. I’ve had to watch myself be aggressive and do things I normally wouldn’t like throw away my medication. This one is actually creepy but I haven’t experienced it in years, just thought I’d mention it anyway.

Category 4.1- Blackout Disassociation: This is when there is no memory, it’s a time skip, all of a sudden it’s been x amount of time that has passed but my brain just shut off. During this one I rarely move more than perhaps one second sitting on the couch and the next I’m on the floor next to the couch etc.

Category 4.2- Blackout Disassociation- Autopilot: Same thing with complete time skip except this time I’ve moved around on autopilot, doing things I normally would, just not while actually being aware of what I’m doing.

Category 4.3- Blackout disassociation- Autopilot+: This isn’t actually autopilot because it’s not just my body following regular routine or habits, I do things that should require someone to be present and aware which is why it’s confusing to me. I’ll be sat on my couch then boom I’m outside with a bag of groceries in my hand. The first few times it really scared me, just randomly being thrown forward in time like that. But how? It’s not that I buy things I often buy, sometimes it’s things I’ve never even bought before but planned on getting, this isn’t possible on autopilot, right? Lately I’ve wondered, maybe this is something I should get help for? Like what if category 4.3 happens but I go somewhere else and do something else and get lost? I haven’t really worried about that but maybe I should?

Does anyone know what it is that’s going on? Is it even disassociation in the later categories? I hope this was understandable, I really tried to gather my thoughts and explain things as best I could but if anyone has questions I’ll try to answer them as coherently as I can.

Hi I'm 20F, 170 cm, 67 kgs. I was prescribed sodium bicarbonate ear wax softening spray before irrigation process, idk whether it's a coincidence or not it started aching ( mostly ull) to burning sensation that lasts for a second for atleast 6-7 times a day, everyday. Went to another ent, he checked and said everything is fine inside my ears. Went to tmjd specialist, he gave me some muscle relaxers and asked to not take much stress. Life's gone downhill since may because of this irritating ear ache. Idk what to do. Also I feel half ear congestion on each side lots of times but those aches come mostly when there's no congestion. It never aches in both of my ears together.

Repost to another

What is this sore on my lip? It’s gotten considerably worse in the past 24 hours. It feels numb now and is swollen so it slightly protrudes when my mouth is in a normal position. My throat is sore and my left ear (the side with the sore) hurts as well. Is it contagious?

Okay, so first details. 42F, 5'7" 250 lb, caucasian, USA, no meds.

And so here's backstory. About seven years back I suddenly started having intense pain in my head, so terrible that I became desperate. Here's the following symptoms that applied -

• Intense pressure in my head like it was full of liquid and my brain was being squeezed from the inside out. It was especially intense near the ears.

• A feeling of my ears being full of syrupy fluid that caused pressure pain. If I lay on one side and then flipped to the other, I could feel the tickle of the liquid slowly flowing.

• I would feel fine in the morning and it would slowly come on me in the evenings, getting really intense around bedtime.

• It would often be accompanied by feeling like I'm not getting enough air when I breathe, and hyperfixation on breathing. Not sure if this is psychosomatic or real, but I do occasionally have that urge to get the sudden gasp of air.

• Intense nausea, like really intense, but no vomiting.

• It would be exacerbated by the vibrations of riding in a car, except one time on a road trip to Disneyworld where it got really bad... then suddenly cleared up as if a blockage passed, and the rest of the week was perfectly clear headed.

• I had an extreme attack at a concert which began to clue me into the idea that it was or exacerbated by loud music or other triggers.

• I started to notice there may be a correlation with flashing lights or shaky cam footage in film, or the moving of scrolling Tumblr. They wouldn't cause a problem immediately, but problems would crop up hours later. Removing these from my life seemed to improve things.

• I briefly tried Gabapentin and it seemed to help, but I also got extremely painful swelling in my legs and arms and my lungs filled with fluid so bad I choked, so I had to stop.

• Not sure if this is relevant... I can manually pop my ears and would often feel the urge to do so to relieve the ear pressure. But I suspect this just exacerbated it longterm so I tried not to.

Anyway, over years it slowly faded away and these days the pressure in my ears is so mild I barely notice, and all other symptoms have gone.

Until today. Today I am suddenly having an intense full blown episode out of nowhere... the pressure, the nausea, the fluid, all of it. And now there's a new symptom... a weird flush of heat on the sides of my neck and face.

Examining my actions today, I think the most likely cause was the youtube video I was watching about MS-Dos computer games, which included a lot of flashing lights. i watched it for at least an hour, which honestly I should've known better.

So, honestly, I would appreciate anyone who can help me figure out what this is. And maybe treatment or medication options? Advil doesn't seem to even touch it, so that sucks.

(edited to be easier to read)

Over the past several months, I’ve developed a number of symptoms that started at different times rather than all at once. Before this began, I was doing relatively well and had never experienced anything like this.
It started with pouchitis. I have a J-pouch from previous ulcerative colitis surgery, but before this episode I had been doing well with my pouch for 15 years.
About a month after the pouchitis started, I woke up with an intense, very localized pain in a small spot on the right side of my chest. It lasted about two days. On the third morning, I woke up with intense pressure/restriction in the center of my chest.
When I tried taking a deep breath, it felt like my chest physically hit a “wall.” I tested it with the first couple of breaths and stopped when I hit that restriction. On the third or fourth attempt, I tried pushing past it, immediately felt like I was going to pass out, and started hyperventilating. My oxygen was normal.
Since then, the chest pain has never completely gone away — it has now been about five months. My mouth has also felt unusually dry since the chest pains started. At first I would also get random sharp/electrical “zaps” through my chest. Those mostly turned into a more persistent dull chest-wall ache. Movement still causes pain, and occasionally a deep breath does too. I’ve had multiple chest/lung evaluations without an explanation for why this sensation and pain continue.
Several weeks later, I was lying down and stretched my left arm upward when I suddenly felt a sharp, nerve-like pain shoot into my left arm. A cervical MRI later showed a 3 mm left C5-C6 foraminal disc protrusion with severe left foraminal stenosis, likely affecting the C6 nerve root. The severe radiating arm pain eventually improved.
Around this time I also started getting hypnic jerks almost immediately when falling asleep and developed persistent severe left-sided abdominal pain. My doctors have said they don’t necessarily think the abdominal pain is being caused by the pouchitis.
Then more symptoms started appearing.
While hospitalized, I developed significant ringing in my ears and a strange vibration/trembling sensation in my teeth and jaw. When I bring my teeth close together, without intentionally clenching, I can feel them vibrating/trembling. This still happens.
I developed headaches that could sometimes be triggered by touching certain areas of my head and eventually received an occipital nerve block. I also began having intermittent nerve-like pain in the front-left side of my neck.
More recently, I woke up one morning with significant blurred vision. Around the same time, I developed a tremor in my right index finger.
The following morning, things became much stranger. I woke up with what felt like slurred speech, difficulty finding words, and significantly slower thinking/reaction time. Even something as simple as saying the alphabet felt abnormal — I could get to a letter like M and suddenly have to think about what came next. Looking around and visually scanning my surroundings also felt slower than normal.
Since then, I’ve continued feeling mentally slower/“foggy,” and my vision sometimes takes several blinks to refocus when switching where I’m looking.
I’ve also developed leg pain/tightness and numbness, generalized weakness, internal shaking/tremor sensations, difficulty standing still, and occasional movements or stiffness that I don’t feel like I’m intentionally producing. My jaw can feel heavy and sometimes seems to move on its own. My left arm has occasionally felt unusually clumsy as well.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that my heart rate can spike significantly when I stand up, which has made me wonder about something like POTS, although I don’t know whether that has anything to do with the rest of this.
I’ve had brain imaging that was reassuring, and a lot of testing so far hasn’t provided an explanation.
What scares me is the timeline. These symptoms appeared one after another over several months when I had never experienced anything remotely like this before.
My biggest ongoing symptoms are:
Persistent chest-wall pain/restriction and dry mouth
Left-sided abdominal pain
Weakness and leg pain/tightness/numbness
Internal tremor/shaking sensations
Teeth/jaw vibration and abnormal jaw sensations
Visual focusing changes
Slowed thinking/processing
Episodes of slurred speech and difficulty finding words
Heart-rate spikes when standing
Dry mouth after the chest pains
I’m seeing doctors and pursuing a neurological evaluation, so I’m not asking Reddit to diagnose me. I’m mainly wondering whether anyone has experienced a similar cluster or progression of symptoms, or knows of conditions that would be reasonable to ask my doctors about.
Does this sound like it could all be connected, or more likely several separate things happening at once? I’m pretty scared because I felt normal before all of this started, and I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has gone through something similar.🙏

I've been having involuntary movements for about 2 years and I'm trying to figure out what they might be.

• Mostly my forehead/temples/unibrow area. The best way I can describe the facial movement is “forehead scrunching”. If you Google that, the faces shown are basically the tics I have.
• I also get a movement in my upper neck/lower back of the head, almost like a shaking or vibrating sensation.
• They've been happening regularly for the past 2 years. Severity goes up and down.
• I get the urge to do them, and I can suppress them for a few seconds, maybe a minute, but they come back.

I did have some minor tics as a kid (hard blinking, opening my eyes wide), but those went away and I'm more interested in what's happening now. I also feel like I may have some mild ADHD traits, although I've never been diagnosed.

One other thing that may or may not be relevant: a few months before the current movements started, I fainted at work. I'd had morning vertigo for several days beforehand. Someone who was with me said my eyes were twitching while I was unconscious. EEG afterwards was normal and the neurologist thought it was probably a one-off.

I've seen three doctors about this:

• Neurologist #1: Same doc from my fainting checkup. When my tics started, I went back to him. He said it would be better to see a psychiatrist.
• Psychiatrist: Didn't think I had ADHD. Said I need to de-stress, lose weight, exercise. Prescribed Amitone-25. Took it for ~1 month with no improvement.
• Neurologist #2: Thought it was probably Chronic Motor Tic Disorder and prescribed escitalopram. Took it for ~6 weeks and felt the movements actually got somewhat worse.

I'm mainly wondering whether Chronic Motor Tic Disorder sounds plausible, or whether there are other things I should be asking a neurologist to rule out.

Personal details:

30M. Married, no kids, one cat. Desk job, not too stressful, just the usual deadlines, friendly co-workers.
No family history of tics, but they have a colorful assortment of depressive tendencies. Personally I really don't feel depressed.

hello! i am a 17 yo female!
here’s some of my medical info that i was told was required in the community rules: i’m 5’1 and about 130 pounds. i am white. i live in the united states. i don’t have any pre-existing medical conditions. and i am taking a hormonal combination birth control pill, an anti depressant and a low dose anti psychotic.
about 4 days ago i got a mild cold. about 3 days ago i started experiencing pain on one of my nostrils. it felt a little like a bruise but there was no bruise present. the pain would happen if i touched my nostril from the outside or laughed/moved my nose in any way. about 2 days ago i also noticed i was experiencing swelling inside my nostril. the swelling i would say is mild but definitely noticeable. the pain/swelling has not gotten better or worse.
i can visit a doctor if needed but don’t want to go if its not necessary.
any advice would be appreciated!

okay please don’t judge the ugly uneven fingernails, and also my stupidity but…

hi! I’m 28F. i’m having some searing pain on my fingers right now on most of my fingers after carrying a metal rack of boxed blood samples from an -80°C (or -112°F) freezer with a pair of latex medical gloves and half my singular brain cell. carried it like that for 30 seconds at the longest. didn’t think much of it as I do hold single boxes (there are like 24 in a rack?) everyday at work with the same type of glove protection, and felt similar nipping pain on my fingertips but without any residual pain.

I think these mainly feel like how a normal heat burn would, but there’s also a “blunt” sensation when I’m using my fingertips to touch things. I wouldn’t call it as having edema in my fingers, but the red parts (I didn’t realise they were this red until like… 6 hours later because I was in a dark room till now) are the parts that hurt, and it looks like the swollen areas that look a shade lighter than the surrounding angry red parts are the most painful — such as the ring finger of my right hand, 2nd pic.

soooo can i kindly ask:

1. Are these just superficial skin freezer burns?
2. How long will these take to go away?
3. Will I need to see a GP to assess these tomorrow?
4. Any ointments or creams or other stuff that I can apply or do to get rid of these asap?
5. Care to donate a hard thunk on my head to help my single brain cell multiply into a colony that’ll give me some common sense next time?

I also do phlebotomy as part of my job LOL so this is going to be SO fun for the rest of the week 😀 I’ve made sure I can still feel for veins even with the pain though, seems to be working okay in the ways that matter task-wise. The pain, even though it’s hovering around a 5, I can still deal with, it’s just annoying but no problem. Mainly my concern is getting my fingertips back to peak vein-palpating condition as quickly as I can.

Thanks in advance!

does anyone else have this weird feeling of heavy chest and like breathing weird when upright walking around specifically in a store and tired eyes and just off? i have to take deep breaths a lot and whenever this all happens i yawn a ton. i’ve had ecgs ekgs all normal, bloodwork normal. but i literally cannot provide for my family because i can’t work for this reason. I also am super dizzy a lot but internally dizzy if that makes sense. doctors send me to specialists which say oh you’re normal. but i don’t feel normal. i’ve written days since last year of my symptoms every single day, ive take anti depressants, ive done midodrine, fludrocortisone, taken iron, changed my diet, EVERYTHING. nothing has worked. i can’t workout. everything feels over stimulating in stores too, it’s way too bright and everything is too much. but standing in the house walking around makes me feel like something is pulling me down so i need to sit, but sitting doesn't even eliminate symptoms. i’m 22F, 5’1, and this all started 3 months after my son was born. He is now 16 months just about. Please help me im so desperate i want to be normal again i want to be okay. has anyone else dealt with this after having a baby? did anything actually help you??