I started feeling a little better toward the end of last week but the past two nights I haven’t slept hardly at all and I’m feeling the symptoms getting worse again. I am particularly having trouble with the CFS sore throat and the painful, swollen lymph nodes mainly under my left armpit. So I know that when I am experiencing the sore throat and swollen/painful lymph nodes I’m still in danger. I am supposed to go back to work on Wednesday. I don’t know yet if I will be able to do it or not.
The sore throat is not real severe but it’s there enough that I can tell it is the typical CFS sore throat. Not the type of sore throat experienced with strep throat or a cold but more of a swollen kind of sore throat. It’s not the type of sore throat that Sucrets, cough medicine, or throat spray will help lessen the pain. My armpits are so sore, especially the left one, that I can’t put my arm down completely at my side. I have to keep my arm propped out so that nothing it touching.
As I am writing this, I am also having terrible night sweats. I have the air conditioner turned down to 70 and I am still sweating. I can feel that my back is wet and that my hair is wet at the bottom of my neck. With CFS it’s like going through menopause all of the time I guess! Not fun at all. I am just so exhausted. I want and need to sleep so badly but I can’t fall asleep. My body is exhausted, my eyes can barely stay open but when I lie down sleep does not come. Last night I didn’t sleep and I only slept about 2 hours today. Things are not looking good for me.
Hi Sandy, It’s me, Nancy…. and so all I can say is “EXACTLY”. Wow, no coincidence. I get just what you’re describing to a tee. The type of swollen sore throat. The swollen armpits (left one worse). There are so many of us that get the same symptoms or better word, characteristics, that go along with this, that I can’t believe we’re not further (sp?) on this. We don’t get it the same exact pattern and timing, but I don’t think there has been much that you’ve written where I didn’t find myself shaking my head in agreement. So, where does that get us???? Not well, that’s for sure. The common thread is undeniable.
Oh my gosh, Nancy! It is my left armpit too that is the worst. That is just too odd, isn’t it? I have never heard of what anyone does, or if anything helps, with the swollen glands. Thanks for posting!
oh and ditto to the night sweats….my family and dog are going to wind up with pneumonia from air conditioning (not to mention my electric bills). In the winter, I’ve been known to open windows the the sliding glass door!!
I have gone through the symptoms you haev mentioned above.The night sweats come and go,even in winter. And thankful for remindeing me about the lymph nodes under the armpit. I have been having it a lot lately and for some reason I did not connect it to CFS…. And teh sore throat is a daily thing… Praying for you!
good grief , sing it, girls!! we must be related…everything you described…it’s all too familiar
i got sick initially in 1976, age 18. at around age 22 it worsened w/throat infections, weird pains …and from then on, it only got worse. during the 20’s and 30’s, and yes, my 40’s, it has been some nightmare of a bad carnival ride.
throw in the hormones, endometriosis, a bout of Hashimoto’s, migraines…..really, like, God, is this a test? retired due to health, really very limited, very much so, in “activities of daily living”. i can’t do all of them in one day. each day i am at about 20%, i would say.
Hey, I also have the night sweats (not every night but a few times a week) and have my bedroom window open and a fan in my room. I wake up with my hair soaked at the back of my neck and the matress soaked too. I have the cfs sore throat and when I have this I always feel sore around the back of my head and behind my ears too. Sometimes the glands are so swollen it feels like I have bumped my head lol.I get this pretty much every day and it gets better after I have napped for a few hours, but soon comes back. I’m 23 and cannot work due to my m.e. Wish they would do more research into it.
Hey, Im new here. I have Interstitial Cystitis, FMS, endometrosis, CFS, lymph nodes in neck, IBS. I had a doctor for 5 years that told me that it was somatic. This doctor made me go to shrink after shrink. She had my husband convinced that it was caused by depression. They treated me like I was crazy. My family doesnt understand. What do you say to your family members who think you are faking it? I am so alone in all of this 🙁 Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks,
C in ND
Hi Chris, Sorry that your family doesn’t believe you or understand. I know how frustrating and hard it can be. Send them to this website and have them read a lot of the posts on here that I’ve written about my own personal experiences. I know that many people have sent their family members here to Fighting Fatigue to get validation. Hope it helps and good luck to you!
Sandy,
Thanks for the advice. I would love it if my family would come to this website to find an understanding to IC, CFS, IBS, FMS, but they don’t want to learn. I am the youngest out of 11 siblings and when they hear that I am having problems they just think I am a hypochondriac. I have IC with hunners ulcers, scaring. My bladder capacity is one third the size of a normal bladder. I’ve shown them pictures of my pinpoint bleeding ulcers on my bladder. I have had four bladder hydro-distention s. I have had two rectum surgery s, (I may end up with a colostomy bag). I have pouches in my colon. I have had a bladder sling put (which has failed) in a Burch support (which has failed) I am waiting to have the slings redone. I have had a total abdominal hysterectomy, ovarian cysts removed, endometriosis removed, fibroids removed, pre-cancer on my cervix (I no longer have a cervix). I have no support from any of them. I wish I could find a big hammer and beat it into their head s that you cannot give yourself a disease. How could I do all of this to myself? I’ve no support. My 18 year old son just wrote a paper on me and my family\sibling s for his psyc class and he couldn’t believe all that I have been through. I don’t want sympathy, I want to educate them and have them understand. I just want to be understood. IC in a visceral disease, I have to deal with it 24-7 and nobody understands. I can’t even get a doctor to treat me properly.
Thank You,
C from ND
Chris, Please feel free to contact me at anytime by email using the contact form on this website whenever you need a listening ear. I’m not a doctor but I do know how to listen and I can offer support, which is something that those suffering with these terrible illnesses need. You also need people in your corner. Sorry your family won’t be there for you.
Well sing out girls because I am about to explode your myth that this is a hormonal related, female based illness. You see I am a man, and I have exactly the same symptoms too.
Constant sore throat, lymph nodes swollen under both armpits, chronic fatigue, my hands and feet tingle and burn too, depression is another symptom too., a dry hacking cough sometimes and food intolerances as well.
What do I do to try and cure this, I do the following:-
No Dairy, No Sugar of any kind and a gluten free diet (foods based on wheat)
I take lysine and Q10 tablets and subsist on a diet of quinoa with either flax seed oil or
hemp oil over the top, with fresh ground flax oil.
I also take Cod Liver oil for Vitamin D top up too which is very important.
Am I cured? No, but sticking to this diet enables me to function at 50% of the energy levels
that I was operating at.
Good luck let me know if you have any tips too
Dave 🙂
Me too dave,currently ,I’m sweating so much it smells of chlorine,but I go very cold sweat to very hot,I wear a sports top so I have a hood that covers my throat glands.not an ounce of energy . i am so,so very down,3 years now lost my well paid job, don’t know where to turn.
Hi Sandy,
what a great relief finding your site! I typed in my symptoms and your page came up! For two weeks now I feel hot and cold, lightheaded, with a strange frontal headache. Not to mention the painful lymph node that seems to be growing on my neck. I just simply cannot sleep, because these symptoms became my major concern, imagining the worse, as I also became hypersensitive to them. I now fear going to bed! My headache just simply doesn’t go away, and it is the first thing that comes in my head after a crap night of sleep. I’ve acquired this constant pressure on my neck, and I’ve also lost appetite. I can go through a day with one sandwich.
My doctors cannot stand me anymore as, to a certain extent, I LOOK too well. Tests don’t point anything out but not having an explanation didn’t put my mind at ease. As I’ve always read swollen lymph nodes go away after the infection is over, I was too worried it could be some serious underlying illness.
Would you have any advice on how to make myself sleep please?
Many thanks,
Beth
Hii i have the same problem.doctors think im mad,im burbing all the time, painful lymp glands under an around my left arm, my food also doesnt like me anymore.so im on gluden free diet witch help a little.also taken bio kult for my stomac an hormonal balance natural source vitamins for menapause,glad i found a page that relates to my syptoms