"The Elusive Diagnosis"

After a great day outdoors walking with friends, a night of chest pains, palpitations and numbness has left me in limbo being passed from pillar to post.

I woke up that night with extreme chest pains, and when i woke up i felt very dizzy, lightheaded and my heart was palpitating. I rushed straight to A&E at Whiston Hospital but by the time I arrived, the symptoms were mostly gone. ECG,  troponin and full blood count were all fine. The clinicians assumed a case of a panic attack and i went home the next day. 

This was just the start, as weeks passed, i had difficulty breathing where my chest felt very heavy. Just two weeks later, my face went numb and i lost my balance completely when sitting in a restaurant. I collapsed onto the floor. I wound up in Lancaster A&E and no scans or tests were completed except an ecg. Diazepam was given and a suggestion that there could be a neurological problem was given.

After travelling home, my condition continued to deteriorate, to the point where i can no longer walk around the house without feeling faint, like the floor is spongy, intense dizziness and jittering of vision and awful brain fog with a host of weird sensations around the body

I had several visits to A&E where a diagnosis of Anxiety kept beinf made, despite being perfectly healthy only one day before symptom onset.

I often wake up in the middle of the night with palpitations, so i had a 24hr holter/bp mononitor fitted by the Community Cardiovascular Service. Whilst on the monitor i only had some mild symptoms and the readings came back as okay. 

I subsequently had only a routine MRI (no contrast used) and a chest xray and both these results were normal. The ENT department checked thoroughly and suggested a case of BPPV (vertigo). I have had several physio sessions which have not yet resolved the symptoms.

I have spoken to my GP on several occasions who has made further referrals to cardiology and neurology as urgent due to the severity of my symptoms being debilitating.

I am only 21, i have gone from walking 15 mile hikes with friends, to being barely able to walk around my own house due to the balance and coordination problems, numbness and dizziness. To my dissapointment, the cardiology appointment at the community cardiovascular service was rejected without providing any reason to my GP, and neurology appointment at The Walton Centre was downgraded to routine with a 14 week wait.

I was even admitted to a Acute Medical Unit at Whiston Hospital, but i was later discharged without any indication of any possible diagnosis.

Unfortunately I am still currently severely unwell, and am unsure what to do - from being  a perfectly healthy young adult just three months ago, I now struggle to do the basics like shower, cook, and walk around due to the nature of the physical symptoms. A set of conflicting diagnoses have left me at a crossroads.

No plan has been made for treatment or elimination of conditions and every time the symptoms get bad, the A&E assume the problem is Anxiety due to my past record, and don't complete more thorough tests due to my age. 

A destructive combination of risk assessments, assumptions and poor communication between departments and my GP has left me in limbo and I don't know what to do next.