Question Title: 10 year enigma

Sorry this is so lengthy but there's a lot to say. I'm a 29 year old male with a 10 year, persistent problem that has not been diagnosed. Ten years ago, my initial symptoms were severe cold chills, with uncontrollable body shakes lasting a half an hour to approx. 1 hour. Also with the chills I felt extremely tired and fatigued, foggy in the head with general aches and pains. When the body shakes finally subsided I would get a painful, pressure-like headache on the entire top half of my head. These attacks continued this way every couple months or so. Then, I began experiencing extreme abdominal pain (left-side, just underneath rib-cage), diarrhea, vomiting, fatigue and yellowing of skin along with the body chills and other symptoms. These attacks come and go on an average of every two weeks. Over the years I was under the care of a Gastroentorologist who performed numerous tests……..colonoscopy, endoscopy, ultrasounds, cat scan, blood tests, urine tests, stool sample test and nothing definitive has resulted. I did notice these attacks were more frequent after the consumption of alcohol…..I tested positive with pancreatitis (1992). I quit drinking alcohol, but the abdominal pain and other symptoms got worse. Two years later I had my gall bladder removed because of gall stones, however, I never had any pain in the area of my gall bladder, it has always remained on the left side and radiated into my mid to lower back. Still having problems, I was retested for pancreatitis and this came up negative…….I had the test done again by a different doctor with the same outcome - No Pancreatitis. This I don't understand…..because the same problems persists. Is this recurrent pancreatitis?
About two years ago I turned to Holistic medicine, most of which didn't work. I did get some positive results from something called Noni juice. While drinking the Noni juice, I went three months without an attack, and when it finally did hit, it was extremely mild compared to past attacks. However, the same routine slowly resumed and although the attacks were milder, they were still averaging every two weeks. Now it seems that the abdominal pain has decreased and rarely do I become nauseated, however the body chills and shaking are worse. I have episodes now where my body will shake violently and uncontrollably, as if my entire body is vibrating. . I was told this could possibly be a severe reaction to a fever. But what is causing the fever? Infection, inflammation, what?
Please help if possible. I have left out some smaller details, which may or may not help, however, this is getting too long. Thanks.

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Dear CLC,
I too am puzzled by the episodic nature of your symptoms. Usually, when we are presented a story of an intermittent complicated problem that involves multiple different body parts, we think of conditions in which hormones are released into the body that affect multiple body parts. Conditions that can present thios way include carcinoid syndrome ( a condition in which symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea,sweating and flushing can be precipitated by alcohol) and pheochromocytome ( a condition of the pancreas in which adrenaline is released). I assume that these diagnoses would be excluded by the blood, urine and CT scan tests.

Pancreatitis can present with abdominal pains but would not cause the symptom complex that you describe.

You may wish to return to ypour physician for a repeat evaluation.

This information is presented for educational purposes. Ask specific questions to yourr personal physician.

HFHSM.D.-rf
*keywords: pancreatitis, carcinoid syndrome
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