Help my girlfriend solve medical mystery

Mono

Can mono really last for three years and be this serious?

She has mono now and arthritis or rheumatoid arthritis chronically

None of these fit it too well, but I'm going to say Chronic regional pain syndrome and MS. Although, both of these do not fit the condition too well.

Sounds like one for Doctor House and his team.

Nothing an ice bath can't fix.

I'm thinking some type of connective tissue disease. Also, I don't think it is mono, unless she got this two three years ago (which is highly unlikely for a mid 40 year old to suffer from) and then she developed the classic Chronic fatigue syndrome.

Would any of these make your face swell, glands swell? Maybe autoimmune disease?

connective tissue disease = auto-immune disease. there are a myriad of symptoms and signs that go along with a connective tissue disease.

She had her thyroid checked I'm guessing. If not check her thyroid out, maybe she has hashimoto's thyroiditis.

Thanks... Thyroid checked out fine.

We'll looking into connective tissue.

Oh... and we forgot. Starting back in 2003, and on and off since then, she has episodes of wild irregular heart beat. She's worn devices to record events, but docs always come back with it being no big deal. These rapid heart heart beats would go on for hours at a time for weeks.

They aren't present currently but do occur every year or two.

Celiac. Have you tried any sort of dieting to see if she's allergic to stuff? I would try jumping off Gluten maybe

what do you mean by "wild irregular heart beats". They are really fast, or they are irregular, or what? how many beats per minutes? does she ever get light headed, faint?

Also, what kind of docs has she been to. Rheumatologist? Psychiatrist? Psychologist?

Celiac is characterised moreso by bloating, diarrhea, sometimes skin rashes, and sometimes nothing more than fatigue. Watching her diet isn't a bad idea, but there is an easy blood test which does a decent job of pointing towards celiac. She might have a different food sensitivity as well. So maybe cut back on gluten and see if her life improves.

First off, I am just a first year PT student so take everything I say with a grain of salt...

First, has her collar bone pain gone away or gotten better? Also did it get any better when she changed positions sleeping at night etc.?

Also, the fatigue and weight gain can be due to a Thyroid disorder like the previous poster said. Has she suffered any fractures, or just bone pain?

Another possible reason for fatigue and bone pain can be Hyperparathyroidism, has she had her parathyroid hormone levels checked? An elevation in parathyroid hormone would result in the body resorbing, or breaking down, bone in order to release calcium into the blood stream. The weight gain on the other hand MAY simply be related to the fatigue making her less likely to get out and move around and not burn as many calories as she used to.

Can't really connect the swollen axillary lymph nodes into my hypothesis but hopefully that helped a bit...

Also, the exaggerated pain response can be due to changes in the central nervous system called central sensitization. Basically, it is when you are constantly experiencing pain, those areas in the brain get larger and the pain can begin to feel more diffuse and spread over larger areas of the body. In addition to this pain is projected up to many areas of the brain and linked with emotions, so she can even have pain when there are no damaged tissues.

Again, take that all with a grain of salt but maybe it can help steer you guys in the right direction when talking with her doctors.. Hope you figure out whats going on

I have no useful information to give you, but my heart goes out to her. I sincerely hope she gets better.

Really fast... It's been a while, but a "fluttering". As I recall, laying in bed she was pounding away like running intervals. Other times, it would speed up and slow way down.

Mostly very fast.

This sounds like classic lymes disease. Go to web md and look it up. Swollen glands, fatigue, heart palpitations, skin sensitivity...don't let the absence of a rash throw you or her not remembering being bit.

We do know that suddenly after years of eating it, she blew up eating Salmon. That was 2007. Tried it again and same thing so she's been off that since.

She does wonder if it's related to gluten. However, the only thing we've tried is joining a farm a couple of months ago to ensure she's eating only grass feed chicken, steak and pork.