Lupus?

[binkman]

I haven't been on the forums much recently, but I was dx with celiac after positive blood and endoccopy results in June. Since then I've been gluten-free and have had really good results. All of my fatigue and neurological symptoms have gone away and I can eat most things again with bloating and discomfort.

 

But recently new things are happening. At the end of July I got a really bad cold. At that time I noticed what I thought were some submandibular lymph nodes. The cold went away but the nodes never did. A few weeks later I developed a dry cough, which I attributed to the cold. At that time I started noticing more nodes: my left supraclavicular node which is very rubbery, very mobile but also very small, about pea-sized. I went to my doc, she said to give it some time and see if they go down, none of them were large enough to be worried about.

 

Since then, I've noticed more lymph nodes: a pea-sized one on my left side more on my chest than in my armpit, but an axillary node i suppose. It's about pea-sized, too. In the last two days I developed a really sore left armpit and found another lymph node in there, about the same size, very sore. I also have a peanut sized cervical node on the right side of my neck thats a bit sore. Also, I've developed a sort of rash-like thing on my face at the end of August, the same time as the cough. It was really just red, scaly, peeling skin on either side of my nose and I was able to ameliorate the peeling and redness with a bit of head and shoulders.

 

The cough isn't going away, tends to wax and wane in terms of how bad it gets. Mostly it doesn't make me cough, but its a tickle that I cough to try to get rid of. Just this morning I was driving down the road and hit some bad asphalt that caused the car to vibrate for a few seconds and it tickled my lungs so bad it just about drove me nuts. Very very rarely it is a little bit productive. But mostly coughing doesn't help for long. I've also been having a bit of pressure/burning feeling sometimes in my chest and some popping noises coming from my sternum sometimes when move my torso around. I also sometimes get a really crazy itchy feeling from behind my sternum. That seems to be independent from the coughing.

 

I went back to the doc on Friday, but my regular doc is on maternity leave. I saw another physician who gave me a referral to an ENT for the lymph nodes and an osteo for the sternum thing. I'd rather see an internist or rheumo... She seemed very unconcerned about the lymph nodes. I should say I havent ever really cared for this physician, she blew me off a few times for symptoms that turned out to be a result of my celiac disease. She also ordered a chest X-ray Friday that came back normal.

 

I didn't think to mention the rash on my face, having just been reading about lupus. I should say that I *sort of* have a lupus family history. My dad, who also has celiac disease, has been suspected to have lupus, but as I understand, it can be difficult to definitively diagnose it. Every test he's had for it has been borderline. I've had CRP and ANA blood tests in June and they came back not only in the normal range, but at the very low end of normal.

 

Does this sound like it could be a lupus flare-up? I should note that I have been running in the last few weeks and, although my lungs are uncomfortable, especially if I try to breathe deeply after a run, I don't seem to be having any problems getting enough air. I would think maybe it was some kind of lingering pneumonia if not for all these lymph nodes popping up recently and the face rash thing.