Age: 23.0
Sex: F
Vaccine: FLU3
Symptoms: Urinary tract discomfort, Urine analysis, West Nile virus test
Clinical narrative: General information: 23 year old female, 138 pounds, 5 feet 5 inches, very active (work out 5 times a week) with no chronic illnesses, on zero medications, and with zero known allergies. No illness or sickness/cold within the past 4-5 months. Diagnosis from medical office: transverse myelitis (TM) after being hospitalized for five days at Hospital.     Symptoms Timeline:  November 26 to 28: Worst headache of my life (I never get headaches). I had throbbing neck and spinal pain. Front and back parts of the head in severe pain. Lasted over the course of 3 days. Although the headache subsided with around-the-clock Tylenol (500mg every 6-8 hours), I still had major throbbing neck/spinal pain from Nov 26 onward. I started feeling some urinary discomfort as well. The urinary discomfort was not as severe as a UTI-type feeling, but some discomfort before urinating that persisted on.   November 28th and on: Tingly-ness and numbness in upper arms, lower arms, and hands (both right and left arms). Hyper-sensitivity to arms/arm hairs. It was painful to touch anything cold (for example: when washing my hands, the cold water was horribly painful. Even the room temperature soap on my hands hurt). Numbness and ?loss of circulation-type feeling? in hands that would come and go. It felt like my hands were getting numb or going to sleep.   November 30th on: Major body aches across whole-of-body and weakness in legs in particular. I started noticing that I could not run?basically, I tried working out in the morning (my typical morning routine) and could not accelerate past a walking pace (3.5 to 4 MPH). My legs would get locked up and I would lose my balance when I tried to accelerate beyond a walking pace (My normal running pace is 7.5 MPH). I could feel intense weakness in the legs and overall body aches/pains (not muscle related, but a different type of pain). General exhaustion also was felt (sleeping much earlier than usual, etc.).   December 2: Continuation of all symptoms described above, so I decided to go to urgent Care  on the evening on December 2nd to check blood work, vitals, flu. All results came back normal, however the PAC wrote in her report that I ?must follow up with a neurologist: and to ?go to the ER immediately if any new or worsening symptoms develop. Red flags to go to ER.? Verbally she told me to get an MRI and gave me neurologist referral information.   December 3 morning: Was slated to workout in the morning, but could not physically imagine doing so due to the body aches/pain I felt while in bed. I canceled my workout class from bed. An hour later, I tried to get up to use the restroom. I could not keep my balance or walk on my feet properly. I was walking on the sides of my feet because my feet would not let me step flat. After a couple of steps, I started feeling dizzy, losing my vision, and had trouble breathing. I was aware that I was in the process of passing out, so I got on the ground and sat on the floor?gasping for air. I had my phone on me and immediately called my mother who stayed on the line (I was about to call 911 but stayed on the line with my mom). After a few seconds, I crawled to my kitchen and ate some caramelized popcorn and drank some water. I was conscious. My neighbor then came to my unit immediately and took me to the ER. I arrived at the ER around 9am.   December 3 ER: Vitals looked good. Initial testing looked normal. No flu. Their initial tests that looked at inflammation markers came back with normal results. We insisted on some neuro-related check-ups, as recommended from the urgent care PAC. ER sent me to MRI around 3PM. Results came back with many abnormalities/legions in the spinal cord in the particular. Major inflammation of the upper spinal cord and neck. Neurologist consult came in immediately and wanted to start 1000 mg steroid via IV in the ER immediately. Lumber puncture was done in the ER immediately. I was admitted to the hospital that night. From what I can see my patient chart portal, 30+ tests were done from both blood work and lumbar puncture. According to my doctors? analyses, all results have since come back normal or negative. Looks like this was not something triggered by chronic or bacterial cause.    December 3 ? 7: received 1000 mg steroid via IV per day. After day 3, most clinical symptoms such as body aches and arm tinglyness/numbness started subsiding. The treatment seemed to be working quite well. I was discharged on Saturday, December 7th. Upon discharge, I was prescribed to take a tapering steroid treatment orally (60mg for 3 days, 50 mg for 3 days, 40mg for 3 days, 30 mg for 3 days, 20 mg for 3 days, 10 mg for 3 days).   December 11: I had a follow up appointment at main Neurology with Dr. I am slated to get an MRI again on January 29th with a follow up appointment on January 29th with Dr. Additional follow ups to continue in spring and summer.