The Unknown Illness.

In October last year shortly after returning from a ten week stint in South Africa I returned home only to fall ill to an unknown ailment that would destroy my meaning of life. My illness was one many would prefer to keep behind closed doors. Something was seriously wrong with my bladder and urethra, it was excruciatingly painful to urinate, and even after I had evacuated my bladder, the pain persisted. At the time I was driving heavy machinery and being thrown around a lot everyday, I don’t think this caused my problem but I believe it contributed to the severity of it. My main symptoms were painful urination, a sore penis head, bladder, itchy rectum etc., and sometimes I felt as if I was sitting on a golf ball, even walking or sitting became a hassle. I have visited three different doctors over the course of a year, one a healthcare professional, one a chiropractor and the other an infectious diseases expert. To date I have had six blood tests, four urine culture tests, three stool sample tests, a rectal exam, a sexually transmitted disease injection. I have been tested for every disease, infection and ailment under the sun, everything retuned negative and inconclusive. I have been told that whatever ails me is nothing life threating. But what is life when you’re only half living it? Since falling ill I have lost relationships that I would have wished to pursue, the relationship with people around me has deteriorated on account of my irritability and lack of focus, all caused by the pain nobody can tell me why I have. The only link I can make is that for my whole life every so often I have a burning sensation after urination that would persist for anything between 45 minutes and 3 hours, drinking water and taking a long hot shower would sometimes ease or eliminate the pain.

About four months after falling ill I began to feel better, it wasn’t on account of anything I was doing. But more of the seasons changing, from summer to autumn, as the weather began to cool my body began to heal, for the first time in awhile I was able to pee pain free, I was able to go about my life and pursue relationships. I was a normal healthy teenager again. I soon forgot all about my issue. I only got the occasional flair up, but it was manageable and only lasted a couple of days every couple of months. In March 2014 I moved from New Zealand to Australia to experience a change of lifestyle. It soon became apparent that the heat wrecked havoc on my urethra and bladder and within days of arriving in 30 degree heat I was having regular flare ups but not as bad as I had when my condition was chronic. Winter soon came in Australia and I began to once again enjoy a respite from the pain. But this was not long lived; once again my pain is beginning to flare up as the temperature once again begins to rise. I feel a lot of apprehension and fear of what is to come in the coming months. Not only is this illness taking a huge physical toll on me but an even bigger emotional burden. My sanity is often tested and since falling ill I have developed a pretty severe case of anxiety. I feel jittery in public places and am constantly focused on worst-case scenarios and “what ifs”. I persevere everyday through the pain when a lesser person would succumb to it. I know that people out there in the world are facing problems that would dwarf mine and I try and put that in perspective, especially during the rougher days. I have only made two possible links to my pain, and that is the heat irritates my prostate causing inflammation, which squashes the urethra causing bladder and urinary symptoms, or Irritable bowel syndrome, which causes irritable bladder syndrome.

This story is a plea, a cry for help. Is there anybody out there who has any idea of what is destroying my life? Or has anybody experienced these symptoms. Please help me, please help me. I am lost; I have run out of will power to beat this. I need a cure; I need something that will give me a glimmer of hope. I need somebody to show me there is light at the end of the darkness that enthralls me.