--- Ólafur Páll Ólafsson <olafurpall@...> wrote:

*snipped*

>
> As of now I am almost fully recovered. A mumps infection usually takes
> about 10-12 days to clear out. I still have a little swelling in the
> jaw area but not much. The edema and the cramps have also improved
> considerably, and I now have my energy back and am anxious to go back
> to the gym:-) I will wait for the swelling to disappear completely
> before doing that however. I have now gotten most of the blood test
> results. The blood test revealed some antibodies to the mumps virus
> which are probably from a vaccination I had against the mumps virus
> over 20 years ago. But as the doctor said some of the old mumps
> vaccines may not work so well and another blood test is needed later
> on to tell if I have mumps or not. I guess this is because it takes
> the body a while to produce new antibodies against the mumps virus and
> these will not be seen right away. Interestingly the blood test
> results did not reveal any cause for the edema and the cramps. Several
> electrolytes were tested along with some markers of kidney function
> but all of these were fine. Because I was vaccinated against mumps
> when I was younger and because I also have edema and cramps which are
> not symptoms of a mumps infection the doctor is not completely
> convinced that I have mumps infection. Therefore, just as a
> precaution, he sent me to a chest x-ray this Friday to see if I have
> an enlarged heart and also to check if I have a benign lung tumor as
> both of these could be the cause of the edema. The same day I also had
> the second blood test done to screen for antibodies against the mumps
> virus. The results of that test will reveal for sure if I truly have
> mumps infection or not. I have yet to receive the results of these
> tests but should receive them this week. I'm hoping that whatever is
> causing the edema and the cramps will disappear as I recover from this
> illness and so far it looks good, as the edema and cramps have improved
> considerably as I've been recovering.

Very glad to hear you are doing better. Hope you don't have this problem in
the future.

*snipped*

> [Welcome to the club of those who periodically have strange undiagnosable
> maladies. The worst part about mine is that it will just not seem to stop
> recurring an average of 3-4 times per year. Each episode is now not really
> any great trouble because I know so well what is happening, exactly what its
> stages are, and that I just have to be patient and within 2 days I will be
> totally recovered. Nevertheless, as with any body malady, I cannot help but
> remember that each occurrence is likely removing a little from my lifespan.
> OTOH, as I more hopefully thought last time, perhaps each episode is having
> a positive hormetic effect and making me stronger than ever during the in
> between times. Certainly, right after I am recovered I always feel energy
> levels much higher than I did before I had the malady. --Paul]
>

Now here is a club I hope never to be a member of in the future.

Erich

[It should also be noted that as I enter my 70th year (I just turned 69
yesterday), I appear to be aging at a very slow rate (no discernible aging rate
at all), have no major disabilities of any kind (except the nuisance of
presbyopia, no worse in the past 6 years) and have as much energy both mentally
and physically as I ever did. The major positive factor in this malady is that
it does not appear to have any chronic effects. Because of this, it could well
have hormetic benefits and I was not being facetious above when I said that.

My major concern is whether or not it is having some exhausting effect on my
immune stem cell system. But since I almost never get any *other* maladies
(colds, flu, etc) perhaps my immune stem cells are holding up quite well also.
It is also possible that my immune system is not reacting to this malady in the
same manner that it does to most other maladies. This could be why I cannot seem
to prevent the re-occurrence, which is definitely not an external reinfection,
but more like a reemergence of something which is hiding in my left leg and
building its strength (and toxins) between episodes. I have wondered whether or
not it would disappear if I amputated my left leg just below the knee (the only
part that ever gets swollen and red, though there is almost always a red streak
up the inside of my leg extending to the also swollen left inguinal lymph node)
- and sometimes I have felt that it might even be best to do that (if I knew
that it would eliminate the recurrent malady), but I have always quickly
dismissed such a thought, since it would only be best for life span and not for
life quality.

I have also tried hard to correlate its onset with other factors in my life at
the time, but have had no success at all. This also puzzles me greatly because
one of my axioms of reality (at least of macroscopic reality) is that every
event is caused in some manner, so I continue to try to find correlations. If it
were even a definite period, that would make some sense, but the time between
has varied from as short as two weeks (but then the second one was milder) to as
long as 6 months (when I hoped it had finally gone away). --Paul]