Then they started to add up. And so did the trips from one doctor's office to the next.
I saw a dermatologist about the itching — I was told it was probably stress. I saw a doctor for the migraines — I got a prescription that changed nothing. I had tests that came back "within normal limits", while I felt worse and worse. Every time, I left with the same feeling: that no one was looking at the whole picture, only at their own little piece of it.
The hardest part wasn't the symptom itself. It was not being believed. Hearing "it's just nerves" when I knew, in my own body, that something real was going on.
What I wish someone had told me back then: write everything down. Keep a journal — what you eat, what you feel, when. The patterns I only spotted after months of notes were the ones that finally brought me close to an answer. A single symptom doesn't say much. All of them together, over time, tell a story.
If you're in the middle of that exhausting doctor-to-doctor road right now: you're not crazy and you're not making it up. Keep looking, and keep taking notes.
How I prepare for an appointment
Before every visit, I put together a short list: my main symptoms, how long I've had them, what seems to make them worse and what makes them better, plus the questions I don't want to forget. I bring a summary from my journal, too. It sounds trivial, but one clear page has helped me far more than ten minutes of trying to remember everything on the spot, under stress.