Hello sara,
i reccomend to learn meditation and apply regularly.

Regards

tarik

Hi sara
when I read your information I really sympathised and empathised with you as I was/am in a similar situation. I had viral meningitis 9 years ago and still live with some of the after effects - according to my doctor I always will. Following my 4 day stay in hospital with meningitis I spent week after week feeling really ill. I felt desperately tired all the time and all my body tingled and burned which was very uncomfortable and stopped me sleeping. Frequently I was told by doctors that viral meningitis was just like having flu and was nothing to worry about. This made me feel a wimp as I was feeling so ill - I blamed myself for how I felt - I was being weak. But I continued to feel very ill. After 6 months I found something that would give me some relief from the tingling and burning - and that was alcohol. I visited my doctor as I thought that I was in danger of becoming an alcoholic! He diagnosed that I was suffering from a kind of neuralgia, as a result of having meningitis, and prescribed amitriptylline tablets. The dose was increased and increased again until my symptoms were under control. I still experience some tingling and sometimes this still makes me feel peculiar. I will have to take the tablets all my life but at least I can lead a mainly normal life.
My advice to you is to seek medical help to see if there is anything they can do to improve the quality of your life.
Hope this helps. Please let me know how you are going on. Best wishes ann

Hi Sara. Your description of your symmtoms sounds way to familiar. I had viral meningitis a year ago and have had numerous check ups since. Each time I've been told its all part of the healing process but to be honest Im getting increasingly frustrated with it. I'm in my final year of university, just months away from the end and I'm seriously considering throwing in the towel and giving up. The smallest thing like shopping with friends for a couple of hours takes me days to recover from. Im missing deadlines all the time because everything takes so much longer.
I noticed that you posted this message a year ago. How have you been getting on recently? Please tell me it gets better. Would really like to hear from someone whos going through/been through the same thing.
Thanks
Take care
Cam

Hey Sara, hope you're feeling better. I have been experiencing similar symptoms to what you've described, only I've never been officially diagnosed with viral meningitis. The doctor has said it was a possibility, but I never had a spinal tap, so I can't know for sure.

I first began feeling ill in July of 2007. I got awful pains in my head and experienced nausea, vision problems, body aches, sore throat, fatigue, and some fever. These symptoms would sometimes disappear for days, causing me to believe I had recovered, only to show up again just as bad. Six months later I'm still feeling some of these symptoms. The level of pain has become much more tolerable, and it has been many months since I've felt the worst of the symptoms, so I seem to be very slowly improving.

Like I said, I can't say for sure whether I even had meningitis, but whatever I've been going through has definitely been a very slow process. I hope things have improved for you.

-M

I had viral meningitis at the beginning of November, and am exhausted constantly. I feel SO tired and never quite know how I'm going to ever make it through the end of the work day...somehow I always do.

Since I got back home, I have been sick (headcold-ish feeling) four or five times, and even when I'm not sick I still have a runny nose and feel like I'm catching a cold or something.

I came down with it on January 9, and it was my second time. I had it 12 years ago too. I remember last time, it took me at least 6 months to feel like myself again. I know I'm 12 years older now, but find that I am so tired all the time that I don't know if I'm going to be able to continue working full time. It's only been 4 weeks, and the doc had me on part time work for the last two weeks. Next week I go back to full time and don't know how I'm going to be able to do it. Wish there was something they could give me to get me through the day!

I caught a virus with a sore throat and body aches around Halloween 2007 (kid germ galore). After a few days I developed an awful burning, crushing pain in my neck and upper back. OTC drugs didn't touch the pain.

I found out that I most likely had viral meningitis when the pain drove me to the doctor's office and she asked me to tilt my chin down. That's when I found out my neck had completely stiffened. First I was supposed to be better in a week. Then it was 2 weeks. Then it was possibly 6 months. I was in severe pain, had hardly any range of motion and had to continue working full-time.

17 months later, I still have fatigue and terrible neck/shoulder/upper back pain and have been diagnosed with spasmodic torticollis (also called cervical dystonia). It's a painful, incurable disease where the nerves alongside my spine misfire all day long for no reason. I saw a muscle disease specialist and he hypothesized that the viral meningitis had triggered some autoimmune response that attacks my neck.

I get very irritated when viral meningitis is referred to as benign. It would ruin my life if I let it. I went through painful physical therapy and tore my levator scapulus and trapezius muscles so that I could tilt my head down again. Now my symptoms are treated with Botox every 3 months, narcotics, muscle relaxers and a new anti-Parkinsons drug called Artane.

I would give almost anything to have my old life back. Having a good attitude each day is a battle. I pray for God's will to be done...he can heal me at any time if he desires. If not, maybe I'm supposed to help others.

Hi sara
I had viral meningitis a year ago and still suffer with fatigue, headaches (sometimes unbearable), concentration problems, insomnia and short term memory loss and im sorry to say that it can last anything from 6 mths to rest of your life im only 23 myself and can totally understand how you are feeling x

Hi,
I have had viral meningitis now 11 times since 2001... i just gave birth and spent 30 days in the hospital.. i am on so much medication i have chills, can't sleep, ache all over... and i fear every day i am gonna get it again... i almost died this time...i suffer every day just to get through the day ... but we can.. cuz we could have it worse than what we have... we are still alive right .. THANK GOD !!!

i just want to write to all people here to let people know that never take a doctor's advice if you are still unsure about your illness. Always go for a second or even third opinion because you can never be too safe. I'm 16 years old and i know most of you here are going to be like "she's only a child what does she know" but I had memingitis when i was 9 years old and was spending a week down with my family in kildare in ireland and started to feel very weak and tired and was getting very bad headaches. So my aunt told me to go to bed and within 2 hours later i was vomiting and couldn stand the light. my legs and arms began to cover with the red rash so my aunt go worried and rang a doctor as it was late at night. The doctor diagnosed me over the phone without even seeing me and said that i just had a "bug" my aunt was still worried and phoned another doctor, he also said the same thing that there was just a bug going around that he had it himself. My mam at the time was in my house in bray in wicklow and just wanted me to come home because she was very worried so they carried me into the car and drove me home and i had to bring a big bowl because i got sick the whole 2 hour drive home! when i got home my mam put me to bed after giving me calpol and 7up and done the "glass test" on my legs. the rash appeared still so she phoned a doctor straight away and when he arrived he started to scream at my mam to et me a ambulance. As i was in the ambulance i asked my ma was i going to die. i was in intensive care for 72 hours and my kidneys and lungs started to fail. But i began to pull through and was in crumlin childrens hospital for 10 days. I slowly started to get better and was finally let home. The doctor's in the hospital told my mam that if she hadn of rang the doctor that night and got me into a ambulance that if she had of put me to bed beside her that night that i would have been dead beside her the next morning I was put on the front page of the bray people newspaper because of my story and i'm lucky to be alive. Thanks to my mam for having her mother instincts i am here and alive to tell my story today. so i just want to tell other people to go with their instincts too because you never know what could happen. Thanks for reading x leona