Hello:

Happy to find this forum. My background is in computer science and excelled as a computer scientist and software engineer. In 1988 when I was 28, I made four extended trips to the Philippines to court my bride to be. The trips occurred until 1991.

In 1991 I began to notice a decline in my capacity for mental work. This progressed until 1996 when I was forced to work part-time. I then took a year off and on returning was able to work full-time for about six months. Then, it was part-time again until 2001 when I was laid off and was never able to do mental work full time again. At this time I work two days a week as a caregiver for the disabled.

From the time I noticed the decline I saw a number of doctors. This was complicated by changing jobs and insurance and repeatedly having to start over with testing. A nerve conduction test did reveal severe peripheral polyneuropathy (I kept spraining ankles).

A short list of candidates that affect both CNS and PNS was developed. My Irish ancestry suggested celiac disease and it took several years to do all the testing and finally rule it out.

Other symptoms include acute episodes of full-body soreness, and fibromyalgia was suggested but not diagnosed. Mercuryfrom many amalgam fillings since childhood is a candidate and had all them removed.

No doctor I have visited is an expert in tropical diseases and I wonder if I could have picked up an obscure and persistent bacteria or virus or parasite?

There were several experiences that may have exposed me to such. Mosquitos. Dirty water. Amazingly (it is quite a story) I dropped a toothbrush in pissy water on floor of a public bathroom on large ship...then forgot about it and used toothbrush! Another time a man held a bottle of water for me and when I got it back and drank from it, could taste/smell tobacco smoke (he had drank out of it). I did get quite ill for a week or two with a pneumonia-like condition. When I returned feom the Philippines there were odd little volcano-shaped skin eruptions that would come every few weeks and then disappear...a doctor said they were "viral" but had no other diagnosis. These lasted for a year or so, and occurred across my chest and shoulders (maybe a dozen in total).

The perimeter was about 3-4mm in diameter and slightly raised. Inside the circular area, it looked waxy and like there was a little fluid under skin, but could not squeeze it like a pimple.

Anyway, wondering if there are other candidates for a short list of U.S. diseases to continue testing? And wondering if there might be a tropical disease perhaps unique to Philippines worth considering? Have looked at symptoms of toxoplasmosis and chikungunya for example, at Lyme disease, environmental toxins... Taking another look.

Thanks for your considerations, and look forward to interacting with everyone in this forum.

Cheers,

Richard