Thank you so much for all the support, Everyone!
The carbon monoxide exposure happened over the course of a year--maybe even longer than that. It wasn't acute (near-death) exposure, but it did do a bit of damage--fortunately it was temporary. It's kind of a long story, but I'll share it as it may help someone else (or prevent this kind of stuff from happening).
I noticed last spring ('05) that my joints were starting to hurt in a really weird way. It was mostly my elbows and knees. They ground a lot. I used to run so I know what soreness from over exercise and/or injury is like. This wasn't like that--it was weird. I was also feeling really fatigued. So was my husband. I started to put on weight.
We have lots of deer ticks in the area and 2 of our 3 dogs are Lyme exposed so we both decided that we should get our physicals (way overdue) and tested for Lyme. My doctor was really concerned. He said the joint aches were NOT normal for a woman my age (early 30s)--especially since early artheritis does not run in my family. He ran the Lyme titers for both of us and a few other tests for me. They all came out normal.
My husband thought maybe the fatigue was just work-stress related, but my joint aches got worse and worse. Within a month they progressed from annoying to painful and my jaw, ankles, wrists, and digits got artheritis, too. On top of that I started having extreme moodswings--like PMS x 80.
The artheritis hurt the most while I was driving--which really sucked because I was on the road 2+ hours a day to commute to work. I started hallucinating shadowy figures that weren't really there. My doctor was concerned I might have a brain tumor. He scheduled an MRI, and took more blood. It came out normal.
The hallucinations progressed to once seeing the parked car shake violently when I got out of it, and one day the ground shaking like there was an earthquake. I started noticing memory lapses. That was really scary. There is no feeling like leaving the house and not knowing where you went or what you did. Around then I gained 8 pounds in a week! I kept hoping it was water retention. It wasn't.
I had an EEG, a sonagram, a mammogram and 6 more bloodtests (cancer, thyroid functions, epilepsy, etc...). Sometimes little things would be off in the blood, but then I'd get retested and it'd be normal again. I started to think I was losing my mind...that maybe I was imagining it all, but even when I tried to ignore it, it worsened.
While I was driving the pain was becoming so excruciating I had to take breaks mid-way to work. I couldn't get out of bed one day because my right side wouldn't work. I was also starting to feel like I was going to pass out at the wheel. I ended up taking a health leave from work for a month. I spent 2 weeks in bed (and slept most of that time). I started to feel a little better. I thought maybe the stress of driving had been aggravating things.
Then something sad happened. One of my small pets (a sugar glider named Zelda) died suddenly in March. It was very mysterious as there were no symptoms, and the same thing happened almost exactly a year before to another pet (Murry). I talked to the vet. He said he couldn't find any sign of disease.
He asked if we had a gas-powered house. We did. He asked if both myself and my husband were having fatigue issues. We were. He said it was VERY important that we look for a CO leak. He had 3 other clients who lost pets that way, and it could kill us, too.
Well, it turns out that after seeing 5 different (human) doctors, it took a vetrinarian to diagnose me.
Our ancient gas-dryer was causing a carbon monoxide leak! It was a small leak, but in the months the house was seal (hotter spring/summer days and all of winter) it built up enough to really make us sick. We got a new electric dryer (and 3 CO detectors) right away. Within a week, we all started feeling better.
It doesn't end there. Around that time, the clutch and brakes were going out in my old car so I bought a new car (YAY--Beetle!). I didn't drive my old car for over a week. When finally I got into the old car to sell it to Car Max, the damn thing filled with exhaust to the point I had to roll down the windows. It turns out my symptoms had been worse than my husband's because I was driving "The Poison-Mobile" and breathing exhaust 2 hours a day. I couldn't smell it before, because the CO leak in the house temporarily killed my sense of smell.
One new car, one new dryer, and two weeks later--all of the head stuff cleared up and my mobility started to return. Both my husband and I started getting our energy levels back. I went to my doctor and told him what happened. Wide-eyed he actually *apologized*. Apparently, long-term CO exposure is really hard to detect via blood tests unless you are exposed to near-death levels.
He said I'd make a full recovery now that I'm breathing fresh air. It took a little while to get rid of all the artheritis (thank goodness for Pilates/Yoga classes), but now the pain is gone. I started dieting in May and it took 2 months for my metabolism to return to normal enough to even lose a pound.
Now, I feel great--totally back to myself again. I have no moodswings or fatigue, the pain is totally gone, and I'm finally losing weight!
Two things we do differently now:
1) we own multiple CO detectors (never depend on just one--it could be defective--and the CO can drift to different parts of the house). We don't have a garage, but my doctor said it's really important to keep a detector by whatever room is closest/on top of the garage. Apparently, sometimes new cars are known start the ignition after turned off.
2) we open windows a few times during the winter to make sure we get fresh air circulating in the house.
