Hello, I am a 29 year old Caucasian male. My height is 5 feet 10 inches. My weight is 205lbs. My pulse rate ranges from 60-70bpm after 3 counts using the carotid artery. My current body temperature is at my normal 97.8F. Due to a lack of further knowledge or equipment I am unable to provide additional vital signs. I am not currently prescribed medication. I am not an active recreational drug user. I have a low alcohol consumption rate of no more than 3 alcoholic beverages/week that average 4% abv/container. I smoke at a rate of roughly 20 cigarettes/day. I have no known previous or current long term illness. I have no known food allergies. According to the results of a skin prick test in 2001 other allergens include ragweed and cat dander. I work outdoors mainly with soil, other sediments and vegetation frequently in damp warm and humid conditions. I live in Northwest Ohio, a region which has experienced a high amount of precipitation this season. I very recently had a seemingly random and fast acting illness with a body temperature around 101.0F which ran a course taking around 31 hours. The symptoms of this illness included a mild fever, vertigo (a feeling of falling sideways and down or dizziness), a minor lightheaded feeling (a slight feeling of fainting), fatigue of the body (an unusually high level of quick muscular exhaustion while performing physical labor) and intense chills. The first noticeable symptom occurred on Sunday July 12, 2015 at around 11pm when I began to experience intense chills and shivering throughout the night strong enough to cause frequently disrupted sleep (breaking from, I assume, REM once/hour). I awoke for work Monday morning at 6:30am with a lightheaded feeling (I can best describe the feeling as being unable to become fully awakened or conscious as in a dream state for the remainder of the day which was absolutely nothing like ordinary somnolence experienced for what is usually a very short time after waking) and vertigo. I went ahead to work feeling the symptoms very strongly for an eight hour work shift. Upon arriving home at 3:30pm I took my temperature which at some point had reached 101.4F. I then took acetaminophen 500mg x2 and ibuprofen 200mg x2 and drank a 1/4 gallon of orange juice for Vitamin C. At 6:30pm my temperate had receded to 100.2F. At 1:30am the temperature had ascended to 101.6F. At this time I repeated the same dosage of acetaminophen (1000mg) and ibuprofen (400mg). Upon awaking at 6:30am Tuesday morning my body temperature had receded to the normal 97.8F with no noticeable symptoms from this morning to current (12:54am Wednesday morning). A possibly unrelated factor is roughly 2 weeks ago the same symptoms occurred with an additional symptom which was a non productive chronic cough and build up of phlegm that eventually loosened and appeared white in color upon discharge which felt similar to bronchitis and lasted an estimated 4 days longer. Since yesterday morning (Tuesday July 14 2015) my Fiance has the same symptoms along with two of my coworkers presenting the onset (intense chills and fatigue) midway through the work day. I am extremely curious as to what may be causing this. Thank you very much for your valuable expertise as well as time. I truly appreciate the efforts of people like yourselves who possess a selfless and sincere will to assist others and am anxiously looking forward to any information which may lead to the identification of this strange, seemingly contagious and rapidly acting illness.
posted on
Sat, 18 Jul 2015

Fri, 10 Jul 2020
Answered on

Thu, 16 Jul 2020
Last reviewed on