Hello, as I have stated before, I was given a small dose of corticosteroids in the hospital to see if it would have any effect on the symptoms I was experiencing. I failed to mention it in the post, but I have also been having a light-grade fever daily along with the aches. With my primary physician I do not get along well-- and it is very difficult to find another in my living area-- so after a lot of obsessing, anxiety and paranoia, and a lot of dismissal from my family doctor, I decided it was time to go to the ER and I couldn't wait any longer. Here I had to wait for a couple of hours, but when I got in line, I described the aches I was having-- and I also mentioned the fever--and a physical and neurological exam was performed and the expert hypothesized a form of rheumatic disorder. Later blood was drawn, the results were negative however, and I was given a letter to go back to my primary physician. After a bit of questioning, I wasn't told which exact tests were performed, nor what additional tests still need to be looked at.

The short time I was under the effect of this medicine (20mg prednisolone) I started to feel healthy again. It also became very apparent to me that not only did I have aches and fever, but I also had:

- difficulty breathing
- severe agitation
- severely impaired cognition
- suppressed emotional processing
- severe weakness, fatigue and extremely poor sleep
- impaired vision

to name a few.

This makes me wonder if the condition is directly affecting my brain. I find it to be very logical. Over the years I have been doing so poorly that I sought psychiatric treatment, none of which I had success with (note: and when I just had a single dose of prednisolone, my mental health improved within hours and I could do both mental and physical work again-- nothing could ever compare to the efficacy this had) and I was often given the blame that I just didn't try hard enough to get better. Ultimately, I completely dissociated from many sensations and experiences to the point I just ignored my well-being and looked to spend the day however mindlessly I could. The state I am in I can no longer imagine being in after such a long time. This also makes me question, how much of my dysfunction was psychiatric in nature in the first place and if this has been going on for years, could it have caused permanent irreversible damage? What I am most concerned about is my distorted perception of time, space and derealization and depersonalization.

On the other hand, what makes getting help immensely difficult is that I have forcefully been given the diagnosis of (prodromal) schizophrenia by the psychiatry I have been at, despite performing on many cognitive tests better than average and having no delusions nor hallucinations. I can somewhat understand the conclusion but it simply does not add up and I have been fighting since for that to be taken of my record. Nevertheless, the exact reasons are irrelevant, but I believe this is now constantly making me face some kind of stigma or prejudice when people become aware of this medical background as I am preconceived now as a person who doesn't have the ability to comprehend normally.