Hello! Over the past several weeks, I have been something of an anxiety ridden wreck. Actually, anxiety and high levels of stress have been with me for a long time, though recent circumstances have changed how I react to it. The stressors were more or less related to being an entrepreneur, college student, navigating a quarter-life crisis, as we millennials seem to do, etc. But in any case, I recently had a string of symptoms that I’m more worried about than before.

Several weeks ago, February 4th, I experienced a sudden tingling on my lips and in my gums. The tingling lasted, perhaps not more than a minute, and then was completely gone. Approximately two weeks later, I was struck with a short lived but moderately intense cold, the symptoms to be described as: itchy + scratchy sore throat, congestion and sneezing, a mild fever, night sweats, and extreme fatigue. The fatigue lasted for the entire duration of about 3 days. The itchy + scratchy sore throat, lasted only approximately 24 hours, as did the congestion and sneezing and mild fever, which occurred on the second day of this three days episode.

Around the fourth and fifth day, the symptoms of the cold more or less abated, but another symptom appeared: A tingling in my feet and lower legs, and some muscle soreness and weakness. For the next three days, leading up to today, I’ve experience more or less this tingling, along with a mild sense of dizziness and some difficulty walking.

I’ve looked up the symptoms online, and for better or for worse, would like to ask some questions about Guilliard Barre syndrome. When march first comes around, I will have access to health insurance, thank god, but I would like to see if I can rule out Guilliard Barre syndrome before that point, hence, why I’m asking about it on here.

Are there discrepancies between what I’ve said here and how Guilliard Barre syndrome progresses? For example, the speed of the progression symptoms with respect to my legs and feet. It’s been four days, and I can still stand and walk. The websites I consulted said that the syndrome progressed rapidly over the time span of two weeks, but how rapidly is that? And does my time scale fit what should be expected? Likewise, the symptoms of my cold matched up fairly well the symptoms for mononucleosis, but the entire episode was very brief.

Furthermore, in Guilliard Barre syndrome, is the tingling more or less constant? Or does the tingling come and go when you rest and/or use your legs respectively? In my case, the tingling hasn’t been constant, and while sometimes I may think that the tingling is slowly moving up my legs and spreading higher up my body, it’s difficult to distinguish that from the possibility that my anxiety is simply imagining things, so to speak.

Finally, though my hands are located “physically” higher up on my body, Guilliard Barre syndrom starts to attack the extremities of the body first, yes? This would imply that my hands should also be experiencing some tingling as well. They did experience some tingling a few days after the lips and gums were tingling, but only in isolated episodes, and only after using them for a period of time.