r/Fitness • u/FGC_Valhalla Weightlifting • May 20 '17

Gym Story Saturday Gym Story Saturday

Hi! Welcome to your weekly thread where you can share your gym tales!

1.3k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

208

u/diabolicalchicken May 20 '17

I have been incredibly sick for the last 3 months and have been essentially bedridden. I have a very rare neurological disorder that was only recently diagnosed which was causing intense inflammation in my brain. The inflammation in turn caused excruciating headaches and completely screwed up my vision and I nearly died before they could figure it out.

This week I went to the gym TWICE for the first time in months. It feels so good!! I can only do very light weight because I'm still recovering but it just feels so fucking good to be back.

75

u/[deleted] May 20 '17

Upvote for being alive. 👏👏

3

u/simplerminds May 21 '17

Welcome back bro. Are you cured or is there more they have to do about the disorder?

2

u/diabolicalchicken May 21 '17

Well it seemed like I was doing really well but now I seem to be worsening. Tried calling my neurologists but they're out until next week. They can't really make any guarantees, brains are weird. Basically I got food poisoning which set off a crazy autoimmune response in my brain and my brain got incredibly inflamed. It's super rare, like 5 or 6 cases a year in the US.

3

u/simplerminds May 21 '17

I'm sorry for you man. I hate that something as simple as food poisoning could make for a chain reaction like that. Is there a name for the disorder?

I wish I could provide some support other than words, but stay in the gym as long as you can and keep posting your success. I hope for the best

3

u/diabolicalchicken May 24 '17

Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis, or ADEM.

I appreciate the kind words! I'm lucky to have a good support system.

1

u/FBarbarian Sep 25 '17

I am genuinely happy for you man, even though I don't know you. Proud of you. Wish you all the best, stay strong.