What else?

I have been having a lot of health problems as an adult. Sometimes those health problems have led to weight gain and sometimes they're a result of weight gain. As you may or may not know, I have difficulty dealing with stress without turning to food (especially sugary, chocolaty, delicious comfort food). And I also have a problem (more recent in nature) with depression (I have never been on anti-depressants). And I started having really irregular periods (skipping one every so often) starting the same year I started my internship for my master's program. I always informed my doctors, who always attributed it to stress and/or brushed it off as no big deal, even though it was very abnormal for me.

So I figured that if I could figure out how to get my stress levels down or just wait until things that were stressful (like my internship, moving, getting married, house-hunting, etc) calmed down a bit, things would resolve themselves. But so far they haven't. My new doctor (it's great to have health insurance and a doctor who doesn't appear to be more or less a quack like my last one) ran a lot of blood work. Most of it came out fine, but what didn't come out fine (plus my telling him I want to have kids one day in the hopefully near future), led him to refer me to an OBGYN. I have an appointment today, to rule out PCOS.

I just did some research on that and really hope that's not what I have. But as it talks about the possible symptoms (some of which I know I do have and others I know I don't), I'm really starting to wonder. If it is, I hope that it doesn't lead to infertility, as I do want to have kids one of these days. I don't know if I could emotionally or physically go through some of the helps for PCOS/infertility/irregular periods due to my health history, so that has also been weighing on my mind.

I still have the cough, so GERD has been ruled out as a culprit for that (taking the Prilosec did not help my cough at all). So I have also been referred to a ENT and an allergist for follow up there.

As part of the GERD recommendations, I was told not to sleep on my right side. I had been trying to avoid that as much as possible. And now I'm finding myself wishing I could feel more comfortable sleeping on my right side (or my back or stomach) than I do on my left side. I have been experiencing fairly frequent pain in my left shoulder. Unlike my knee injury or broken foot, I didn't feel or hear a pop. I didn't notice during any particular event when it started hurting. It just did. In fact, I was laying in the floor in my family room reading a book when I first felt it. The pain wasn't too terrible but instead felt like I needed to pop it (kind of like how it feels when you think you need to pop your knuckles or something). Massaging and the like have not really been helpful with getting it to go away completely. It's not a 24-7 thing, but it has been more noticeable on some days, almost the entire day starting with pain while sleeping (probably from sleeping on it). Shoulder injuries run in my family to an extent, and I'm hoping this is just something small that can be fixed fairly easily.

So, what I have been doing is working out and working on losing weight to see if that helps with any of the aforementioned issues. Now with the shoulder hurting, working out is tough to talk myself into doing for fear of hurting myself worse. I saw my PCP last week, have an appointment today with another doctor, have an appointment next week with a third doctor, and have 2 more appointments to schedule now (one with an allergist and one with my PCP about my shoulder). This is very disheartening and frustrating!

Anyway, if you have any knowledge to share, any words of comfort, or are willing to keep me in your thoughts & prayers, I would very greatly appreciate it. This has been a very tough time in my life and sometimes I wonder how I can get past these obstacles.