My medical team seems to be stumped on this one, so figured I would check with other patients to see if anyone is experiencing this!
I had surgery - my second liver resection - in mid-October. My recovery really kicked me in the behind, and I had a particularly rough go of it because my red blood count was low and seemed to hover there forever.
Now it's finally starting to rebound - hemoglobin is up to 10.5 - a few points higher than it has been, but still not in the "normal" range. My iron is a little low. So is my magnesium. Potassium low end of normal.
BUT my muscles and joints have been sore for about two weeks now. It's really pretty bad - I wake up each morning feeling like I ran a marathon the prior day. I can't write more than a few words with a ballpoint pen until my hand starts to bother me. It really hurts each time I need to get out of a chair or a car. I'm feeling it in my hands, knees, shoulders, elbows primarily. I feel less fatigued overall, but I'm still short of breath when I exert myself even a little - e.g. walk to the bathroom from my office - and I come home from work ready to crash into my bed. For a while I was thinking it was that my muscles atrophied during my recovery, and now they are sore because they are being used again - but if that's the case, would it last for two whole weeks?
They gave me a magnesium infusion yesterday; if that was the issue, the infusion hasn't helped turn anything around yet. Based on Dr Google, I was hoping it might have been an iron deficiency thing, but the medical team doesn't seem to think so, and now that I can see I'm just a little low, I'm not convinced either. (I might do an iron infusion anyway, figuring it can't hurt.)
Any other ideas what could be causing this?? It's been over three months since I had chemo, so I don't think that's at play.