I've just had a week in bed with flu and last night, after a weekend of breathing trouble and productive cough - my husband took me to see my GP as an emergency patient yesterday late afternoon. She decided that I have a chest infection and put me on antibiotics as I have underlying health issues and am over 50 so she thinks I'm unable to fight this off as other younger, healthier people might. She said the pain in my neck and jaw appear to be TMJ (knew this already) and a pulled muscle in my neck from so much coughing so I'm on high dose of codeine now too.

I have fainted a couple of times over the past week and on Friday I phoned from the floor where I was lying and they sent up a GP straight away because I was completely polaxed. He checked my BP and pulse (very fast) and chest and said that he thought it must all be the virus and the fact that I'm not eating anything much. But I am trying and get a yoghourt or two and manuka honey and the odd banana down. My jaw has been a problem for a while with TMJ so this isn't helping but I'm drinking masses so I don't think I'm malnourished as he suggested.

The woman GP last night asked me how all the burning peripheries were and I said (have lost my voice completely so I whispered) that the pain has all but gone but that my soles and calves feel numb. She looked nonplussed and said I should feel free to contact the surgery today or tomorrow if I need to.

So what I'm really worrying about is this - I'm so spaced out now and when I go to sleep I feel I'm falling into a deep hole and my heart seems to stop. I wake up completely trembling with this awful sense of doom. Somehow or other this seems to relate to my bladder and to my numb legs. Can anyone make any sense of this for me or am I just going mad as my husband seems to think? My mouth and tongue are tingling today and my lips and cheek feel numb and I keep feeling I'm going to stop breathing but I don't think it's phlegm as most of this seems to have cleared now.

My husband has the same flu as I had last week and is too ill to be able to cope with me just now - says I'm just having panic attacks and need to rest. He may be ill but he's eating fine and his world isn't spinning and he hasn't lost sensation in his legs or face as I have.

Could the flu have brought on something more challenging perhaps? Is this what is meant by autonomic disfunction with me and if so what do I do about it? I have no voice now so can't even explain it to my GP or my husband and they are just going to blame anxiety. I see my rheumatologist on Thursday for the first time in 9 months and have a skin biopsy tomorrow so I have got a bit to be anxious about. Also the pain in my neck muscle means it's impossible to get comfortable now so this could be contributing. How do I know what is a medical emergency and what is just post flu misery? I just feel completely out of whack.