Au101
22-03-17, 20:10
Hello everyone :) I think it might be time for me to reach out to this community again.
Back in January I got referred to hospital and ended up having a CT scan. The CT was normal and the follow-up appointments in February went well:
http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=192928
However, despite that, the whole experience has really shaken me in quite a big way. In between getting the CT scan back and the follow-up appointments I was doing well. I had quite a defiant attitude to it all I think ('oh there's nothing wrong with me, fancy those doctors putting me through a CT scan and causing me all this stress for no reason'). But since the last follow-up where the ophthalmologist was all, well, yeah, you seem fine, but your optic nerve is a bit unusual and if you experience this and that then you'll need to come back, I've been struggling to draw a line under the whole thing.
I haven't been able to put my lingering anxiety to bed, and I've got really panicky and worked up a few times. Now I think real physical anxiety symptoms are coming through, but I'm worried they might be symptoms of something else of course.
In a minute I'll talk about some of the little things that have been keeping my anxiety ticking over, but I need to get the main point out. The big one for me now is brain zaps. They're mentioned all over this forum and that's been a big comfort to me, to know that they come with anxiety because obviously my first thought is scary brain condition. But tonight I experienced quite a big one. It lasted as long as all the others: instantaneous, but it felt quite strong and I'm sure I felt myself sway. The experience for me is like a kind of pulse of my brain. Like a heart palpitation but of the brain. Exactly the feeling you get when you have a fright, like there's a loud bang, and your stomach turns over and your heart misses a beat and sometimes my brain kind of zaps too. They started at night when I was trying to go to sleep but I've been getting them during the day as well recently. I think today's might have come from the fact that I've been dwelling on a few things and worrying about a few things. Then I heard that one of my mum's colleagues has breast cancer, and obviously I feel very sorry for her, but I think possibly the thought of disease has wormed its way into my psyche as well. We've also had that terrible attack in London today haven't we (may they rest in peace :( ) which I think has kind of got my adrenaline flowing a bit and my heart beating a bit you know.
As for the things I've been dwelling on, you can stop reading here if you're put off by the wall of text, but they include
Occasional visual disturbances such as blue lights and black spots. All very short lived. I also think I'm focussing on these a lot more. Now every time I see anything out of the corner of my eye my heart skips a bit and I wonder what it was. Today I was standing at the sink shaving and I thought I could see a horizontal line in my vision. Pretty sure it was actually the outline of my cheek, given the direction I was looking, and maybe a trick of the light reflecting off the water. Gone in the blink of an eye at any rate.
Feeling slightly unsure on my feet, just when I'm walking, feeling a bit like one leg wasn't quite as stable and sure as the other maybe. I very much felt I could relate to this recent post: http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=196281
Got concerned I was smelling things that weren't there for a while, but that seems to have subsided
Got concerned I was hearing things that weren't there for a while, like I thought the radio might be on when I went downstairs to check on my dinner while the extractor fan was running, but Mum said she gets that too and apparently we're not alone: http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=147732
Had terrible fatigue a couple of weeks ago, felt absolutely shot. Slept for about 12 hours and then had no energy the next day
Minor headaches, most of the time more a feeling of tension in my temples or in the muscles around my skull, rather than in my brain, but occasionally in my brain too. My sleep is all over the place so I reckon, if anything, it's that and anxiety.
But I've been coping okay with these, they all seem to be anxiety-related and/or things that are mostly in my head. I mean, I walk out the door and start thinking about every foot step, wondering if it feels right, wondering if I'm about to die and then, what do you know, I feel like I'm walking funny. But when I went out for a walk with my friend a couple of weeks ago it was weird at first, but then we got chatting and I forgot all about it and hey, no funny feeling while walking any more.
But the one that I was worrying about today which has really got under my skin is very silly. I keep fancying some colours, especially whites or the yellow of thin paper, have a slightly pinkish tinge. I'm convinced it's all in my head. My colour vision is totally normal, I can do ishihara tests fine (those colour-blind tests with the numbers made out of coloured dots) and when I look around everything looks like it always has. What's more I have quite a bad, cheap yellow light bulb and I stare at a screen a lot. I think what I'm seeing is colours as I've always seen them, but I guess I've got this idea into my head that if a white doesn't look pure white, like snow in the midday sun, there's something wrong with me. But I don't know, I was stroking my cat the other day and the light was dim and I was at a strange angle, lying on the floor while he stood over me, but I fancied his white fur looked quite pink. Probably because the flesh underneath is quite pink, but since then I've been staring at whites for 5 or 10 seconds maybe wondering if they look right, thinking they might be slightly reddish. Silly stuff I guess.
Thanks
Back in January I got referred to hospital and ended up having a CT scan. The CT was normal and the follow-up appointments in February went well:
http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=192928
However, despite that, the whole experience has really shaken me in quite a big way. In between getting the CT scan back and the follow-up appointments I was doing well. I had quite a defiant attitude to it all I think ('oh there's nothing wrong with me, fancy those doctors putting me through a CT scan and causing me all this stress for no reason'). But since the last follow-up where the ophthalmologist was all, well, yeah, you seem fine, but your optic nerve is a bit unusual and if you experience this and that then you'll need to come back, I've been struggling to draw a line under the whole thing.
I haven't been able to put my lingering anxiety to bed, and I've got really panicky and worked up a few times. Now I think real physical anxiety symptoms are coming through, but I'm worried they might be symptoms of something else of course.
In a minute I'll talk about some of the little things that have been keeping my anxiety ticking over, but I need to get the main point out. The big one for me now is brain zaps. They're mentioned all over this forum and that's been a big comfort to me, to know that they come with anxiety because obviously my first thought is scary brain condition. But tonight I experienced quite a big one. It lasted as long as all the others: instantaneous, but it felt quite strong and I'm sure I felt myself sway. The experience for me is like a kind of pulse of my brain. Like a heart palpitation but of the brain. Exactly the feeling you get when you have a fright, like there's a loud bang, and your stomach turns over and your heart misses a beat and sometimes my brain kind of zaps too. They started at night when I was trying to go to sleep but I've been getting them during the day as well recently. I think today's might have come from the fact that I've been dwelling on a few things and worrying about a few things. Then I heard that one of my mum's colleagues has breast cancer, and obviously I feel very sorry for her, but I think possibly the thought of disease has wormed its way into my psyche as well. We've also had that terrible attack in London today haven't we (may they rest in peace :( ) which I think has kind of got my adrenaline flowing a bit and my heart beating a bit you know.
As for the things I've been dwelling on, you can stop reading here if you're put off by the wall of text, but they include
Occasional visual disturbances such as blue lights and black spots. All very short lived. I also think I'm focussing on these a lot more. Now every time I see anything out of the corner of my eye my heart skips a bit and I wonder what it was. Today I was standing at the sink shaving and I thought I could see a horizontal line in my vision. Pretty sure it was actually the outline of my cheek, given the direction I was looking, and maybe a trick of the light reflecting off the water. Gone in the blink of an eye at any rate.
Feeling slightly unsure on my feet, just when I'm walking, feeling a bit like one leg wasn't quite as stable and sure as the other maybe. I very much felt I could relate to this recent post: http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=196281
Got concerned I was smelling things that weren't there for a while, but that seems to have subsided
Got concerned I was hearing things that weren't there for a while, like I thought the radio might be on when I went downstairs to check on my dinner while the extractor fan was running, but Mum said she gets that too and apparently we're not alone: http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=147732
Had terrible fatigue a couple of weeks ago, felt absolutely shot. Slept for about 12 hours and then had no energy the next day
Minor headaches, most of the time more a feeling of tension in my temples or in the muscles around my skull, rather than in my brain, but occasionally in my brain too. My sleep is all over the place so I reckon, if anything, it's that and anxiety.
But I've been coping okay with these, they all seem to be anxiety-related and/or things that are mostly in my head. I mean, I walk out the door and start thinking about every foot step, wondering if it feels right, wondering if I'm about to die and then, what do you know, I feel like I'm walking funny. But when I went out for a walk with my friend a couple of weeks ago it was weird at first, but then we got chatting and I forgot all about it and hey, no funny feeling while walking any more.
But the one that I was worrying about today which has really got under my skin is very silly. I keep fancying some colours, especially whites or the yellow of thin paper, have a slightly pinkish tinge. I'm convinced it's all in my head. My colour vision is totally normal, I can do ishihara tests fine (those colour-blind tests with the numbers made out of coloured dots) and when I look around everything looks like it always has. What's more I have quite a bad, cheap yellow light bulb and I stare at a screen a lot. I think what I'm seeing is colours as I've always seen them, but I guess I've got this idea into my head that if a white doesn't look pure white, like snow in the midday sun, there's something wrong with me. But I don't know, I was stroking my cat the other day and the light was dim and I was at a strange angle, lying on the floor while he stood over me, but I fancied his white fur looked quite pink. Probably because the flesh underneath is quite pink, but since then I've been staring at whites for 5 or 10 seconds maybe wondering if they look right, thinking they might be slightly reddish. Silly stuff I guess.
Thanks