nmp1991ah
08-08-17, 15:30
Hi everyone, I'm new here. I have been lurking around for the past couple of weeks but decided today to post. Just as reference, I am 26 years old.
I have been having the worst time of my life for the past 3-4 weeks. I feel like a different person than I was in early July and it has been causing me some pretty bad depression.
It probably started closer to last month, a friend of mine is becoming a navigator in the Navy and we had been talking about the eye requirements, as I was interested. I have always been able to see very far away. I had concerns about the fact that I've had floaters for as long as I could remember and started to ask around to see if it was a disqualifier.
Around the same time I bought a new computer setup to play games on. At first I used a TV, which was causing me some discomfort in my eyes as I felt it was too close and big to be practical and was causing eye-strain. I bought a 27" monitor instead and it worked well. However, after about 2 weeks of having the computer I noticed my eyes were feeling more and more strained, it almost seemed like looking at a monitor for a few moments was uncomfortable for me. Since then I have not played computer games at all. I work on a computer for 9 hours a day for my job and that too causes me some eye strain. Looking at certain patterns or movements on the screen makes it feel like my eyes are wanting to cross... if that makes sense.
Around July 17th I was certain that I had twice as many floaters (big, stringy, dark) and also noticed that lights at night had a "halo" around them. I couldn't remember lights looking this "foggy" at night, so I started to believe something was terribly wrong with my eyes. The straining feeling, the perceived increase in floaters, and the foggy lights at night all piled up on me and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was going to lose my vision and would need surgery of some kind to correct this.
The next day, July 18, I noticed that the straining feeling kind of progressed into a pressure-feeling behind my right eye. I also had a slight full feeling in my right ear. It almost felt like sinus pressure. I was slightly relieved that morning as I thought maybe all this was due to sinuses. However, later that evening I started to feel "sick". I completely lost my appetite and could not finish my dinner.
The next morning, July 19, I was still completely uninterested in food and had to force myself to eat breakfast. So I scheduled an appointment at my work's health clinic to see about this "eye/ear pressure" and lack of appetite. The nurse took me in and sat me down and proceeded to check my heart rate and blood pressure. Heart rate was over 100, blood pressure was 166/110! The nurse looked in shock and said "that can't be your real blood pressure" and took it again.. 169/110. I thought she was going to send me to the hospital.. She told me someone my age shouldn't have blood pressure anywhere near that and told me to check my blood pressure often and if it stays like that go to a doctor as soon as I can.. When the doctor saw me she said she thought I had fluid behind the ear and gave me some claritin and tylenol..
For the rest of that day (July 19) I was freaking out. I felt my heart racing all day at my desk and my neck felt stiff. My heart was slamming in my chest and I was convinced I had some kind of heart problem. After some (dumb) googling I was convinced I was having heart failure, as I was coughing a lot for no problem and sometimes felt like I needed to take deeper breaths, along with the high heartrate and palpitations.. Still had zero appetite.
The next day, July 20, I tried to go to work. I stayed for about an hour, still no appetite. My heart was beating hard, fast, and I felt like I didn't know what to do with myself. I was feeling so nervous and couldn't sit still. I decided to leave work and go to an urgent care center, and I was for sure they would look at me and transfer me to the ER for some crazy heart issue. I did not expect to go back to work the next day. After having a full blown break down for an hour or so, I drive to the urgent care center and they check my blood pressure, 168/112. Pulse is normal they say. I talk to the doctor for a while and she pretty much just says she thinks I have anxiety and prescribes me Zoloft. She checks my blood pressure again after I had been sitting there for about 20-30 minutes. 150/80... They take my blood for a basic screening (which terrifies me, by the way) and I leave to go get my 25 MG prescription of Zoloft.
After that, for the rest of the week, I feel better about my heart, don't notice any palpitations, but I still have no appetite. Basically, from tuesday until sunday I have this pressure behind my right eye along with stomach distress and zero appetite. Sunday morning I get a call from the urgent care saying my blood work looked fine. I go eat lunch with friends and actually feel hungry.. My appetite is back finally, after 4-5 days with none. The eye pressure is still there however, along with the eye strain or discomfort.
Now this next week, the week of July 23-30, I freak out about my floaters, which seem to be getting worse and worse, along with the continuation of the eye-pressure. I have many break-downs and feel hopeless often as I am convinced something is wrong with my eyes and will need to get some strange surgery. I up my dosage of Zoloft to the full pill on July 27.
I have an eye exam on the 28th, and he sees nothing wrong with my eyes other than some very slight farsightedness. However he doesnt dilate my eyes.. fast forward to the next week (week of July 30-august 6th) and I am still having some slight pressure behind my eye, eye strain and I am getting a general feeling on "sickness". It almost feels like when I had the flu, except no fever or cough or anything else. Just a daily headache along with some occasional slight nausea, and an off/on feeling of needing to lie down... if that makes sense. A sort of slight dizziness or imbalance mixed with fatigue.
I go back to the eye doctor and ask him to dilate my eyes and exam again for peace of mind. He does and takes an even more thorough look. No issues, healthy eyes, says the floaters are harmless. I ask him about the eye discomfort and he mentions that it could possibly be from my slight farsightedness but he isn't sure.
So here's where it gets bad: After getting my eyes dilated I notice that I see no floaters at all. No matter the lighting, background, etc. I see none. I know this is normal since your eye is letting more light in, so the shadows cast by the floaters on your retina will be less focused, making them unnoticeable. But this gets me thinking about my pupil size.. I start to think that since my floaters seem so much more pronounced lately, maybe something has caused my pupils to decrease in size over the past month... I freak out like never before. Uncontrollable crying and feelings of hopelessness. I feel like I must have a tumor or aneurysm causing my pupils to get smaller, thus making the floaters shadows on my retina more noticable... I miss a good half day of work just crying my eyes out and feeling like I will never feel normal again.
Since then (that was 4 days ago) I've calmed down quite a bit. I have a GP appointment next friday that I am not looking forward to since they will probably draw my blood again. I feel like I am feeling a little better. The pressure behind my right eye isnt really there anymore lately, but I still have the eye strain or discomfort when looking at certain objects and movements, and I feel that is giving me a daily headache. I also still feel on/off fatigued and generally sick. Again, its like the flu but without all the cough and fever and runny nose..
Everyone is telling me that it could be side effects to Zoloft, but it has been 11 days since going up to 25 MG, and I had the eye strain since before I started taking it...
Has anyone had a similar experience to this? In particular the eye-strain "crossing" feeling and the chronic general unwell feeling with daily headaches?
I appreciate your time reading this novel of a post... I'm sorry if it's too much to read, I just wanted to get my whole experience off my chest and into words.
I have been having the worst time of my life for the past 3-4 weeks. I feel like a different person than I was in early July and it has been causing me some pretty bad depression.
It probably started closer to last month, a friend of mine is becoming a navigator in the Navy and we had been talking about the eye requirements, as I was interested. I have always been able to see very far away. I had concerns about the fact that I've had floaters for as long as I could remember and started to ask around to see if it was a disqualifier.
Around the same time I bought a new computer setup to play games on. At first I used a TV, which was causing me some discomfort in my eyes as I felt it was too close and big to be practical and was causing eye-strain. I bought a 27" monitor instead and it worked well. However, after about 2 weeks of having the computer I noticed my eyes were feeling more and more strained, it almost seemed like looking at a monitor for a few moments was uncomfortable for me. Since then I have not played computer games at all. I work on a computer for 9 hours a day for my job and that too causes me some eye strain. Looking at certain patterns or movements on the screen makes it feel like my eyes are wanting to cross... if that makes sense.
Around July 17th I was certain that I had twice as many floaters (big, stringy, dark) and also noticed that lights at night had a "halo" around them. I couldn't remember lights looking this "foggy" at night, so I started to believe something was terribly wrong with my eyes. The straining feeling, the perceived increase in floaters, and the foggy lights at night all piled up on me and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was going to lose my vision and would need surgery of some kind to correct this.
The next day, July 18, I noticed that the straining feeling kind of progressed into a pressure-feeling behind my right eye. I also had a slight full feeling in my right ear. It almost felt like sinus pressure. I was slightly relieved that morning as I thought maybe all this was due to sinuses. However, later that evening I started to feel "sick". I completely lost my appetite and could not finish my dinner.
The next morning, July 19, I was still completely uninterested in food and had to force myself to eat breakfast. So I scheduled an appointment at my work's health clinic to see about this "eye/ear pressure" and lack of appetite. The nurse took me in and sat me down and proceeded to check my heart rate and blood pressure. Heart rate was over 100, blood pressure was 166/110! The nurse looked in shock and said "that can't be your real blood pressure" and took it again.. 169/110. I thought she was going to send me to the hospital.. She told me someone my age shouldn't have blood pressure anywhere near that and told me to check my blood pressure often and if it stays like that go to a doctor as soon as I can.. When the doctor saw me she said she thought I had fluid behind the ear and gave me some claritin and tylenol..
For the rest of that day (July 19) I was freaking out. I felt my heart racing all day at my desk and my neck felt stiff. My heart was slamming in my chest and I was convinced I had some kind of heart problem. After some (dumb) googling I was convinced I was having heart failure, as I was coughing a lot for no problem and sometimes felt like I needed to take deeper breaths, along with the high heartrate and palpitations.. Still had zero appetite.
The next day, July 20, I tried to go to work. I stayed for about an hour, still no appetite. My heart was beating hard, fast, and I felt like I didn't know what to do with myself. I was feeling so nervous and couldn't sit still. I decided to leave work and go to an urgent care center, and I was for sure they would look at me and transfer me to the ER for some crazy heart issue. I did not expect to go back to work the next day. After having a full blown break down for an hour or so, I drive to the urgent care center and they check my blood pressure, 168/112. Pulse is normal they say. I talk to the doctor for a while and she pretty much just says she thinks I have anxiety and prescribes me Zoloft. She checks my blood pressure again after I had been sitting there for about 20-30 minutes. 150/80... They take my blood for a basic screening (which terrifies me, by the way) and I leave to go get my 25 MG prescription of Zoloft.
After that, for the rest of the week, I feel better about my heart, don't notice any palpitations, but I still have no appetite. Basically, from tuesday until sunday I have this pressure behind my right eye along with stomach distress and zero appetite. Sunday morning I get a call from the urgent care saying my blood work looked fine. I go eat lunch with friends and actually feel hungry.. My appetite is back finally, after 4-5 days with none. The eye pressure is still there however, along with the eye strain or discomfort.
Now this next week, the week of July 23-30, I freak out about my floaters, which seem to be getting worse and worse, along with the continuation of the eye-pressure. I have many break-downs and feel hopeless often as I am convinced something is wrong with my eyes and will need to get some strange surgery. I up my dosage of Zoloft to the full pill on July 27.
I have an eye exam on the 28th, and he sees nothing wrong with my eyes other than some very slight farsightedness. However he doesnt dilate my eyes.. fast forward to the next week (week of July 30-august 6th) and I am still having some slight pressure behind my eye, eye strain and I am getting a general feeling on "sickness". It almost feels like when I had the flu, except no fever or cough or anything else. Just a daily headache along with some occasional slight nausea, and an off/on feeling of needing to lie down... if that makes sense. A sort of slight dizziness or imbalance mixed with fatigue.
I go back to the eye doctor and ask him to dilate my eyes and exam again for peace of mind. He does and takes an even more thorough look. No issues, healthy eyes, says the floaters are harmless. I ask him about the eye discomfort and he mentions that it could possibly be from my slight farsightedness but he isn't sure.
So here's where it gets bad: After getting my eyes dilated I notice that I see no floaters at all. No matter the lighting, background, etc. I see none. I know this is normal since your eye is letting more light in, so the shadows cast by the floaters on your retina will be less focused, making them unnoticeable. But this gets me thinking about my pupil size.. I start to think that since my floaters seem so much more pronounced lately, maybe something has caused my pupils to decrease in size over the past month... I freak out like never before. Uncontrollable crying and feelings of hopelessness. I feel like I must have a tumor or aneurysm causing my pupils to get smaller, thus making the floaters shadows on my retina more noticable... I miss a good half day of work just crying my eyes out and feeling like I will never feel normal again.
Since then (that was 4 days ago) I've calmed down quite a bit. I have a GP appointment next friday that I am not looking forward to since they will probably draw my blood again. I feel like I am feeling a little better. The pressure behind my right eye isnt really there anymore lately, but I still have the eye strain or discomfort when looking at certain objects and movements, and I feel that is giving me a daily headache. I also still feel on/off fatigued and generally sick. Again, its like the flu but without all the cough and fever and runny nose..
Everyone is telling me that it could be side effects to Zoloft, but it has been 11 days since going up to 25 MG, and I had the eye strain since before I started taking it...
Has anyone had a similar experience to this? In particular the eye-strain "crossing" feeling and the chronic general unwell feeling with daily headaches?
I appreciate your time reading this novel of a post... I'm sorry if it's too much to read, I just wanted to get my whole experience off my chest and into words.