Gareth
10-02-10, 12:18
Hi all,
Would really appreciate you guys reading this and giving me a considered opinion. I am in a really weird and confusing place right now, don’t want to jump to any conclusions, and you guys are the only people who can really give me some perspective.
The constantly changing nature of my physical symptoms have taken a more alarming turn and certain things are getting to the point where I feel I am going to have to stop and withdraw from things like work, social life. I am already withdrawing socially because it’s too much effort, and that is really not like me – I am a very social person and I understand the importance of just keeping going and doing everything as one normally would.
I would REALLY appreciate hearing if other people have had any of the following symptoms. They're all really hard to explain so bear with me... I am for the first time thinking of going to the doc's to see if he will get an MRI of my brain. How on earth can I be feeling this ill all the time? How on earth am I keeping going and getting up every morning and carrying on?
NB: I have been on 10mg of Citalopram for 3 months (as I found 20mg unbearable in terms of the side effects) and have finally slowed this down to 5mg a day for a few weeks, and have been completely off them for over a week now. Could this be a factor? I’m not sure it is as I’ve been having the below in one form or another for a while, since this all started back in September 2009, but they are just worsening by the day now at a more rapid rate.
Symptoms (tried to order them in order of most distressing first):
- Buzzing / pulsing / weird floaty, fainty sensation in head. I’ve been trying to write that sentence for ages but nothing describes it properly! It’s like an electric current running through my brain constantly at a low level. It’s like I’m on the edge of fainting or stopping functioning at every moment, but it never comes. It’s like my brain, if it was a battery, is out of charge, and is dying. That’s the best way I can describe it.
- "Slow brain" sensation. Like when I want to perform a simple movement like getting up from the sofa, or opening a can, or walking across a room, its like my brain won't respond as quickly as I want it to, like everything is in slow mo and I need to give my brain an extra thought to make it do what I want it to do. I don’t have confidence that my body will respond in the way I want because it feels so heavy and slow.
- Buzzing, pulsing through my body. Just sitting style there are waves of pulsing sensation going through my body. Sometimes it makes me feel like I am sinking, or slipping, sometimes it kind of paralyzes my arms and legs.
- Constant "weak" sensation. Weakness in my limbs. Seems to be linked to the above, performing ordinary tasks that require some motor coordination or strength feel like a challenge. I CAN do them, but it feels harder, slower, less confident than it should. This affects hand coordination. I have difficulty with hand dexterity sometimes. My fingers don’t respond as they used to, they feel numb and weak
- When I turn my head my head kind of "buzzes", so I avoid dramatic movements. When I move my eyes from left to right there is a tingly, buzzy, ‘electric’ pulsing sensation behind my eyes and in my cheekbones and sinuses. Even blinking my eyes gives me that buzzy, sensitised sensation behind my eyes and in my head sometimes.
- Waves of weakness wash over my entire body sometimes when walking and then for the rest of the time I am walking I am staggering, having to hold on to things around me to get around.
- Slurring speech / inability to find words. I find speech difficult, my mouth feels tingly and numb, and the effort of speech can send my head into a spinny sensation. I respond much more slowly to questions from people, I find it hard to find words (I have a big vocabulary but words seem harder to access). Speech can be a real challenge, it seems to use up a huge amount of the limited energy in my brain.
- Confusion. I find myself forgetting things, losing things more than ever, unable to cope with more than one task at a time. I think about doing something and then just stop, unable to function, and it takes a big mental effort to get started again and actually do it. I feel like an old man with alzheimers, fragile and slow.
- Breathing difficulties. I feel like I am breathing really shallow, and that I have to really think about breathing to make it happen. If I do any kind of physical exertion my lungs and heart can’t seem to take it.
- Vision problems. I find it difficult to get my eyes to focus, they feel slow, watery. I get white flashes in my eyes, tracers of light, and also light over-sensitivity. They go really blurry sometimes for no reason and it’s a real effort to get them to focus.
Let me caveat all of this with an important statement. Emotionally I feel strong, certainly not at my worst. I DO have a history of anxiety but have nothing right now that is making my anxious. I don’t have that constant feeling of dread and fear that was the main feature of my anxiety, and I don’t have the low mood / depression that I’ve had before. I feel able to tackle the world and even pretty positive about my ability to do so. I am sleeping really well, work is good right now, I’m looking forward to the summer… etc etc etc.
I can accept if these are a worsening of anxiety symptoms. But why is it 100% physical, at a time when I am “in charge” mentally, not afraid of anything? I feel different, and that’s why I am writing this I suppose. I know I need to go to the doctor’s (for the first time about physical symptoms rather than mental symptoms), and I suppose that is scaring me. I don’t want to turn into one of those people who go to the doctors every time they feel a weird sensation, I don’t want my life to turn into that.
Many Thanks for any thoughts you may have,
Gareth
Would really appreciate you guys reading this and giving me a considered opinion. I am in a really weird and confusing place right now, don’t want to jump to any conclusions, and you guys are the only people who can really give me some perspective.
The constantly changing nature of my physical symptoms have taken a more alarming turn and certain things are getting to the point where I feel I am going to have to stop and withdraw from things like work, social life. I am already withdrawing socially because it’s too much effort, and that is really not like me – I am a very social person and I understand the importance of just keeping going and doing everything as one normally would.
I would REALLY appreciate hearing if other people have had any of the following symptoms. They're all really hard to explain so bear with me... I am for the first time thinking of going to the doc's to see if he will get an MRI of my brain. How on earth can I be feeling this ill all the time? How on earth am I keeping going and getting up every morning and carrying on?
NB: I have been on 10mg of Citalopram for 3 months (as I found 20mg unbearable in terms of the side effects) and have finally slowed this down to 5mg a day for a few weeks, and have been completely off them for over a week now. Could this be a factor? I’m not sure it is as I’ve been having the below in one form or another for a while, since this all started back in September 2009, but they are just worsening by the day now at a more rapid rate.
Symptoms (tried to order them in order of most distressing first):
- Buzzing / pulsing / weird floaty, fainty sensation in head. I’ve been trying to write that sentence for ages but nothing describes it properly! It’s like an electric current running through my brain constantly at a low level. It’s like I’m on the edge of fainting or stopping functioning at every moment, but it never comes. It’s like my brain, if it was a battery, is out of charge, and is dying. That’s the best way I can describe it.
- "Slow brain" sensation. Like when I want to perform a simple movement like getting up from the sofa, or opening a can, or walking across a room, its like my brain won't respond as quickly as I want it to, like everything is in slow mo and I need to give my brain an extra thought to make it do what I want it to do. I don’t have confidence that my body will respond in the way I want because it feels so heavy and slow.
- Buzzing, pulsing through my body. Just sitting style there are waves of pulsing sensation going through my body. Sometimes it makes me feel like I am sinking, or slipping, sometimes it kind of paralyzes my arms and legs.
- Constant "weak" sensation. Weakness in my limbs. Seems to be linked to the above, performing ordinary tasks that require some motor coordination or strength feel like a challenge. I CAN do them, but it feels harder, slower, less confident than it should. This affects hand coordination. I have difficulty with hand dexterity sometimes. My fingers don’t respond as they used to, they feel numb and weak
- When I turn my head my head kind of "buzzes", so I avoid dramatic movements. When I move my eyes from left to right there is a tingly, buzzy, ‘electric’ pulsing sensation behind my eyes and in my cheekbones and sinuses. Even blinking my eyes gives me that buzzy, sensitised sensation behind my eyes and in my head sometimes.
- Waves of weakness wash over my entire body sometimes when walking and then for the rest of the time I am walking I am staggering, having to hold on to things around me to get around.
- Slurring speech / inability to find words. I find speech difficult, my mouth feels tingly and numb, and the effort of speech can send my head into a spinny sensation. I respond much more slowly to questions from people, I find it hard to find words (I have a big vocabulary but words seem harder to access). Speech can be a real challenge, it seems to use up a huge amount of the limited energy in my brain.
- Confusion. I find myself forgetting things, losing things more than ever, unable to cope with more than one task at a time. I think about doing something and then just stop, unable to function, and it takes a big mental effort to get started again and actually do it. I feel like an old man with alzheimers, fragile and slow.
- Breathing difficulties. I feel like I am breathing really shallow, and that I have to really think about breathing to make it happen. If I do any kind of physical exertion my lungs and heart can’t seem to take it.
- Vision problems. I find it difficult to get my eyes to focus, they feel slow, watery. I get white flashes in my eyes, tracers of light, and also light over-sensitivity. They go really blurry sometimes for no reason and it’s a real effort to get them to focus.
Let me caveat all of this with an important statement. Emotionally I feel strong, certainly not at my worst. I DO have a history of anxiety but have nothing right now that is making my anxious. I don’t have that constant feeling of dread and fear that was the main feature of my anxiety, and I don’t have the low mood / depression that I’ve had before. I feel able to tackle the world and even pretty positive about my ability to do so. I am sleeping really well, work is good right now, I’m looking forward to the summer… etc etc etc.
I can accept if these are a worsening of anxiety symptoms. But why is it 100% physical, at a time when I am “in charge” mentally, not afraid of anything? I feel different, and that’s why I am writing this I suppose. I know I need to go to the doctor’s (for the first time about physical symptoms rather than mental symptoms), and I suppose that is scaring me. I don’t want to turn into one of those people who go to the doctors every time they feel a weird sensation, I don’t want my life to turn into that.
Many Thanks for any thoughts you may have,
Gareth