Lightheadehness/unbalanced 24/7 for a year

[lucy_21]

Hello. This is my first post on this siye as i just joined yesterday but I have been reading bits and bobs for a few weeks now.
I have been 'ill' for about a year now and I think i have come to the concluion that it is anxiety. I have had alot of tests done i have been to my gp thousands of time, an ENT, had an MRI seen a rheumatologist and had lots of bloods done even been to A and E and there is nothing to be found that is worng with me and I would of thought that if it was something seriously sphysicall like that, it would not have just gone on like this for a year.
I am very down about it because since last year just before I felt so bad, I was finally getting my life back together after a tough past and then I felt bad and have not been the same since and it is the worst thing in the world as it effects EVERYTHING i do.
I am constantly fatigued to the point were it is an effort to get up and walk to the next room. I always feel like i need slepp despite have more than enough. I do wake up at least 2-3 times a night and i wake up early aswell. I have headaches quite a bit and achy muscles. As soon as i wake up in a morining my legs feel like i have been running miles and they ache but i have had all the physical test possible and they were fine.
But, my worst, worst, WORST thing is this constant lightheadedness feeling, it is the worst thing in my entire life and i would do anything for it to go. Everytime I walk, wherever or whater i am walking to i feel like i am not walking straight and lightheaded. It is sort of like the feeling of walking with your eyes closed but your eyes arnt closed!!! Sometimes it happen when i am sitting or still too but it is EVERYTIME i walk and it had been for a year and it is soul distroying.
I am on 20mg per day of fluoxetine because they thought I might be a bit deppressed but i didnt know and i dont think they did either. I have been on them for 3 months and dont feel any different. Do they help with anxiety? if they do how long do they take and how???
Different muscles in my body always jump too. espically in my legs. They just twitch quickly.
I have done alot of research and i do think that i is probably anxiety, even though I havr never had a panick attack and i dont know how the anxiety would of started because everything in my life was going so well!!! I just dont get it!!!
But what i would really aprichiate is some help on the lightheadedness thing as it is constant and the worst ever thing in my life. I hope I have explained myself well enough because it is hard to explain it and sometimes I think i havent really said it right but i ahve red a few other posts and it sort of seems to fit.
Thankyou for your time. I hope to hear back from you guys as i am desperate for this lightheadedness/offbalance thing to go.
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[MidnightCalm]

I feel you, I have lightheadedness 24/7 and have for a long time, and I constantly feel weak and very achy, like I should just rest all the time.
I've tried lots of things but nothing seems to be helping, in a way I'm scared it might be getting worse and worse, it's definitely worse than last year :(

[littleredhen]

have you tried massage and/or physiotherapy. I had these symptoms big time and also had all the tests at the docs and hospital. In the end I saw a physiotherapist as i was running out of ideas and options.

Anyway, the physio confirmed that I was SO tense and anxious that all the muscles in my neck, shoulders and upper back were really tight and constricted and these muscles were constricting the blood flow to my head, which was giving me the giddiness and nausea, headaches and blurry eyes. So i had a few treatments to help unknot me and it has made a REAL big difference.

Now I don't go for the physio (expensive) but try to have a massage once a fortnight or whenever I can afford it.

[Mindful]

Assuming you have had tests for all the usual causes of dizziness then yeh i would say its anxiety. Its a vicious little circle thats very easy to fall into. Not so easy to fall out of, but do-able if you are prepared to really believe that you are dizzy because you are anxious about being dizzy.

Tension can form in any muscle through out the body, including the ears and eyes and of course neck and shoulders, throat even, which all affect the balance points. The ears are such delicate little things and when the little muscles and nerve endings in the ear get tense it will make us feel very off balance, spacey, spinny ect.. but it wont make you fall, or faint, it isnt about low blood pressure, which makes you faint, its about tenseness and over thinking-dwelling in on how you feel.

Tension around your balance points will make you feel dizzy, add in the worry (anxiety) of feeling dizzy and you become more tense, which makes you feel more dizzy, which makes you worry more about feeling dizzy, and round we go.


The way out is simple, in theory, accept that the dizziness is caused by tension and an over thinking-worrying about the dizziness and go about your business. Test it, go stand up, feet together, head up, eyes closed for 30 seconds, do you fall or just feel like you will? Then try for 1 minute, then 5, soon you'll get bored of trying, but the point is to prove to yuorself that yes you feel dizzy, but no you dont fall. After time you will start to feel more confident that it is indeed the anxiety cycle and actually this dizziness is nothing more than tension. Lose the fear, test it, and keep telling yourself the truth, it is anxiety, it isnt harmful. Takes time to grow confident with this so stick with it.

The less importance you put on the dizziness, the less tense you will feel, which will make you less dizzy. x

[lucy_21]

Thankyou for your comments. Yes, i have had all tests done to show that it is nothing medical and i know that it is not a 'dizzy' as such, like i dont feel the room spinning or anything. It is just a constant lightheadedness.
I think now that I have acsepted that it is anxiety and i keep telling myself this, espicially when i am walking and it is at its worst. But it doesnt seem to make it any better.
I dont even know why it came on in the first place?? I am sure in my life i have had much, much greater periods of stress,worry and anxiety and i hhave felt nothing like this. Now when i want to be really fit and healthy im not!! And i live such a healthy lifestlye! I dont know what more i could be doing.
I know its said that even when you do acsept its anxiety it takes time. But i have, nd i feel no difference what so ever.
How would you define acsepting?? How long does it take for the lightheadedness to go away?? I thought i had acsepted it and tried to et on with my life but its still there. Even when i am not thinking about the lightheadedness it is there. For example i went for a walk, pu headphones in an concentrated on the song but it was still there. Its there when i dont plan to think it like in the middle of one of my uni classes when my mind is so focused on something different.
Sorry for all the questions. I just dont know how to go about this really. How to know that i have and am acsepting ect???
And any thourghts on the fluoxitine??
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[Mindful]

To really accept feeling the dizziness would mean it no longer mattered to you if it was there or not.

You say you have accepted it and still its there, to me that says you havent, if you had no fear of it at all and 100% accepted it as a symptom of over thinking-worrying about it anxiety, then you would not have wrote this thread or care a jot if you were dizzy or not. Do you see what i am saying?

Even when you are concentrating on other things, ie at uni or listening to your music, sub consciously or consciously you are still scanning your self inwardly looking for that dizziness feeling. You self check whether you realise it not. To really overcome this you have to not care either way, dizzy or not dizzy. It can come, it can go, you no longer care because you no longer fear it because you truly believe and know why you feel dizzy.

Anxiety and all the crap it can bring hits people at all kinds of times in their lives, sometimes it fits into stressful times, sometimes it doesnt fit at all, really thats not important so i wouldnt waste time trying to figure the whys out hun. Yesterday has gone.. hope you see what i am saying?

I have never gone on meds so cant comment on them, but i have been plagued with awful dizziness, ground moving, swaying, off balance, inside and outside, standing, sitting, laying ect... its horrible and very easy to say its just tension, just anxiety, just inward thinking-dwelling and so on.. i know, but it honestly is, work on getting to a point where you dont care if you feel that dizziness, to say ''yeh i have accepted it now'' and then in the next breath say '' omg why is it still there?'' isnt accepting.

Hope this makes sense

[lucy_21]

I will do. I will try and just tell myself it is anxiety. Has anyone got any ways they do this or anything. It sounds so easy to just say i will acsept it is anxiety, but clearly not. any spesific ways coz i am really suffering bad with this lightheadedness.
Also my thinking is so fast and all over the place. It is like i think of a hundred things i need/want to do but dont know where to start or what to do so i end up doing nothing because i feel so tired and fatigued and nothing interests me any more. I have to write down all the things i need/want to do in a day coz it is like my brain cant be bothered or decide what to do. Hard to explain but does anyone underdstand? If they do how do you go about coping with this? I have been like this for as long as i can remember and i hate it. it is like nothing is ever the right time or i get bored of it so quick or i switch from totslly wanting to do something to totally not wanting to.
And i mentioned i am sooooooooooo fatigued, any advice on ways to help this? didnt realise anxiety could cause fatigue, not this bad anyway. sometimes i have explained the feeling like i feel like im dying i feel so tired/weak.
Gonna try and keep saying to myself, its anxiety though and gonna try and think back to these posts. Your time and effort is great guys. thx. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx

[MidnightCalm]

Is tension really that capable? How do we stop tensions? I swear I've been trying to not be tense for like the past year straight, nothing works :/

[Jamesk]

Tension around your balance points will make you feel dizzy, add in the worry (anxiety) of feeling dizzy and you become more tense, which makes you feel more dizzy, which makes you worry more about feeling dizzy, and round we go.

It is really really scary thouhg and feels, well very "real"