Hello, my name is Patrick Owers.
First of all, let me start by saying sorry if something in my explanation doesn't make sense as this unknown ailment is starting to get to my cognitive thinking quite bad.
Right, about two months ago, I started getting headaches and occasional twitches in my eyes, I went to doctor after doctor and they said that it was just stress and it would pass. a few weeks later, it didn't pass and got alot worse. it started to affect my speech and language skills with pronunciation and speaking large amounts without stuttering or getting lost on what I was saying. or 'tripping up' in mid-sentence. my twitches also started to spread to every part of my body that had a muscle, and then I started getting very bad neck pains and tingling in my legs and arms.
Went to a neurologist who sent me for a CT scan, just to be safe. but he said there was nothing worth getting worried about as he said there was nothing serious that he could see.
Had the CT without contrast done which came back clear.
as the weeks went on, my symptoms started progressing again, I noticed that my ability to read text had now been affected, I would get lost whilst reading sentences or replace words in sentences with completely different words that aren't there. my muscle twitches started getting more violent, I will occasionally jump up in my bed whilst asleep because my whole body will just decide to spasm, like getting a shock. I also started getting visual disturbances, my vision will go blurry occasionally, like the blurriness you get when you have something in your eye, will be relieved by rubbing it but will keep coming back, usually happens in the mornings but can happen during the day. also started seeing black dots and lines in my vision and flashing lights when I'm trying to sleep. I will also have moments where I see little sparkles in my vision and they are getting more frequent.
I also read somewhere that MRI's are the best for diagnostics of brain problems and CT's can miss things like tumours, especially in the brain stem. I panicked, and got a MRI booked privately. I asked for dye to be inserted, but they assured me that if they found anything suspicious, I would retake the test with dye. but alas, it came back clear, but somehow I feel like I've gotten nowhere, as the symptoms are still progressing.
Doctors now think I'm crazy and have referred me to psychology, who is telling me about breathing exercises and ways to stop panic attacks, but what I'm experiencing isn't panic attacks, it's constant! it's affecting my thinking and my daily activities to the point where I can't actually do them. it's impossible! I'm all jittery and jerky all the time now, with my muscles constantly twitching and still getting worse, burning pains in my head and cheeks. I also notice I'm making weird facial movements when I move my face, such as when I speak, my jaw will go up only on one side, leaving my left side to drop and makes my face look weird when I talk. also, whenever I move my muscles or put strain on them, they will go into a twitching fit.
My cognitive skills have gotten to the stage where they are unmanageable. I have difficulty reading things with more than three sentences of text. I will lose track and stop reading because I won't know what I've just read. my speech is terrible, stuttering and saying things that don't make sense. my typing has gotten worse, losing track on what I was typing and forgetting simple words to mention in context with what I'm talking about. my neck feels stiff and is hurting alot. my tingling sensations in my fingers and arms, cold prickly sensations in my elbows, lips, face, ears. also a tingling sensation in my head! it feels very strange! also, my head hurts nearly all the time now and I just can't think of anything, my mind is just fuzzy and achey and it feels like I'm a husk. only being conscious and not having anything else that would make me human. no emotion, no intelligence, nothing, I feel brain-dead.
I know there's something wrong, and I am willing to pay for any more diagnostics to be conducted, so long as they find what's causing this and get it treated so I can get some form of symptom relief and my brain functioning back to the way it was. I am willing to get an EEG and an MRA or MRI Neurography done to find out what's happening, maybe even an EMG. I just need some answers.
I have been on more antidepressants than I can think of, such as citalopram, amitriptyline, Mirtazapine etc all of which have been no help to my symptoms.I figure had it been stress, it should've responded to medication and forms of counselling by now. but it has not had any effect at all! in fact, it's still getting worse!
Any supportive answers or any suggestions on what I should do? anything would help right now. I just want symptom relief, I can't take this anymore
Symptoms are as follows:-
- Muscle jerking and twitching. can be my whole body or just a involuntary jerk of a limb, such as my leg or arm. I have checked what it is and it seems to come under the name myoclonus
- Cognitive impairment (reading, writing, speech, memory, language, word-finding and understanding of context.)
- A feeling of not being all there most of the time.
- weird cold tingling in my elbows and lips and ears.
- Sharp Headaches that come and go
- Unsteady gait
- Muscle cramps
Doctors all say its stress but if it had been then it should have responded to medication by now, or at least helped with the symptoms.
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