Hi there (feelings of dizziness and head pressure)
Hi there, my name is Tom and I am 28 years old and from Gloucestershire, UK. I've joined the website because of the symptoms I've suffered for over two years now, although it looks like I might be starting to get to the bottom of them now.
In summer 2005 I was brushing my teeth in the morning before work and I had a spontaneous nosebleed. It carried for a while and before long I felt a sense of overwhelming dizziness, I thought I was going to collapse and my housemate drove me to A&E - the sensation wore off by the time we got to the hospital, they checked me over and sent me home and I didn't really think of it again. In April 2008 I was sat at work and suddenly felt my heart start racing, my body feel like it was warming up and an overwhelming feeling of dizziness came over my head, very scary. My dad had a heart attack at 52 and I panicked that there was something happening to my heart, again I got taken to hospital where I had an ECG (fine) and blood tests, which also came back ok. Since that point I've had episodes of dizziness and feelings of pressure and tingling in my head, which have ranged from scary (like I feel I'm about to black out, I have to sit up, walk around, take deep breaths etc) to just an unpleasant 'awareness' of my head. They make me feel groggy and tired, and my head just doesn't feel right. I also seem to have a load of floaters in my vision, although my optician has said there is nothing sinister going on there.
I went to see my GP about it a lot, he did some standard neurological tests involving looking into my eyes, checking my motor functions etc as well as further blood tests and he told me everything was fine and I shouldn't worry. Over the course of several months the symptoms just wouldn't go away - he put me on amitryptiline for a short while but this didn't seem to make much difference. At the beginning of 2009 I asked if I could have an MRI scan and he rather reluctantly referred me for one. I had it in March/April 2009 and I received a letter a couple of weeks later just saying 'normal'.
I kept getting the dizzy/pressure sensations throughout 2009 and I felt that that the nastier episodes were getting worse, if not more frequent. I started to worry that it might be caused by something else, like problems with liver/kidneys etc as I probably drank far too much while I was a student and in my early 20s, but the blood tests all came back fine for those. I went to BUPA for an enhanced liver test including a Fibroscan and that came back totally healthy.
Late 2009/early 2010 the feelings were still there and in my opinion sometimes getting worse. I found that if I had a few drinks in the evening, more often than not the feelings would be ten times worse the next day, not like an ordinary hangover but a really different and unpleasant discomfort in my head. I'd frequently wake up at night with the room spinning, with my head feeling weird, often having to get up, walk around the room and take deep breaths to try and abate the feeling.
I've been back to my doctor recently, asking about the possibility of a further MRI scan as I've felt that the symptoms are getting worse, and he said no chance - the previous one would have picked up on anything. He has constantly put my symptoms down to stress and anxiety...but I don't feel stressed or anxious about anything else in my life, just the symptoms! So just to put own mind at rest I paid for a private one in London a couple of weeks ago, and the report a few days later told me that I have:
"a small lesion in white matter and abutting cortex at the base of the right superior temporal gyrus. This is well circumscribed and does not exhibit high grade features on this scan. It is indeterminate, not large enough to cause mass effect of any symptoms, unless there is a history of seizures. However it is not a usual incidental MRI finding - further clarification is required with a contrast enhanced scan".
I went from being petrified at something being found, to being almost relieved that there might now be a cause for the feelings identified. I had the second scan with the contrast agent last week and I'm nervously waiting for the results now. I find it weird that there was nothing found in the first MRI yet now there is, and the report says that it shouldn't be causing any symptoms but to feel like I've been feeling progressively worse within my head and to then learn that there IS something abnormal in there...it's pretty scary. I am petrified about the thought of a tumour or MS etc but trying to look on the bright side and hope that it is perhaps something very straightforward that can be fixed and will lead to me feeling normal again.
Wow that's quite a ramble. I'd be really interested to hear if anyone else has experienced anything similar or found any lesions in their brain to accompany these kind of symptoms.
Thanks for reading
Tom
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