new here, a little insight would be great

[a38yearoldguy]

Hi all, I am going to try and make this not a life story, here goes with just the TV guide version

38 years old male, used to have have severe panic anxiety attacks at about 23, took xanax, they went away.
Always been moody, went thru my "the moon mocks my infested soul" stage and in hindsite, hey, we were all young.
Anyway, my problem is a few things, 1 being, when things WERE good, i was pretty good, and when things arent fine I am a wreck, so you know, when your dog dies and you are down, hell yeah you are, there is a cause and effect.
I think that has been my problem, I am known as a smartass doomed sort of cinical fatalist and, well, I have seen alot of bad things in my life that were very real and I feel and have felt that I am just reacting to them.
The deal is, I dont cry for no reason etc etc etc

Let me get to the point, I have OCDC and probably ADD and I also have NMI, thats No Medical Insurance.
I also have a serious back injury and have had 2 surgeries so I know how stress can totally result in real pain.
When I lived in a city that rained for 3 months, paid wayyy to much rent and was very down, well, my back was at a 8 out of 10 when it comes to pain.
I was an invalid, I moved away from that situation and it got better almost instantly.
Not "normal" but not killing me anymore.
SO

Here is my deal now.

I hate the city I live in, its just not my culture, I hate my apartment and guess what?, I work at home, so I am in a city i hate in an apartment I hate and being unhappy with all this, I dont have many friends because I am such a smug asshole sometimes because everyone seems to chlich'e and obvious and learning what I learned a decade ago.

anyway, sorry to ramble obviously I need to speak to a therapist

so here I am in a city I hate, in an apartment I loath, doing a job I am sick of, and I am dizzy and I have chronic muscle tension headaches
I was prescribed valium and also told I have sleep apnea, cant afford the sleep test and the valium helped the apnea

Here is my question i would love an opinion on.

As my situation started losing its charm I started getting horrible heachaches, went to dentist, I had to have 3 wisdom teeth removed
There was no improvement in headache, I then was told I needed a night gaurd because i grind my teeth, no improvement.

Went to neurologist, she said she was 99% sure it was muscular (I dont have the money for CT scans and yes, I know, I should FIND it, but at 99% I will wait)

she prescribed PT and nortryptalyne and flexaril.

no improvement but 2 advil every 4 hours does the trick for the headaches but not the dizziness.

got blood pressure checked, its perfect.
no other effects, just headaches and dizziness

here is the weirdest part, when I am laying down, no dizziness, when I am standing, ...pretty good, when i am sitting , VERY DIZZY

it started for about 2 weeks as a SLIP feeling, like falling in a chair cut for 1 second. and it would go on, ....normal normal normal SLIP, normal etc etc

Now its just a sort of wooziness

but really only when sitting

I am in this weird place, at about midnight at night, I feel pretty good, this feels like "my time", like your average person would get off work at 5:30, go home crazk a beer and that was "their time", mine is midnight, and I watch TV, putter around, write emails, do leisure stuff at home till about 4am, then I sleep till about noon

jeez, this is crazy, all i wanted to do was ask the dizzy question and look what I have done!
anyway, maybe I have TMJ, very well could, will look into that next

but the million dollar ? is, can depression and anxiety give you headaches and make you dizzy

and you would think if it was emotional...why sitting?

I JUST stopped the medication because my general doc said that those 2 are KNOWN for that side effect, and I mentioned valium earlier and maybe that was the time I was dizzy BEFORE

sorry for the scattered post..

well anyway, hello

whew

[V for Victor]

Well, the medications you were taking could've been causing the headaches and dizziness. Especially if you were taking some together that you shouldn't have been.

Out of curiousity, are you diabetic? Have you ever had your blood sugar checked?

It does sound like things are a bit of a mess for you at the time. Another thing is that you need to make sure that you do get plenty of sleep (8-9 hours at least.)

If you're not getting enough sleep, that can also cause headaches and stress.

Would you say you're having troubles now with anxiety and depression?

[a38yearoldguy]

Getting normal sleep, although I was told I have sleep apnea which of course would wake up up a bunch of times during the night even without your knowledge.

I was prescribed the 2 meds by the neurologist thatwas treating it like muscle tension , also I was told to go to physical therapy for my neck, now I havent been able to do that for money reasons and I intend to.

I asked my general doc about blood sugar and he did seem concerned, he was looking at my file at the time so I imagine there was info on me he was going on.
I can say for sure that if I dont eat a meal then eat a candy bar I will need to lie down, i told him this and this added to his opinion.

in answer to the depression thing, yes for sure.
For a lonnnnnng time without treatment, being a cash patient doesnt help this and going to doc's that assign physical reasons stop the progress in that direction.

It certainly could be that, I live in San Diego, which I dislike greatly and plan I move ASAP (once again, money) and anyway, where I love and want to move back to is San Francisco.
I visited there for 2 whole weeks recently and was wondering how that would effect how I felt.
I was still dizzy, well, this was the occasional SLIP style dizziness.
When I was where I was staying it didnt seem to effect me, but when i went out in public it DID, I accepted the idea that I might be afraid of crowds, trust me, personal space is a HUGE thing with me.
But NOW, at home in SD, I still get dizzy..

oh yeah to add to this all, advil takes away the headaches, and I dont think I am fooling myself into thinking its a magic pill, i mean, I didnt know or think it was going to work, but it doesnt take away the dizziness.

I really think I might have TMJ, the "headache" starts in the jaw at my right ride, goes up to temple then over eye and also in back of neck
and if an advil makes it better then we would think its a physical inflammation

also I would like to add that after I went to general doc (that was day 1) of NOT taking the nortypalene and flexaril, the SLIP dizziness is now would I would call "boaty" dizziness
so if its mental then the trip to doc effected me OR the the medication is wearing off or whatever you wanna call it, I imagine since they say nortryptalene (I spell it different every time) takes a while to become part of your system that it would take a while to leave?
oh yeah and to make things really crystal clear, I was dizzy BEFORE these pills, but at that time I was taking valium

its a HUGE puzzle

[vaio]

Aabout headaches, don't know what to say, but it's good they go away with a pill, mine don't respond to any kind of medication.

About dizziness, here is a mechanism: you get anxious about X (health, social event or whatever your trigger is). Then in your subconscious is something like "I have to do or to fix X". So you go into save energy mode and if you wanna watch tv or do something else, you are dizzy and can't concentrate because all your energy should be used or preserved for X. Sometimes you don't even know what X is, can be even the dizziness itself. However, once you calm down about X, the dizziness should go away, eventually you will need some rest/food and you will be able to focus on whatever you like. This is a natural mechanism very hard to control because it's all into subconscious.