When you are a person struggling with anxiety, sometimes it is hard to determine if you have a real illness, or if you have manifested an illness in your head.
My headache, neck pain, and facial numbness are all real symptoms that have been causing me great worry. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I thought my brain was swelling on the 4th of July. The following day I had the most horrific neck pain and couldn't even look to the right. The past week and a half I've been to the ENT doctors 3 times, my primary care doctor, the ER, immediate care doctor, my chiropractor twice, and an Internist. I am exhausted, and I'm going broke from all of my copays. When I woke up with facial numbness on Monday I became very worried. All of my pain (head, neck, face) is on my right side. The worrying manifests into fear that I am going to die. I then spend hours googling possible illnesses and start thinking I truly have these weird diseases. Stupid anxiety.
No one can really explain what is gong on with me. The consensus thinks that I may have an infection or a small tear in my sinuses, causing swelling and pressure on a nerve. I hope this is the case. But I can't help worry about Lyme Disease since I had a very unusual bruise looking bug bite 3 weeks ago. It was so odd I showed it to my doctor thinking it was a bruise, and she said it looked more like a bug bite. Obviously, Lyme Disease is rare, but I was at my mom's retreat house in the woods and it's very possible a tick made it's way into the house and bit me while I was sleeping or feeding the tigers.
Anyway. I am waiting on blood work to rule out Lyme Disease. I have an MRI of my brain scheduled for next Tuesday. I had a CT scan previously that came back normal, so I'm hoping the MRI will be clear as well.
I'm very frustrated living like this! Having a constant sinus headache makes me miserable. I really shouldn't complain though. I know there are people out there struggling with debilitating illnesses...it makes my headache seem trivial. But I'm not one of those "tough it out" people. When I get sick I am worthless...so it's been hard to be a good mommy and wife when all I want to do is sleeeeeeeeeep.
Being on Zoloft for mild anxiety has definitely helped with my crazy irrational worries, such as food shortages, earthquakes, car accidents etc. However, it has not seemed to help with my fear of dying or getting a horrible disease. I was given the option of trying something stronger, or upping my dosage but I passed on both offers. I don't want to use medicine as a "magic cure" or something to numb me entirely. I obviously need to learn how to work through these fears and with the help of my therapist I've been attempting to do so. So maybe these mysterious symptoms are a life lesson. Who knows. I just want to get better soon!
7 years ago
1 comment:
I would agree that you probably shouldn't go on a higher dosage or a different anti-depressant/anxiety medication. Although I don't think a higher dosage or different med will numb you entirely (I've been on anti-depressants/anxiety meds since early middle school and have never experienced such) if you were to do so. I did a lot of research for my grad school thesis paper on different types of therapy, and from what I learned, it seems like cognitive therapy would be a good start for the types of things you're going through (if thats not what your therapist is already trying). Cognitive therapy is nice because instead of just talking about what you're worried about, it helps you learn how to change the way you think and react to the stimuli (storms, accidents, etc) that bombard your mind. Obviously, though, I'm not a therapist - just a teacher who works with kids who have severe mental illness issues, which is clearly not what you have!!! Good luck w/ this!!!!
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