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Hi, I'm a 26 year old female from Chicago. I have not been diagnosed with epilepsy, but my doctor suspects that I might have a neurological disorder and has issued me an appointment for an EEG. My mother has epilepsy, but seems to have outgrown most of her symptoms. She's never really spoken to me much about her seizures, and I have never witnessed when she had one. She claims she hasn't had one since her 30's. The only disorders I have been diagnosed with are major depression, anxiety and panic disorder.
I began to wonder if I was having some sort of neurological phenomenon after I experimented with psilocybe mushrooms when I was 22. During my trip I experienced severe back pain and started experiencing visual hallucinations. The bad part was the visual symptoms never went away. I did research about what I was experiencing and discovered I was having visual snow (where I see tiny twinkling spots that look like sparkling snow or tv static) and migraine auras (where I see spectral colored zigzags, spots and blobs in my visual field for a brief second).
I started getting migraines and thought that somehow my trip made me have some sort of mild migraine disorder, I had never been prone to them or even headaches before, but was never painful or bothersome enough for me to see a doctor. Later that year I started taking Paxil for panic disorder, something I have always had. I also started smoking a lot of marijuana during this time. I would notice that sometimes after taking my medicine or smoking pot I would get tremors that would originate from my spine and make me twitch. I also noticed every once in a while I would make involuntary grunts when I was tired, but they were very quiet and only I noticed I was having them. I didn't have health insurance at the time and I was still skeptical that I could have a neurological disorder, so I just ignored it.
The end of 2009 I suffered from severe episode of major depression with psychotic features and attempted suicide. I overdosed on Paxil and was immediately hospitalized. I went through months of rehabilitation and was taken off of Paxil. Through the beginning of 2010 I was put on and off many antidepressants, all of which gave me horrible side effects. By the time summer arrived my psychiatrist agreed to put me back on Paxil, as it seemed to help me the most with panic and depression, or at least I thought.
This time my body started rejecting it. I tried for months by taking small doses, but I would start having severe nausea, diarrhea, muscle spasms and tenseness all over my body. My next bad moved involved my introduction to a new recreational drug, JWH-018, a synthetic cannabinoid, which has gotten some bad reports of causing seizures and other health issues. I felt fine the first month I started doing it, it was similar to cannabis, but the high was shorter in duration. I noticed the combination of this drug and my problems with Paxil started giving me strange experiences where I would feel like I was going to start convulsing or faint, my body would tense up, my breathing would become irregular and I would get visual disturbances.
I stopped doing both drugs cold turkey. I started having chest tightness, breathing problems, palpitations, chronic nausea, tremors, urinary problems and felt like I was going to have a seizure or black out.
One day I was walking to work and I almost stopped breathing and I almost fainted on the side walk. Every day I get horrible symptoms where I see visual snow, tunnel vision, I feel faint and dizzy, my breathing feels like it's going to stop and I have to force breathe, my heart beats irregularly or too fast, my blood pressure keeps going from high to low, I start twitching from my arms or legs or my spine, I make small involuntary grunts, I start shaking when I get even slightly nervous, I feel numb in various parts of my body, my face starts flushing, I feel sensations of hot and cold over my arms and chest, I get tenseness in my neck and shoulders, I get zapping sensations in my spine, I get short of breath when walking up stairs, I start staring off and unable to notice when people are talking to me very frequently(sort of like absence seizures), I feel like I'm going blind for brief seconds, I cannot focus and my cognition has been impaired, I feel nauseated everyday, I have delayed gastric emptying, I'm constipated and I get weird headaches on the right side of my head. I cannot believe these symptoms are only attributable to anxiety anymore. My bodily systems feel like they're malfunctioning or my brain cannot communicate properly with all of them for brief periods.
I'm shaking badly right now, just typing this.
These symptoms get worse when I consume alcohol, caffeine, cannabis or when I don't get good sleep. The only thing that makes me feel better is when I take my Xanax for anxiety.
My mom has been strangely worried about me having seizures all of a sudden over the past year, but without me telling her I think I might be having them. She doesn't like it when she sees me drinking. And I wonder if she's keeping secrets from me.
Does this sound like a neurological disorder, or am I just suffering from severe anxiety?
I began to wonder if I was having some sort of neurological phenomenon after I experimented with psilocybe mushrooms when I was 22. During my trip I experienced severe back pain and started experiencing visual hallucinations. The bad part was the visual symptoms never went away. I did research about what I was experiencing and discovered I was having visual snow (where I see tiny twinkling spots that look like sparkling snow or tv static) and migraine auras (where I see spectral colored zigzags, spots and blobs in my visual field for a brief second).
I started getting migraines and thought that somehow my trip made me have some sort of mild migraine disorder, I had never been prone to them or even headaches before, but was never painful or bothersome enough for me to see a doctor. Later that year I started taking Paxil for panic disorder, something I have always had. I also started smoking a lot of marijuana during this time. I would notice that sometimes after taking my medicine or smoking pot I would get tremors that would originate from my spine and make me twitch. I also noticed every once in a while I would make involuntary grunts when I was tired, but they were very quiet and only I noticed I was having them. I didn't have health insurance at the time and I was still skeptical that I could have a neurological disorder, so I just ignored it.
The end of 2009 I suffered from severe episode of major depression with psychotic features and attempted suicide. I overdosed on Paxil and was immediately hospitalized. I went through months of rehabilitation and was taken off of Paxil. Through the beginning of 2010 I was put on and off many antidepressants, all of which gave me horrible side effects. By the time summer arrived my psychiatrist agreed to put me back on Paxil, as it seemed to help me the most with panic and depression, or at least I thought.
This time my body started rejecting it. I tried for months by taking small doses, but I would start having severe nausea, diarrhea, muscle spasms and tenseness all over my body. My next bad moved involved my introduction to a new recreational drug, JWH-018, a synthetic cannabinoid, which has gotten some bad reports of causing seizures and other health issues. I felt fine the first month I started doing it, it was similar to cannabis, but the high was shorter in duration. I noticed the combination of this drug and my problems with Paxil started giving me strange experiences where I would feel like I was going to start convulsing or faint, my body would tense up, my breathing would become irregular and I would get visual disturbances.
I stopped doing both drugs cold turkey. I started having chest tightness, breathing problems, palpitations, chronic nausea, tremors, urinary problems and felt like I was going to have a seizure or black out.
One day I was walking to work and I almost stopped breathing and I almost fainted on the side walk. Every day I get horrible symptoms where I see visual snow, tunnel vision, I feel faint and dizzy, my breathing feels like it's going to stop and I have to force breathe, my heart beats irregularly or too fast, my blood pressure keeps going from high to low, I start twitching from my arms or legs or my spine, I make small involuntary grunts, I start shaking when I get even slightly nervous, I feel numb in various parts of my body, my face starts flushing, I feel sensations of hot and cold over my arms and chest, I get tenseness in my neck and shoulders, I get zapping sensations in my spine, I get short of breath when walking up stairs, I start staring off and unable to notice when people are talking to me very frequently(sort of like absence seizures), I feel like I'm going blind for brief seconds, I cannot focus and my cognition has been impaired, I feel nauseated everyday, I have delayed gastric emptying, I'm constipated and I get weird headaches on the right side of my head. I cannot believe these symptoms are only attributable to anxiety anymore. My bodily systems feel like they're malfunctioning or my brain cannot communicate properly with all of them for brief periods.
I'm shaking badly right now, just typing this.
These symptoms get worse when I consume alcohol, caffeine, cannabis or when I don't get good sleep. The only thing that makes me feel better is when I take my Xanax for anxiety.
My mom has been strangely worried about me having seizures all of a sudden over the past year, but without me telling her I think I might be having them. She doesn't like it when she sees me drinking. And I wonder if she's keeping secrets from me.
Does this sound like a neurological disorder, or am I just suffering from severe anxiety?
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