Posted by krisdance83 on August 15, 2004, at 15:21:14
This all relates to medication/psychological issues, but it takes a little bit of a story, here goes:
Last September I began having vertigo. One doctor said it was allergies creating fluid in my ears that messed up my equilibrium. One doctor said it was "ear rock" out of place. Either way they both said that once you get an inner ear problem/vertigo, that you're prone to it for life. Well I got through that year because once allergy season ended I felt better. In April of this year I started with constant lightheadedness, daily. I was nauseous, had a low fever for about a month, was always tired, no appetite. Felt better after about 3 weeks but soon the vertigo came back and I began with a funny feeling around my eyes. This feeling is like no other that I have ever had. It was as if there was something echoing inside of my head everytime I heard an unexpected noise, saw a bright light. Just a very sensitive feeling in my head, very uncomfortable. That feeling lasted for about a month and a half and it was accompanied by feeling very weak, the same symptoms that I had in April. Around July 4th I began feeling much better. The eye feeling has been milder but I still get extremely lightheaded at least once a day. Sometimes I have a yucky stomach or a feeling around my mouth like a sensitive gag reflex. Today, August 15th I feel all of these weird feeling creeping back to me.My doctors found nothing physically wrong with me, and said it could be a lingering virus. My neurologist said that the funny feeling I am having are from the vertigo but that I only feel them because of a chemical imbalance of low serotonin. He said that everyone with vertigo has these symptoms but cannot recognize them because their chemicals are fine. To fix this he wanted to give me Paxil but I have heard bad things about paxil and I wanted to try something more mild. The only psychological feeling I have is OCD and very mild anxiety. I don't have depression but I did go through some hard times last year. So I should say I don't FEEL depressed but it could be there. So, he prescribed me with Lexapro. I haven't taken it because I started to feel better after July 4th and could live w/ those feelings of mild discomfort. I had hope that I was getting better.
Now I kind of feel like I need to be sure that it isn't something physical before I take the medication. How could a chemical imbalance or a psychological problem make me feel this physically ill? I thought that low serotonin brought on OCD (which I do have), and depression but never thought it could make my body feel ill. It has come to a point where feeling sick every day is actually what is bringing me down. Being sick is making me depressed, not the other way around. I haven't felt like myself since March. I wish I could get through some time without feeling horrible. I am normally a very happy person and this problem is not good for my quality of life.
Another thing I should mention is that I am very very phobic of vomitting so everything I do revolves around not throwing up. Otherwise I probably would have just taken the Paxil to see if it would help but I didn't out of fear.
So here are my questions:
Can low serotonin make a person feel PYSICALLY ill? If yes, can serotonin levels vary from day to day as some days I feel better. Can this problem fix itself or is medication the only way?I am currently seeing a therapist about my OCD, fear of vomitting, and to deal with feeling sick all of the time. She told me that people do feel physically sick when they have chemical imbalance but I've never had anyone tell me that they were. And she has never heard of anyone having the weird eye, echoing head feeling. I have read on here that that feeling is associated with withdrawals from different drugs but I have never taken any.
Basically I am posting all of this to see if anyone out there has any information that can help with these issues. Any information or experiences at all would be greatly greatly appreciated as I am having a horrible time with this. I can deal with my OCD so I would only take the Lexapro to help my physical symptoms if that is possible but then I'm worried that the side-effects will outweigh the good it does. Still I find it hard to believe that all of my physical problems come from this chemical imbalance because I have many friends that take Paxil, zoloft, etc and only take if for anxiety and depression and have never had any physically ill symptoms. Actually one person has told me that they had daily nausea and vertigo but didn't know why and Paxil made her feel 100% better.
The doctor told me that the Lexapro would get rid of my nausea but does low serotonin cause nausea in the first place? I thought it was serotonin syndrome or TOO MUCH serotonin that caused nausea.
Sorry I keep rambling but I have so much in my head to ask and say I just don't quite know how to word it. I hope you can understand my points because I realize this post is probably very unusual. And it is very long so bless you if you've gotten this far. And help/experiences/advice/ANYTHING I would be so thankful for! Thanks so much for reading!!!!! I just want to try to get back to living my life and I don't know what to do.
poster:krisdance83
thread:377966
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040811/msgs/377966.html