I must have done something awful...

[LewisLegion]

...in a past life to deserve this! I just don't get it, I really don't.

Sorry, this is gonna be long...

So a couple months ago, something strange happened. I was sitting at my work desk, just chugging along, when suddenly everything in my field of view seemed to sag off to one side, and then instantly snap back into it's proper place. When it happened, I got a warm sensation along the back of my neck, right where the skull starts. The whole thing lasted less than half a second.

I kind of went 'whoa!' but nothing else happened and I didn't feel otherwise dizzy, so I chalked it up to being tired and not having eaten yet. So I ate and the rest of the day was fine.

Next day, I sit down to dinner and tv with my roommate and as we're watching our show, the same thing happens. Everything kind of pulls and drops to one side, and then snaps back. I startled a little when it happened and my roommate asked what was wrong, and I told her about what had happened the day before, and that it had just happened again. She asked if I was still dizzy and I said no and that I hoped my vertigo wasn't coming back (I had horrible vertigo as a side-effect of Cymbalta, which I am no longer on.)

The next day (day 3), I was driving in to work and it happened again. Now I was alarmed. Three days in a row, and now it was happening while I was driving. Didn't so much as swerve but that's hardly a comfort. Exact same sensation, same flare of warmth on the back of my neck, and it passed just as quickly.

When I got home that night (friday) I asked my roommate if she could drive me in to the doctor's office the following morning, because it had happened again. The next morning the three of us (me, her, and her husband) drove in to my regular clinic as a walk-in. My normal doc was not there, so I saw an alternate.

When my blood pressure was taken, it was high. I don't remember what the high number was, something like 130 I think? But the number that was supposed to be low was 100. I know it's called diastolic and systolic but I can never remember which one is which. He did a bunch of tests (balance tests, checked my eyes and ears, had me smile and frown, etc. etc.) and all were fine. He said given my description and my blood pressure he was worried I was having seizures and wanted me to go in for a CAT scan. He wasn't kidding either, he called the hospital down the street and got me in immediately for one.

Roomates took me over, I had the scan done, and he went over the results, then called me back while I was still in the waiting room of the hospital and told me the scan was clear, they could see nothing wrong.

He said to go home, keep an eye on my blood pressure, if it happened again to go into the emergency room right away, and to check in with my regular doc on Monday. He said not to drive until then.

Didn't happen again. Monday my roomie drove me in, doc looked me over, my blood pressure was fine and had been fine all weekend, so I was given the clear to drive and resume life.

Flash forward to last week. No other incidents. I run out of my thyroid meds right as a huge snow storm hits us (we got 17 inches in a state that rarely sees two in a given year) and shuts everything down. We're not able to get out of my house for a week. During that time, I have no thyroid meds whatsoever. But the thing is...I feel good. Normally off my meds I start getting symptoms right off the bat...panic attacks, unable to sleep or unable to wake up, hot flashes, hands trembling, etc. This time, I felt fine.

So fine, in fact, that when we finally got cleared out of the house and I could resume life again, I forgot to call in my script and get more. All in all, I think I went about a week and a half with no thyroid medication (I'm hypo).

I finally got my pills day before yesterday and started taking them again. Almost immediately I notice I feel 'hormonal' and PMSy though I'm not due for a couple more weeks. I chalk it up to the thyroid hormones, obviously, and figure it's just my body readjusting.

Then this morning, just as I get to work and am walking in the building, it happens again. Only this time it doesn't just lean and then snap back. This time, everything leans and then starts to wobble back and forth. I get the same rush of heat on the back of my neck but the wobbling lasts a bit longer than before. Instead of being over almost instantly, the effect lingers on for a few seconds before finally going away.

At this point, I'm inclined to say its my thyroid meds doing it. I've been on the same meds for a while now and my doses and blood are monitored closely. I get blood tests as often as once a month and all recent once have come out within a point or two of completely normal. But I find it hard to believe that I feel great off the medication, then start taking it again and within a day this happens.

I will be going to the clinic tonight after work again but I am not a happy camper. Things just seem to be hitting all at once. I'm due for surgery on my hip in March but its a surgery my insurance might not cover, so I'm trying to scrape up some savings just in case. My check engine light came on, and I had to slap down four hundred to get my OEM sensor fixed. That was earlier this week. Last night, my 15 year old dog hurt herself somehow...her back is in knots, she doesn't want to walk and stands hunched over. I gave her a massage and she was doing better after that but is still painful this morning, and my roomies may end up taking her to the vet today...yet more money out of my savings. I have doctors bills piling up for pre-surgery stuff and that impromptu CAT scan. And now this. My doc may have to send me in for more tests, especially if my blood pressure is still up. There was talk last time of a neurologist and a skull MRI, all of which is going to cost a lot even with insurance.

And stress makes my pain condition worse, so after a fairly good couple weeks that's starting to rear its ugly, angry head again.

Honestly, I couldn't have been that horrible in a former life, could I?

[Food Lady]

I'm sorry all this is happening. I'm really glad your roommates are so helpful. I'll send up a prayer for you.

[Sapphire Silk]

This is certainly a puzzler.

Yes, diastolic is the lower number, systolic the higher. Diastolic is the pressure in the blood when the heart is at rest, Systolic when the heart is at work.

[dalesys]

LewisLegion, we must have been Gandhi or Buddha to get to have you...

and we'll forgive you if you feel like you must have been Hitler or Satan...

cause it ain't so.

[Seshat]

Lewis, you're one of our other fibro folk, aren't you?

Trust me, I know exactly how you feel. I think I must have been Hitler or Pol Pot myself, to deserve this.

And that string of circumstances REALLY sucks. As does the new symptom. For your sake, I hope it's quickly (and relatively cheaply) identified, and turns out to be either not-serious or quickly-remedied.

You REALLY don't deserve Yet Another Thing Wrong.

[TheSHAD0W]

IANAD, but it sounds like a petit-mal epileptic attack, which among other things is affecting the control of the muscles in one or both of your eyes. There may not be any visible physical defect causing epilepsy, so a CT scan would be inconclusive. An EEG might show abnormalities, but possibly only if the test were being run while you had an episode. I'm surprised the doctor didn't have you wear a halter monitor for a day or two to check for abnormalities there.

A quick Google search shows some connections between thyroid dysfunction and epilepsy, so they are potentially related.

[trailerparkmedic]

Absence seizures (what petite mal seizures are now called) involve a loss of awareness. Basically, someone with absence seizures wouldn't know what was going on. By the time they're detected, someone with absence seizures is having dozens a day. I don't know if it's because they start that way or get worse and it takes that long to detect them.

Focal seizures, on the other hand, affect one part of the body, like the eye.

A Holter monitor is for the heart. I wonder if they have an EEG version.

[LewisLegion]

Dalesys, you are extremely sweet Thank you.

Seshat, indeed, I am a fibro patient. My doctor and I even made a joke about the Yet Another Thing Wrong last night.

Shadow, that was brought up on my first visit but trailerparkmedic is correct. The doc said that generally those kind of seizures involve unawareness and if they don't (I think he called them partial simple seizures?) they usually only precurse a much larger seizure episode such as a tonic-clonic seizure. I'm perfectly aware every time they happen.

Also, I did wear a halter-monitor a year ago, which is why he didn't have me do the test again. I have an extremely mild tachycardia.

Which brings me in to my doc's visit last night and what most likely is going on.

So, talked to my regular doc (she was there, yay!!), we went over everything again, and she took my blood pressure. Diastolic was at 98. When I described the flare of heat across the back of my neck and the fact I've been off my thyroid meds she was pretty sure what it was.

So, here it is laid out.

She's nearly a hundred percent positive I have thyroid-induced hypertension. Basically, my thyroid meds being off cause my blood pressure to spike. In addition, pain causes my blood pressure to spike. So if my pain levels are high and my thyroid is off, I get a double whammy huge sudden spike in blood pressure. When that happens, I get an instantanous bout of dizziness as the pressure hits my brain, which subsides almost instantly as the brain adjusts. Think the crashing of a wave crashing on a rock. It hits and then its done with.

So, that's good if that's the case. We're doing a couple of tests, she's going to not only change my thyroid meds but adjust the dosage slightly, and I absolutely have to go on an actual pain medication regimen for the next few weeks. Sadly, advil won't do which means I'm taking the hard stuff I loathe to take

If it's thyroid induced hypertension made worse by my pain, that will take care of the problem and the episodes shouldn't recur.

If they DO, given some of my other on-going neurologic 'oddities' she is going to order a full contrast MRI of my brain, to make sure I don't have a micro-bleed, small vein disease or MS...MS being the more likely culprit. So that's not so good news.

Lastly, if the MRI is clear, the only other thing it could be is my heart. She said there's a less than 1% chance it's anything to do with my heart. My holter test would have caught pretty much anything in the early stages and the very mild tachycardia it DID catch, if that had gotten worse, she said I would KNOW. The palpitations would have been horrible, I would break into a cold sweat, and feel nauseous every time this dizziness hit...and none of those things have happened. So, heart exam is the last resort if nothing else fixes it.

So, I'm happy that it seems to be something simple and easily remedied, even if it does mean I have to be on the hard meds until after I've healed from my surgery...something I've tried extremely hard to avoid being on as much as possible. Bleh

[dalesys]

Dalesys, you are extremely sweet Thank you.

That's my 1%. As the first clip shows, Cheryl writes some of the most achingly beautiful songs...

And the second shows she is equally good Rule #1 violations.

[auntiem]

This is going to be a weird question - but any chance you briefly heard the sea when these events happened? The reason I ask is because this kind of event would happen to me when my BP abruptly changed (prior to getting medication for it) and my BP was so high that I could actually hear it.
If it turns out to be a BP issue feel free to ask me anything about it - unmedicated I have the BP of a giraffe (220/170 - yup, and you really don't want to know what sent me to the clinic when it hit that mark).
When they test your blood do they check your potassium levels? If your other meds are throwing off your potassium levels that can whack out your BP (at least it does to me).

[LewisLegion]

Thank you auntiem, I appreciate that.

I don't hear the sea when it happens that I've noticed. Sometimes when trying to sleep at night I can hear my heartbeat so loud it feels like my ears are pounding, and I do have terrible tinnitus (which I read can be a symptom?)

I don't know about the potassium, I'll have to ask.

My doc has me checking my blood pressure daily. It's still high. Monday my diastolic was 95 and yesterday it was 100. My systolic seems to be staying about 135 so not nearly as bad. My pulse rate was only 65 each time. Until I get confirmation on my new thyroid meds, I'm cutting out caffeine and trying to stay as low key as possible.

Have I mentioned I can't wait until my surgery is done and I can actually start seriously excercising again?

[LewisLegion]

So, update from Doc: TSH levels are at 55 and should be at 2. We're going a week on the new meds and pain regimen and if my blood-pressure doesn't show significant improvement in the next week, we're going to do the MRI.

[auntiem]

Sometimes BP is stubborn and reacts slowly to adjustments so I wouldn't worry overly that it is still running high. The big improvement you want to see is a bigger "gap" between the systolic/dystolic - so say 135/70 would be a win (purely in my opinion) esp. if you are in pain.
Right now you don't have a very big "gap" so that probably accounts for those events because when you have a spike your BP doesn't have much "wiggle room" and you get that crashing wave feeling while it adjusts.
I hope I explained that well.
I'm hoping that it is pain related hypertension and it starts to behave itself by the end of the week.

ETA - sorry, I just caught the question about the tinnitus. As far as I know it isn't a symptom of BP issues, but I could be wrong.

[Sapphire Silk]

Here's hoping things start to resolve soon . . . .