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Spaced out, high, Drunk Feeling. Please help me. (5 MONTHS)

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ecdirtdevil
ecdirtdevil

Hi everyone.

My name is Erik. I am a 20 year old male, thin build. 6' 2'' at 170 lbs. I have had really debilitating issues for the last 5 months. The issue is that I feel drunk, spacey, loopy, high and dizzy all the time. It basically feels the same as if you were tipsy or the high feeling you can get. I also have visual disturbances. My vision has become blurry and I have somewhat tunnel vision. I just feel all around out of it. I find myself daydream, when I say this I mean my eyes don't focus on anything (go blurry) and just look at nothing. I think it might be slight double vision. Sounds are also very werid and it takes alot of energy to focus on visual and audio stimulants. Additionally, I am tired all the time. Extremely tired. Some days I will sleep very well for 10-11 hours and still be tired when I wake up and exercise will not wake me up. It is like the type of good solid sleep you have when your body is sick.. My memory has gotten really bad as well as my ability to process thoughts and engage in conversation. Imagine being drunk all the time...first I have been reading on boards like this for a long time now and have seen some people with these symptoms but no answers!! People seem to disappear. I hope hey have solved this problem but please let me know how!

Let me start by giving some background information. In August 2015 I was in an indoor rock climbing gym and fell from 15 feet straight onto my back. I could not move for a good 15 minutes because it hurt so bad. I wasn't able to do anything athletic after that day for at least a month. However, I did not have my current symptoms after this fall. 

Fast forward to December 15th 2015. I got really sick, was in bed for 4 days. Sore throat, eyes hurt like crazy, and super tired. It was during and after these 4 days that I developed a headache. This headache causes a pressure/dull/sharp pain behind my eyes, the upper bridge of my nose and right in between my eyes on my forehead. This headache lasted for about 4 months. 

At about 3 weeks into the headache I went and saw an ENT as I thought it was a sinus infection. i took multiple sets of antibiotics over the course of the next month to no avail. I got blood tests and liver test at around 2 months into the headache and nothing showed abnormal. I then was able to get into a nuerologist. They were unable to find anything after taking an MRI of my head with a barium contrast. 

Since the beginning of my headache I have been seeing a (PT) physical therapist mostly for my neck and back since after the fall my back is sore constantly. I had a neck injury about 5 years ago on a trampoline so I have a sore neck, tight muscles alot from that. 

At about 3 months into the headache (3/15/2015) I developed a new symptom, the drunk/high, dizziness, loopiness. I had the headache at the same time at this point. My PT suggested that I may have a blood vessel being pinched in my neck or a nerve being pinched in my mid back area where my rock climbing fall pain is mostly at.

I have been to 3 different chiropractors since this has occured about 5 times to each one. It has not helped so far. My PT gave me massages in my affected back and neck areas. 

Also a new thing I've noticed recently is that when I look up (bend my neck to look at the sky) I seem to get some sort of relief? Also ever since the loopy part started (this did not happen when I just had the headache) any amount of alcohol at all will make me SUPER DRUNK, literally like 2 sips. I used to be able to drink 3 full beers before getting buzzed.

I am thinking I want my doctor to give me a full head (brain/upper atlas) to lower back (tailbone) MRI so that my nerves and blood vessels going to my brain can be evaluated. Do you think this is a good idea? Has anyone had these symptoms before? I am now 5 months into this and it is debilitating. 

No doctor is taking me seriously because I am so young and the chances of having a serious problem are supposedly slim because of my age. PLEASE HELP!!! I feel like I'm caught in a dream and losing my awareness and my IQ. I am afraid something is damaging my brain and this is going to be permanent.

7 likes, 262 replies

262 Replies

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  • n53561
    n53561 ecdirtdevil

    Posted

    Hi Erik,

    A lot of what you mentioned regarding the symptoms, I have been experiencing for more than a decade but my situation might be different because I've had fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis before the headaches started. The headache literally never went away since it started developing, although once in a blue moon it would diminish to a tolerable level for someone who's been fighting instense pain for a long time. I work from home selling merchandise online because I'm practically disabled. Between the muscle pain, body and brain fatigue, and the debilitating headache I feel like a vegetable. So I'm going to assume you don't have the muscle pain that comes along with Fibromyalgia since you didn't mention it. Let me ask you a few questions to see if I can relate.

    1. Does the headache accompany symptoms of pins and needles sometimes?

    2. Does it at times feel like pressure emanating from the back of the head? Sometimes it shoots, sometimes it feels like your head is almost on fire? Are there some tender or trigger spots somewhere on your skull and if so, where?

    3. Does the behind the eye pain feel like it's a sore, sometimes a stabbing pain? When you press your eyeballs in while your eye is closed does it give you an intense pain, sometimes burning, the kind you get when you are getting a massage on painful tight muscles.

    4. Do your ears pop on a regular basis? Mine pop more on a bad headache day and looking around makes them pop.

    5. Do you feel tightness in your throat on a regular basis?

    6. Do you have a tight jaw or TMJ?

    7. Does your neck pop when you stretch it right or left?

    I suspect it has more to do with pinched nerves in the occipital area or perhaps below that. That is what my chiropractor tells me although I diagnosed myself to begin with, and he kind of confirmed it from hearing my symptoms. I'm planning on getting a CT scan or an MRI of the back of my head to see if it show anything.

    You mentioned a very interesting phenomenon when drinking alcohol, that is exactly what I feel, which is the reason I don't usually drink except for the occasional wine. Friends around me get the "happy drunk" feeling, whereas I feel dizzier, more disoriented, and my speech becomes very sluggish (I have speech issues on bad days regardless) with signifcantly cognitive impairment. Also, looking up kind of gives me a temporary reduction in the pain, and lying on the bed with my head hanging upside down at the edge of the bed kind of gives me a relief after feeling more pressure on the sides of my head and temples. Still not enough to make it go away when I stand up straight but I do it out of despair. I have a runny nose and phlegm, but that comes with the FMS anyways. The headache I have is neuralgic in nature. I've learned over the years to adopt a regimen of supplements and remedies, although I'm still not out of the woods yet.

     

    • ecdirtdevil
      ecdirtdevil n53561

      Posted

      Hi n53, when you say muscle pain what exactly do you mean? I am so sorry you've had to deal with this for so long. My muscles do not have pain but they do get EXTREMELY tired and sore. I was doing neck stretches today and my arms were getting tired after stretching my neck for about 15 seconds. I had to put my arms down.

      1. I don't beleive that I have had pins and needles, at least not often enough to remember.

      2. I do have some muscles on the back of my skull near my atlas that when I massage help a tiny bit. Not sure if it just feels good and it makes me forget a bit about the pain or not?

      3. Yes the pain in my eyes does feel like a burning type. When I push on the top they hurt as you described but not the middle part.

      4. I don't believe my ears pop. However, for the past 2 months my ears get this really WIERD feeling of liquid draining down into the ear. When I stick my finger in it there's nothing there, so I assume it is nerves playing a mind trick? Or it's the muscles making it feel like that. But I swear, it's the same feeling you'd get if you poured cold liquid (like 1 or 2 drops) into your ear.

      Additionally sometimes my ears will seem plugged. When I lean over (which makes my head pressure worse) my ears will unplug.

      5. Yes I do feel tightness in my throat. Not all the time though. I think I might get it as a result of anxiety. The anxiety being caused by my symptoms never going away. NOT anxiety causing the symptoms, it's an affect. I'm a very non anxious person.

      6. I believe I might have a tight jaw? I used to grind my teeth and I think I still might. I have tried massaging all the muscles on my face before though and none are like SUPER sore. And it doesn't make the headache/loopiness go away.

      7. Sometimes my neck will pop, but not everytime. Doesn't make it go away though.

      8. Hanging my head over the side of my bed makes me have the same symptoms as leaning over. The pressure gets insanely bad and I can't lay like that for long.The pressure builds in my eyes and forehead.

    • n53561
      n53561 ecdirtdevil

      Posted

      Hey Erik,

      Sorry about the late reply. For some reason, this website is freezing my laptop all the time. So as I already mentioned we probably don't have the same exact case, but I'm trying to pin down the cause of your headache and it's possible that the cause of mine and yours are the same or similar.

      So I guess you do have some muscle issues in your neck accompanying the headache, which points to the possibility of a bad nerve. Not having the pins and needles just yet may or may not say something because for me those came later. The relief you get from massaging the back of the head might indicate it's the occipital nerve or something similar. What I sometimes do when I'm in extreme pain is lie down on the couch and press my head down at the edge to get the “good pain” in the tender part which makes me want to scream. Sometimes I get a bit of relief out of it, sometimes not as much but the nerve pain is obvious. I have a portable massager that I also use and press hard against it. The pain you get in your eye sounds like mine. I get the tender pain when I press the upper part of my eyeballs and especially towards the inner corner. Feels like stabbing pain but at times it's also alleviating. On occasion I do get the liquidy sensation in my ear, but I also have congestion which might have something to do with it. They also often feel clogged and I have some hearing issues, along with tinnitis that may or may not last for a long time. The tightness in my throat sometimes make it hard for me to speak and yet it's worse at times when I'm a little tense, but there's a little bit of it even when I'm relaxed. I also seem to have the tingling sensation in my head when I'm speaking and especially when I'm a little angry. As you mentioned, it's the pain that's causing the anxiety not the other way around, the proof being that on a rare good day, I have no anxiety whatsoever and feel like I could take on the whole world. When I asked you about the tight jaw it's because it's also an additional symptom that might come later on with occipital nerve issues and that's because there's a connection to another nerve (trigeminal). In my case, I have to yet find out. What's interesting is that when I wobble my neck from side to side there's a tense feeling right below the TMJ with a crackling sound which indicates there's a connection between my neck and jaw. My neck joints also crackle and pop which I have yet to find out why. I don't grind my teeth whatsoever so I believe the TMJ is a secondary symptom that I gradually got. Yes, when I hang my head down the pressure is even worse, but it's kind of like putting up with worse pain in the hope of easing up the headache when I stand back up. But I'm finding this to be less effective as time goes by and when the pain is more tingly or burning, it doesn't seem to do much. I believe the forced blood flow is what might ease it up at times.

    • new56862
      new56862 n53561

      Posted

      You two both sound like you have what I've got.

      I've been dealing with this for 16 months. Pressure when leaning or bending forward. Ears feel clogged so I pop them which actually eases the pressure within my head as mucus somehow gets squeezed through. I've had scans and all deemed clear, only looks like a small blockage on left centre sphenoid sinus cavity. Surgeon won't operate on NHS but will if I pay him £4500 private. These symptoms that we are having are very closed to something called 'Isolated Sphenoid Sinusits'. Especially the pressure when leaning forward.

      I honestly think it's to do with that but only shows as minimal on scans. For me I had an eye problem where my eyes hurt for 2 months, as I'd they swelled, then this head pressure came. What if the eye problem caused something to drain into the sinus cavity and stick like glue. This would make drainage possible but hampered. It affects me more, the more I move. I can't exercise because of it. Have you ever had eye problems?

    • n53561
      n53561 new56862

      Posted

      You make a very good point, and when you first mentioned it, I looked up the symptoms. They are overwhelmingly common with that of occipital or trigeminal neuralgia. But I'm leaning towards occipital neuralgia so far because it fits better with the history of my syndrome and the nature of neuralgic pain. I have DDD, pinched nerves and very tight painful muscles. Also, the intensity of the headache does not seem to always be parallel with the intensity of my rhinitis, but perhaps they don't necessarily have to be so. I have an old MRI from over 10 years ago, which pretty much came out normal, but I remember something about the sinus being mentioned, which I was told was very common and not symptomatic. I must admit though this is the closest thing to what I'm experiencing, so if treatment for occipital neuralgia fails, this will be the next theory I'll be working on.

      Eye problems, always and for a long time. They are very sore especially when I first wake up. They hurt when I move them, and my ears pop. I also have a weird case of blepharospasm since 2012. My eyelids constantly spasm and it feels like my eyes are spasming along with it on bad days. It feels like the push and pull is coming from the back side of my head and to the front like there's a band wrapped around it. Blurry vision was part of my fibromyalgia for a long time, but I must say supplemenation has decreased their frequency and severity for some reason, and I believe it might have to do with nerve health.

      Does the headache feel like it's one type of pressure pain all the time or does it kind of alternate on different days. Do you feel pins and needles, an electric current, or a hot wire running through your head. My speech is often heavy and slurred and it's usually consistent with the intensity of my headache. I experience a numb tongue at times and normal motor function seems to be malfunctioning. Anyways, whatever I find, I will share. It will be good insight for this forum.

    • n53561
      n53561 new56862

      Posted

      Btw, did you by any chance have a bacterial infection? I've been researching this matter to see what could cause it. Was the CT scan taken of your profile to show the blockage?
    • steven76288
      steven76288 n53561

      Posted

      Almost a week ago I had bacterial gastro. Now i have the feeling that I'm slightly drunk. I feel woozy. When I'm lying in bed and other people are moving I feel like I'm rocking in a boat. When I'm standing/sitting I also feel the same. Its constant.

      As i get motion sickness this is quite the problem and I've already vomited because of it just today (more than 3 full days since my gastro symptoms stopped).

    • David74325
      David74325 steven76288

      Posted

      hey im having gastro issues too and i have this same feeling lately

    • alina04647
      alina04647 David74325

      Posted

      hey, look into possibility of you're having a silent reflux - lpr. It is a type of GERD when acid goes way up your esophagus to your throat, sinuses and middle ears. This a lot of times comes without classic symptoms of heartburn; mucous congestion + irritation to the middle ear cause dizziness and feeling of spaciness.

    • David74325
      David74325 alina04647

      Posted

      Hey.. I'm having these same dizzy symptoms....... started right after my stomach issues began.. was on and of for a while.. then lately its been constant daily for 2+ weeks... feels like mild dizziness and some tension in head...

      going for a Endoscopy next week to finally get a proper diagnoses of it, GERD / Gastritis, inflammation , infection.. whatever.. already had a CT Scan of my entire abdomen...

    • eula1962
      eula1962 n53561

      Posted

      what are some of the remedies to help elievate the feelings. please help

    • MadLib
      MadLib n53561

      Posted

      I have been dealing with so much of the same. When these episodes occur, I feel like extremely high or drunk or something. my head feels heavy so I have to tilt my head to either left or right because I just don't have the energy. I finally got a neurologist and she graciously ordered me an MRI but it takes a while to get the MRI appt or something. I wondered if I might have partial seizures or something because I've also developed muscle spasms/tremors/shakes that can be SUPER severe at times. do you have any updates by chance? hope all is well

  • Craiger5000
    Craiger5000 ecdirtdevil

    Posted

    Hi there. I can relate to the symptoms you describe. I've suffered from chronic tension headaches accompanied by the exact 'out of it' symptoms you describe for more than 16 years. I have pursued every therapy on the planet, had 3 normal MRI's, EEG's etc... Mine started about 6 months following a hockey fight in which I received 2 really hard punches to the side of the head. My issue appears to be concussion related and sadly for me the effects have been long term. Could yours be concussion related? If so, treating it early can possibly eliminate the symptoms altogether. I hope you find relief!
    • ecdirtdevil
      ecdirtdevil Craiger5000

      Posted

      Hi Craiger, I am so sorry you've had that for so long. I can't imagine. 5 months has been incredibly debiliating and frusterating. 

      I have considered a concussion. The only thing that makes me doubt is that I had no symptoms for 3 months after I would have had the concusion. Is it possible to have no symptoms for that long?

      I am going to a concussion specialist this Thursday to get their opionion on the matter.

    • marylynn
      marylynn Craiger5000

      Posted

      if it is it happened over 30 years ago. I have been living with this for 38 years. always there but i also have episodes where it gets worse for a time I never know if i am going to wake up in the AM Debilitaing as i get older I am now 67 and was in my late 30s ..I am sorry you have issues with this ...I never get headaches. Never hit in the head that i can remember. So very sorry I pray it gts better for you.. Blessings Mary Lynn

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