Dizziness!

Most of you understand the so called 'Health Anxiety' that dominates my life; this is an affliction I have been saddled with for probably two years now, since returning from Spain to the UK. Most people have said the feelings I am experiencing, are all in my head and so far I have gone along with their amateur assessments. However, their diagnosis failed to understand the nature of the human body. Over the past twenty-four months I have begun to unravel the difficulties I have been suffering and far from being health anxiety' based, they are real, debilitating concerns, that play an active role in my well-being.

There is one particular problem, that seems to be plaguing my life daily, especially at the moment and it appears to be getting worse, every single day. Dizziness, disorientation, lightheadedness and blurred vision, all contribute to a feeling of unbalanced agitation and torment and no matter what I do, nothing makes it better.

My first bout occurred about a year ago. Whilst working, I was overcome with a sense of disassociation, everything was spinning, and I felt like I was going to collapse. Immediately I took myself to A&E fearing the worst, as someone with anxiety generally does. They did a series of tests and examinations and came back with nothing, blank, unable to understand what the cause of the issue was. I was given some anti sickness medication and told to ride it out.

The vertigo seemed to have resolved itself, by the time I believed I had COVID in March of this year, when it returned with a vengeance. Ever since then I have been feeling steadily worse and it is beginning to take its toll. I did manage to get an appointment with an optician, thinking that maybe the varifocals  I wear were responsible. There have been similar stories of other people, who wear spectacles, experiencing symptoms like mine. The test concluded the lenses were correct although I do have the beginnings of cataracts forming in both my eyes. I was told to persevere and once again sent on my way.

I have periods when I can wear my glasses, but there are other times I just can't, as it makes the wooziness worse. Sometimes I have to work all day, unable to see properly with blurred vision. I have also started to become sensitive to light and find the intensity of the sun or fluorescent strobes too much to bear. A second optician asked me to describe my symptoms and made a diagnosis of silent migraines. You experience all the signs of a migraine, without the actual headache itself. After talking with him further, he explained the visual disturbances, dizziness and aura involved, in great detail, all of which manifest in my case.

My Doctor has however, as you would expect, suggested this is just an attribute of anxiety, sighting dizzy spells as a common factor in Generalised Anxiety Disorder, which she believes I have. I was also prescribed Propranolol, a beta blocker drug to help cope with anxiety. This nasty little pill was terrible to get used to. I had to stop taking it twice, because of the side effects, which do include feeling faint and unsteady. I believe my pulse rate dropped so much, that it became difficult for my heart to pump enough oxygen rich blood around my body, to the extremities, including my head. Also, as a consequence, I suffered with extremely cold hands and feet another sign of a circulatory disorder.

I have started to wean myself off the Propranolol, which is extremely difficult to achieve. Taking oneself off beta blockers is painful and shouldn't be done lightly. Prescribed 120 mg a day, during the height of the pandemic, today I am down to 40 mg. I am however experiencing mild chest pain and thus far my unsteadiness has just increased, although my cold hands and toes have all but disappeared. I am of course hoping the way I am feeling today, is because of the withdrawal effects of the drug. Given a choice now, I would never take this medication again.

Dehydration was another possibility, causing me to drink copious amounts of water, keeping me up half the night, running back and forth to the toilet. Introducing more iron to my diet, thinking I had anaemia, didn't improve the problem, nor did taking magnesium supplements because of the medication I take to control my hiatal hernia. Lansoprazole is great for reducing stomach acid, but it does deplete magnesium levels, thus rendering long term use useless. Speaking with my Doctor on Monday, I hope to arrange a medication review and eventually come off this acid lowering drug soon. All of this medication is great initially, but after it for a while, you soon realise, just how bad it is.

There is another theory, that has been suggested as a possible reason for the feeling of disorientation, and that is Long COVID. Speaking to others who had or who were suspected of having Coronavirus, many of them are experiencing symptoms beyond the initial illness and dizziness seems to be a strong contender in every case. This is nausea that I haven't ever experienced, and at times it can affect many aspects of my life. I am just hoping that by stopping the Propranolol and once again making an appointment to see an optician, having yet another eye test, that the symptoms will start to dissipate and I can get back to a sense of normality, but that isn't certain.

For someone who does suffer with anxiety, I am constantly thinking the worse and have been close to taking myself to hospital on a number of occasions. I hope the next few weeks will begin to offer a more significant diagnosis of what is going on, so I can once again start to enjoy life, until then I'll just keep managing as best I can, holding on tightly to surfaces, to stop me falling and smile sweetly as if everything is going alright...... Which of course it really isn't!