Brain tumor or Anxiety

[jburton0213]

I am a 25yo male in decent health. This all started on Easter. I started noticing this feeling. At first it was very subtle. Then it grew over the next week. The next week I started to experience nausea and by this time the feeling had grown into just full blown dizziness. Then after going to the mountains and having my ears pop and coming back i kept feeling the weird pressure feeling you get when you change altitude. It just kind of moves around my head and all I could do to describe it is say that it feels like pressure. Then I started noticing a ringing in my ears that’s been getting progressively worse and now everything sounds as if it’s extremely loud especially high pitched noises. Then last week i felt a tingling in my left foot and hand, and then it went away, mostly. Now it kind of feels like numbness that comes and goes. Its mainly my foot, it could be from using the clutch in my car because its pretty hard. I'd try to tell myself that it’s the clutch but sometimes i just can’t. I've noticed some short term memory problems as well, like forgetting what i was doing. I also am getting this feeling at the top of my neck, like a feeling of lightheadedness. I had headaches off and on but they’re not the typical brain tumor headache. It’s not very painful and the pain is concentrated on the left side but it does hurt other places. The pain only lasts for about a second. Some mornings i notice the dizziness as soon as i wake up, and some mornings its subtle. However, it usually hits me pretty hard when I've been up for a few hours. I’ve been to the ER twice but this was only after about the first week. I also have lost about 15 pounds since the start of this. They did a CT scan without contrast and that was negative. And also some blood tests. They sent me home and told me it was an inner ear infection. The second time i went they treated me like i was crazy and sent me home after being there for 30 minutes. I’ve seen my doctor 3 times in the past week and he’s checked to see if i have a swollen optic nerve but doesn't see one (big indication of a tumor). He keeps telling me that its anxiety and prescribes me some antidepressants. To me, this is a cop-out thing to do. I asked my doctor to refer me to a neurologist but he can’t get me in until two months away. The reason for this is probably due to the fact that I'm on Medicaid. I do have an appointment with an ENT to beg for an MRI but i might run into the whole 2 month thing again, which by the way I've already seen and he doesn't think that its coming from my ears. I have increased wax production in one ear and the same ear doesn't seem to want to pop when i try to hold my nose and blow hard. This also starts after a few hours of me being awake. Sorry if this is so long and is all over the place but i am really freaking out about this. At this point I am freaking out about this everyday and sometimes it brings me to tears. I'd like to think that I'm imagining all of this but i don't know... The feeling that i have definitely makes me think that there is something terribly wrong. Could this be all attributed to anxiety? What should I do? Answers from people that have had a brain tumor would be extremely helpful.

[LivingInHope]

Thanks for the update!  Have you gotten your car fixed yet?

[rumpled]

And keep the windows open in the mean time if you have to use the car.

My mom got legionaire's disease from her car air conditioner once - she never used it and it grew that virus... amazing the stuff that happens in a car.

[enzymelover]

Wow! Carbon monoxide poisoning? Great sleuthing! That would definitely cause the headaches and dizziness. Stay out of that car!
Be sure you stay hydrated, and let us know if all your symptoms go away. It would be great if this is really the problem, so much easier to fix!

[jburton0213]

Well i got the MRI with contrast and an MRA of my neck.  It was all clear thankfully.  But i still had this problem on my hands that i did not know about.  Then the other morning i had woke up and was looking on my phone.  At the very start of this I had suspected my car because it began a few weeks after i put a new motor and exhaust system in the car.  I couldn't figure out how my car had anything to do with it.  Then i looked up poisoning from car and carbon monoxide poisoning came up.  I started to read some things about chronic, low exposure, carbon monoxide poisoning and everything hit home, more than anything else i had read about.  The more i thought about it the more it made sense.  I work in my car and i'm in it for probably 6 or 7 hours a day, when i work.  Then i started thinking about how at the first i was working 3 days a week, and then i started only working 2 days a week because business slowed down.  I remember this being really bad towards the first of it and then tapering off some, but still always there.  Then the last few weeks i started working 4 or 5 days and it has come back and hit me harder than before.  I figured it out on Tuesday and i have not driven the car since then.  I can feel it tapering off now but i think the next few days will definitely tell me if this is it or not.

[LivingInHope]

So glad you got a doctor who was willing to do some testing!  Let us know what happens!

[jburton0213]

Went to the ENT and got him to refer me to a neurologist the very next day!  Went Friday and he said he didn't think it was a tumor but he suspects MS.  I'm going next week to have an MRI and some blood work done.  I'm so glad somebody actually took me seriously.  Although I wouldn't me thrilled about having MS, at least i could live with it!

[rumpled]

Note also that not all iron supplements are the same - some are just not absorbed well, and if you take them, say with coffee or tea, the drink will bind to the iron and this take all the benefit away. Hemochromatosis runs in my family (too much iron) so the tricks to absorb iron are known - I have the gene, but by iron is low so far.

Try iron-rich foods for a while and see if that helps.

[enzymelover]

   I hope it turns out to be nothing more than an ear infection. Good luck with your upcoming doctor visits. Hope the ENT gets you all fixed up! Please let us know how it goes.

[jburton0213]

Thank you all for your responses.  That was pretty much all of my symptoms, i cant really think of anything else. I've been a bit more calm the last few days.  Yesterday i felt a lot better and today is turning out to be not so bad.  At work yesterday i noticed that i felt really good until i got where a lot of things were going on around me and a lot of noise, then it hit me pretty hard.  I don't know exactly what kind of blood tests they did at the hospital but i know they checked my thyroid and my blood sugar and everything checked out.  I still haven't heard back from my doctor about the blood tests he had done last week, i probably wont.  He had suspected a sodium deficiency but i know he did some other tests too.  I think i'm going to change doctors.  I told him that the wellbutrin made me dizzy when he first prescribed it to me about 6 months ago and he said "thats not a common side effect for that medicine".  I went home and looked at the bottle and it said "dizziness may occur".  I had suspected an Iron deficiency at some point so i got some iron supplements at started taking them and they didn't help neither.  The numbness has pretty much stopped so i'm not worried about that anymore.  My doctor prescribed me seroquel and wellburtin and i am taking it.  I think it does have something to do with my ears.  I was having a dizzy spell earlier and did the whole balance thing and about fell down.  I also read someone's description of an inner ear infection and i could relate to a lot of it.  My left ear does feel stuffy and this morning i noticed a little blood in the ear wax when i cleaned them.  So ill try to keep from talking myself out of it until a new symptom pops up.  Thanks again for all of your responses and sorry it took me a bit to respond.

[rumpled]

I would go to the store and get one of the wax cleaning kits, use it and see if it helps. I know my FIL gets that it it makes him bonkers.

The problem is that you have had things ruled out - any tumors now would have to be tiny, and your issues do sound, at first blush like ear and could even go into hormones maybe...

ERs are not there to diagnose - they treat critical cases so you can't get much help and well, I have to wait 2 months to see my neuro too. My ENT gets me in earlier but only because they know me there! But everyone waits.  So try the ear thing so at least you can tell them that was done and see if it helps - and let us know.

(had two pituitary tumors myself, have 3 relatives with brain tumors)

[LivingInHope]

If they definitely diagnosed you with inner ear infection, going to an ENT and getting vestibular testing if you are still dizzy would be a good idea.  In your blood testing, did you get your ferritin and iron tested?  Because iron deficiency can cause feelings of dizziness, light-headedness, decrease in concentration, fatigue, and headache.  Also, did they check your thyroid function?  Because if that's off, it can affect your emotions and your weight as well.

With the numbness in your foot- have they checked into pinched nerve and checked to see if your circulation is good on that side?

A lot of real physical symptoms can come from anxiety- not sure that tinnitus is one of them, however.   If the doc is prescribing a mild tranquilizer, like librium, why not give it a try short term and see if you don't feel better while you are waiting to find if there is an underlying medical condition causing any of your symptoms?

(My background- immediate relative with meningioma on brain, and I have a microadenoma on pituitary gland in the brain.)

[enzymelover]

    Well, I haven't had a brain tumor but my son has - a pituitary craniopharyngioma. Does that count?
Your anxiety could be from adrenal stress, which can also cause morning hypoglycemia and dizziness. Low cortisol could be involved - this can be checked with an AM cortisol blood test. My son's adrenals were affected by his tumor, but you don't have to have a tumor to suffer from adrenal stress. Being close to tears can even be a symptom of hypoglycemia and adrenal fatigue, as well as weight loss.

Tumors do show up better on MRI with contrast so push for the MRI. Glad you have appointments with neuro and ENT. Keep trying for an earlier appoint., not because this is serious, but because you're having so much anxiety over it. Until then keep bugging your doctor, get weekly blood pressure and blood sugar taken - try to do it when you are having the symptoms.

Please try not to worry. Do things that help you calm yourself. It could be a tumor, or not. Do you have any other symptoms besides those you first described?

Enzy