Mucous and vision

A year ago I  developed a sticky mucous dripping down the back of my throat, blocked nose that kept switching side, a swollen gland on the left side of my neck (this was fairly large and lasted about a month), and feeling of something poking at the bottom of my right eye. I am not certain of the cause, but my suspicions lie in  when I took an e pill and mouldy cannabis -  I got stabbing pains on the RIGHT side of my head and on the RIGHT side of my eye, while my friends didn't, despite using the same substances. Over the course of the summer I began to worry about these symptoms and started looking around on the internet and had basically convinced myself I had ENT cancer. There was also a sporadic increasing pressure in my head that I could not ignore and made myself go mad over it. Another symptom is derealization. This is what I consider to be a purely visual symptom - everything look flat and hard to look at (ESPECIALLY with glasses on, I don't wear them at all anymore unless absolutely necessary) and this has really took its toll on me. I eventually had a panic attack (because of the pain/pressure in my head) and the feeling of derealization became permanent.

I've had no history of mental health disorders and so this was not the cause. This was confirmed when one night in December 08, I forced myself to sneeze and LOADS of mucous came out. I looked up from my tissue - and suddenly - everything looked the same. My RIGHT eye also started to water, and something felt like it unclogged somewhere in my RIGHT ear. This lasted about half a day and then I woke up derealized again. So my inkling is that it must be something to do with the ear unclogging. I've been to the doctor and tried various nasal sprays, an ENT specialist has looked up my nose for polyps and found none, and a recent sinus CT scan displaying only minor results (a deviated septum to the right, and a slight mucous thickening on the left side), which is leaving me desperate.

Thanks for any help.

[Michael J Kutryb, MD]

That't great that you saw an ent specialist.  I strongly suggest you stop using drops and smoking and that will have a major beneficial impact on your health.  Also make an appointment with a ophthalmologist about the eye problems.  Also look into allergies as a contributing factor to your problems. If you are still smoking especially marijuana then I suspect that will be a very major source of problems.

Michael Kutryb, MD