brain fog, dizziness, vertigo

[danirose]

I'm an 18 yo female.  I've been diagnosed with depression, and generalized anxiety disorder.  For the past, i'd say, abotu 6 months, I've been experiencing on and off an annoying and scary sort of brain fog.  This is the only way I can describe it.  It's almost as if i'm living in some type of dream world, and everything is super unreal.  It waxes and wanes.  I went to the doctor at a time it was really bad, and he brushed it off as sinuses and gave me some zyrtec.  Needless to say, it didn't help.  I've had cat scans of my sinuses and they're totally fine.  Lately, i've been really dizzy all the time.  And i've experienced episodes of vertigo, where it feels like the floor drops,and nausea that accompanies it, but the nausea is not very often, only once or twice.  I've always had problems with getting up too fast, and sometimes out of nowhere, my head will start to get tingling sensations.  And when I close my eyes sitting up, like when i'm in class, everything seems to be spinning, and I'll get that falling sensation that people get as they're drifting off to sleep.  I don't know if all of this is due to my anxiety, but i'm taking medicine for it, so I feel like it shouldn't be.  I am overly concerned with my health, but I just can't help but feel that there is something actually wrong with me.  My mother has MS, and I know that these can be signs of MS, or at the very least, a neurological problem.  But, then again, I did have surgery on my ear when I was younger, so i'm thinking it may be vestibular as well.  I'm scareeeeeeeeeeeeddddddd.

[KatEyes]

While some of your issues sound like inner ear, I had similar symptoms and for years they did brain scans etc with no cause found. Then a doctor decided to do an MRI and MRA of my neck. Turns out I had a bulging disk that would, depending on my position, compromise both a nerve and a vessel in the back of my head/upper neck.

As far as the anxiety and depression, maybe consider a sleep study because sleep disorders often manifest with symptoms like depression and anxiety.

You may have more than one source of your symptoms, which would make them as a whole not make sense.

[danirose]

i haven't checked out any of my symptoms medically. most of the time i go to my primary doctor with complaints about them, he tells me they're all in my head, or treats me like i'm crazy.  i am confident with the fact that i have anxiety and depression, i just don't think that's what's causing these symptoms.

[pattig]

Curious about your diagnosis of depression/generalized anxiety disorder.  Have they checked you out medically for all of the symptoms you have?  There are balance tests that can be peformed to see if there is vestibular damage, what about MRI/CT Scan of the brain in addition to sinuses.  What about bloodwork?  Have that all come back clean?

I am interested because my daughter has had similarsymptoms for over 6 months.  They did determine that she had vestibular damage from a viral infection that caused her vertigo/dizziness.  But even avfter trying vestibular rehab she continued to feel a lot of symptoms, mostly head pressure.  Due to the fact that they could find any medical reasons for the head pressure and because she complained of a multitude of other symptoms (nausea, visual disturbances to name a few) she was diagnosed with depression/anxiety and was placed on an anti-depressant.  She has only been on it about 3 weeks, so not sure if it is going to work or not.