Stress, anxiety, depression, neurological desease or what is wrong with me??

[Leol]

I am very perplexed, in a few days eveything horrible you can immagine has been triggered in me. Two weeks after handing in a Ph.D. thesis at a very prestigious uni, I could not walk. My legs were completely spastic (mostly from the hips, but also my feet difficult to move), with no muscle power. Later on my arms also became completely weak, I could not use them, my fingers have been almost dead, I could at some point not feel my left arm, and overall right and left side legs/arms feel completely different, which makes coordination difficult. I had to be driven around in a wheel chair, because I could not walk. Since I also have hyper reflexia I was searched for neurological diseases, with MR scanning, blood tests, spinal cord biopsi and muscle biopsi, and nothing was found. I shake a lot, with inner vibrations all over my body constantly (increase with muscular exercises and brain activity), I've had something I believe were hallucinational experiences, and panic attacs. I do not sleep very well with anxious dreems, and never very deep - I have the feeling of always being in a light REM sleep and on a nother concinous level. I am hyper sensitive to light and sounds and have had visual problems, sometimes I can not use my eyes. I am constantly worrying about all sorts of things and have become very anxious, and many of the symptoms increase when I have to perform or do something. It is 6 months ago now that it happend!!! with extensive exercises I am a bit better with walking and muscular power and coordination, but the inner shakings, and what I believe may be anxiety attacs have only become worst. This does not really invite to a bright future, and I dont know what to do. Can it be a post traumatic stress disorder like-thing from doing my ph.d. in a place where I had not much support from my supervisor, only lots of pressures, and a high-performing research institute that I socially never liked working in? I do not take any medications, but have tried propranolol for the inner shakings (which I had to stop because of my blood presure). I am affraid that any other medication could have a negative outcome on the physical symptoms I already have. I've been seeing a therapist as well, but so far it has not helped. Does anybody have any suggestions to what is wrong with me and what I could do to overcome it?? I must admit that I am still worried that I could have some neurological disease, but since this was not found I am probably better of trying to look at it as psycological!  



  

[Roger Gould, M.D.]

Your last line is the key...this sounds much more psychological than neurological, and the timing of onset re-enforces that conclusion.  You should stay with your therapist but also see a psychopharmacologist about antidepressant and anxiolytic medications to help you get over this more quickly.

[ledwards]

Take heart.   I have had a variation of this and it did not come from "bad" stress, either.    We will get better.  Don't be afraid of the antidepressants, they save my life.  Don't waste one precious moment of your new life dragging this around.

[Leol]

Thanks, I will do this. Ledwards - are you ok now? I am terrible affraid of moving strangely for the rest of my life! I've had nothing like this before, besides, yes, perhaps the tendence to being a bit depressed at times (but lasting only for some days).

[ledwards]

I am having a "setback" right now due to lots of good and bad stress in my life.  BUT I handle it better than I used to (the setback).  I try to blame it on every freaky illness and am able to be reassured that thsi will pass and I will return to "normal" as you will!

[susans]

When I read Leol's story I couldn't believe it. The fact that the forum doctor said this sounds psychological seems so incredulous, but it's easing some anxiety I've been having about my own mind. I graduated college Magna *** Laude, and I am now 50 years old and feeling totally overwhelmed and stressed out. I suffer from GAD (used to get panic attacks when younger) and I work full time, have a 7 year old and a 17 year old child, a husband who is verbally abusive and has been depressed and even attempted suicide in the past and have a schizophrenic mother (holocaust survivor). I don't know if it's perimenopause, aging or what, but I make stupid mistakes at work and can't remember things like where I put something. Sometimes I'm convinced there's a ghost taking things away because I remember just having seen them. I've been in therapy forever and have asked my neurologist to test me for Alzheimers because I'm convinced that there's a reason I have become so stupid. Everyone says it's stress - I didn't want to believe stress can make you "lose" your mind, but if Leol could actually lose physical function for psychological reasons (I remember learning about hysterical reactions back in college when I was a psych major, but thought that was not somethng we see in modern times), then I guess it can affect your intelligence.  I truly hope you recover soon, Leol, it must be very frightening to be going through something so serious without a medical cause.

[Leol]

Thanks! I am not surprised about your story, I also feel much more stupide and forget where everything is with stress! There is no indications that I suffer from something seriously physical, in which ever way you look at it with my symptoms I don't fit into any disease (at least that I have found...), and it happend when I was very stressed, so it is probably stress-released. In my country it is something which is spoken about a lot at this mo, movement-problems released by stress (mostly women). Although when it happens like this it is often 'triggered' by an infection or something, and the development of my 'disease' also looked like an infection. But I can not know this. Yes, its frightening and very difficult for me to accept, and to figure out what has happend. Also the fear; will it ever completely go away? I know that I pushed my self far too much for several years both mentally and physically, and it is probably a complex of stress, anxiety, inwarded feelings and just a complete 'burn-out'. All this I am still trying to figure out...