dizziness, vertigo, brain fog, etc.

[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.

[sirjoseph]

i too have pretty bad depression and anxiety. and i have dizziness, tingling along my scalp, and dropping sensations that last a second or two. sometimes it feels like the inside of my head, behind my face, is expanding, and thats when the dizziness gets worse. thats when i start to feel disconnected from everything .i have bad balance too. my ears crackle everytime i swallow. i was diagnosed with allergic rhinitis and postnasal drip in february. i dont know what that has to do with my dizziness but that is the only diagnosis ive had since this started about a year and a half ago. ive thought of all the bad stuff: tumors, MS, heart problems, neck problems cutting off blood circulation to my head, diabetes, dangerous spikes of high blood pressure, but i dont know. all it does is make the anxiety worse, even leading to panic attacks, and it doesnt help my depression much. i guess it must be a sinus or eustachian tube problem. its funny that you mention the dropping sensation, that is a creepy feeling when youre just walking along or sitting, to have it feel like the floor dropped out from under you.

[saus245]

I've also got anxiety and have experienced similar symptoms, especially dizziness, and that dropping sensation. A couple of times I was sure I was going to fall and was reaching out for something to hold on to. I also have crackling in the ears, and some disturbance of vision (dots flying around etc), and various  "diffuse" symptoms that comes and goes. It does indeed feel very "physical" not "psychological" (although that's probably too simple a view), but I'm starting to wonder if it's all caused by the anxiety. I got an MR of my head and neck and a checkup at a neurologist when the dizziness was at its worst, because I too was worried about all the things sirjospeh mentions. But nothing was found. The doctors best bet was that my neck was tense from stress and worrying (due to the anxiety), and that those muscle-pains were mis-interpreted by the brain as dizziness. Far out. Sounds like "I don't know" to me, but what do I know. Anyway, there are two things I'm more or less convinced about after 2 years in this "state": 1. The physical symptoms (dizziness etc) gets worse if the anxiety is bad. 2. It comes and goes, but it does not get progressively worse over time. This leads me to believe it's not some awful deteriorating disease, because that would probably get worse over time. More likely, it's a manifistation of the anxiety itself - maybe. That alone for me gives the whole thing a bit less "oompf" when I start to worry. I don't know if that is similar to your experiences, but I am fascinated by how many people with anxiety that experience that form of dizziness which is not supposed to be able to be caused by anxiety in itself...