Is this my anxiety or something else? Please help.

[AllisonBlaire]

Hello, I'm a 20 year old female who's been dealing with severe every day anxiety for the last five years. And all through out this I've experienced just about everything. Been in and out of the ER thinking I'm dying, been checked head to toe multiple times thoroughly and checked out completely fine. However, the last week I've been experiencing headaches like nothing before. And yes, I am prone to migraines and headaches. I've been having horrible migraines though but, the worst is that my head just feels weird and wrong - like it's going to explode or like it's expanding/tightening, like there's a constant pressure or like it's made of glass and the only possible relief would be for it to break. Now, I know that's a weird way of putting it and Monday I wound up in the ER yet again and explained this and they were confused and said the only way they could think to name it is as a headache. Even though I know it's not what a headache feels like. But they gave me a prescription migraine pill (Tramadol) and a shot of some pain killer. After 20 minutes the doctor came back and I wasn't doing better so he decided to grab me a Xanax, shot me with a thing of morphine and ran leave a Cat scan. Everything came back normal. He said the only other thing he could do was a Spinal Tap, but that I showed no signs of meningitis and that he thought it was unnecessary and that if I was his kid, he wouldn't have it done but it was up to me and my parent's. Needless to say I was horrified of a huge needle being shoved in my spine and if he thought I was fine, I wasn't going through it. And after the morphine kicked in I really didn't care at that point for the weird head feeling.

It's been almost a week now though and all I've been able to do is sleep, I barely eat, moving too much makes it worse. I feel a head rush often and I just feel like I'm going insane and it's never going to go away. I feel nautious but I haven't thrown up at all. And last night when I woke up I took a Tramadol and shortly after I couldn't talk, was slurring my words, I couldn't walk, I was confused and wobbly so I went back to sleep and when I woke up about two hours later I was fine. Took another Tramadol and shortly after experienced that again, went back to sleep and woke up fine. So I haven't taken a Tramadol since. I read that Tramadol and Pristiq can cause a rare disease - serotonin syndrome - and saw some of the symptoms were what I had been experiencing but, as I'd only taken the two pills and haven't since and the symptoms stopped, maybe that wasn't it. Could it be though?

As for everything else, I guess what I'm asking is 1) is it possible and quite probable that I'm just stressed, worried, and my anxiety has caused this headache and weird feeling 2) has anyone experienced anything like it before 3) is it possible I have meningitis despite what the doctor thought and should I go ahead and get a spinal tap? I'm freaking out and don't know what to do. I feel lost and alone and like I'm going to die. :/

[birdie0907]

Suffering the pain of headaches is enough to make a person anxious, so don't be too hard on yourself. Once you get overly anxious you start overanalyzing yourself, so you are in a bad way since the headaches are so strong.
Can you recap the headache frequency? You said you are prone to them but the last week is very bad. How often excluding that week do you get them?

If the doc said he wouldn't do a spinal tap on himself or kid, I would chicken out and agree with what you did and use that as an excuse to avoid the big needle.

[AllisonBlaire]

Your's make you feel like you're going crazy? I literally don't understand how stress and anxiety can cause your body to react so horribly. It's hard to calm down when it's constant. I'd been to a neuro once but he didn't do crap, most of the doctors I've seen for my anxiety/headaches don't do anything. But I'll seek out another one. Thanks

[Dolphinleiker]

I know how you feel i have been living with headaches like that for the last 3 years and all they did was give a script for muscle relaxers and send me to a headache specialist. Which he did not know what was going on either. Recently I got my eyes checked and ended up with glasses which helped a little but I still get those headaches. So look and see if there is neurologist that specializes in headaches they might be able to help you. I hope this helps. Don't worry or stress it will just make the pain worse.