Head Preasure, Dizziness, Confusion

[hardworkinpd]

Hello, I am at my wits end. I am a 55 year old male. I am feeling very scared. I have what I call pressure on the inside of my head on the left side. Seems to originate from the left ear area most of the time but also from left jaw and alittle from the base of the back neck. I feel disoriented, confused, have blurred vision and dizzy spells when active. I have allot of snap crackle pop when turning my head and also a tingle in my left ear (dropping my jaw gets rid of that). Sometimes also I get a slight pain across my chest and numbness down my left arm all the way down to my left 2 fingers.

I've had this for about a month now.

I had something similar to this about 2 years ago that lasted about 3 months and then it just seemed to go away but has left me paranoid that it would happen again. I was under an MDs care at that time and did have an MRI that showed disks in the back of my neck were messed up but I never followed threw with it because the problems seemed to subside.

I have had vertigo with heights ever since I was 18. I had an untreated neck injury when I was 18 which has caused a phobia. I don't know if this is all connected.

Hot pad, Motrin 500,  zanax and not moving around helps, but I can't be living like this.

I am very afraid and have the fight or flight thing going on big time. I don't want to even leave the house. I don't want to go driving, I don't want to get another MRI and I don't want to get an operation.

I have read all over the web about my symptoms. I do have those bad disks in the back of my neck but could this be MS? An ear problem? A jaw problem?

This is very hard on my wife and daughters too.

Any ideas?

I will post back.

Thank You for Any Help

[hardworkinpd]

The dizziness and side of my face pressure seems to be caused by my ear. I am taking antibiotic and drops right now and I seem to be getting better in that area.  

The dizziness episodes helped trigger this panic fight or flight  and my family MD gave me zanax it kind of works but it makes me feel tired and lazy. He has tried other drugs on me but most of them make me feel weird.

And yeah I need to go get an MRI and something done with my disks in my neck, but I want to get a little bit of control of my nerves first.

I will post back.

[hardworkinpd]

Can't see the Doc until tomorrow. Took a zanax and motrin. Feel livable for awhile but don't trust it. Will have my daughter ride with me to do a few things. No freeway driving though.

I will post back.

[hardworkinpd]

Thank you very much for your reply. Well today, I've got to go after this aggressively. I'm going to start off by seeing my family Doctor (again) and getting a plan of attack! My family Doctor is a good guy old school Doctor. He thinks I'm just a very nerves guy, panic attacks, but I'm going to tell him to please set me up with test and specialist and help me with a plan of attack.  
I'm just going to have to white knuckle all this. Thank Goodness I do have some sort of insurance, at least it gets me in the door. But I know I will have to pay allot and end up fighting the insurance company, but that's another can of worms.
Gosh I'm so afraid to do all this. Afraid of a possible panic attack, afraid of what I'm going to have to go threw, afraid of some possible dire diagnosis.

Thanks Again and I will post back.

[Dr Sharma]

Hi there. You have multiple neurological symptoms which need to be investigated for multiple sclerosis. MS is a chronic demyelinating disorder where the disease phase is characterized by active phase and remissions. It has multiple symptoms and signs and is a diagnosis of exclusion. The symptoms of multiple sclerosis are loss of balance, muscle spasms, numbness in any area, problems with walking and coordination, tremors in one or more arms and legs. Bowel and bladder symptoms include frequency of micturition, urine leakage, eye symptoms like double vision uncontrollable rapid eye movements, facial pain, painful muscle spasms, tingling, burning in arms or legs, depression, dizziness, hearing loss, fatigue etc. The treatment is essentially limited to symptomatic therapy so the course of action would not change much whether MS has been diagnosed or not. Apart from clinical neurological examination, MRI shows MS as paler areas of demyelination, two different episodes of demyelination separated by one month in at least two different brain locations. Spinal tap is done and CSF electrophoresis reveals oligoclonal bands suggestive of immune activity, which is suggestive but not diagnostic of MS. Demyelinating neurons, transmit nerve signals slower than non-demyelinated ones and can be detected with EP tests. These are visual evoked potentials, brain stem auditory evoked response, and somatosensory evoked potential. Slower nerve responses in any one of these is not confirmatory of MS but can be used to complement diagnosis along with a neurological examination, medical history and an MRI in addition, a spinal tap. Therefore, it would be prudent to consult your neurologist with these concerns. Hope this helps. Take care.