Posted by yxibow on January 25, 2005, at 0:51:36
In reply to Re: what's everyone on? » yxibow, posted by ed_uk on January 24, 2005, at 7:13:03
> Hi,
>
> >Anxiety induced visual conversion disorder or anxiety induced psychosis NOS...
>
> What are your symptoms?
>
> Ed.Oh its a long story but I'll try to make it as concise as possible. Ever since mid November 2001, my visual experience in the world as I knew it has never been the same. We still dont know exactly why though one can hypothesize that my extreme (it was pretty bad) hysteria after 9-11 and anthrax and every other thing that I had some sort of conversion disorder.
In short the symptoms and then in long the road taken -- in short, traffic lights (esp the LED variety which are increasingly common here), rear brake lights, etc, extremely miserably bright... fluorescent lights an intense distraction (going down supermarket aisles the soap boxes lit up almost and shopping for clothes knocking over the racks almost), patterns in clothing extremely distractive and miserable, contrast and brightness in general off, 60hz easily visible, in fact 70hz possibly, in monitors, the list went on.
Now the long story --
It was extroardinarily intense (in my view anyway) at that point, I first noticed it driving down a narrow forest highway to see the Leonids that I was nearly blinded by oncoming traffic and I couldnt find my way to a parking spot. I saw maybe one meteor and gave up and hightailed it back home as best as possible. A month passed waiting for an opthamologist's appointment, since (and there had been previous bizarre histories in the past year of unexplained fevers that werent fevers, i.e., under 100 that lasted nearly through the end of 2001 for which I had -every- battery of test and no conclusion but that I was healthy) that was about the only test left. Well, the test proved that I had two eyes and the optic nerve, etc, was fine, so I wasnt going blind. I wasnt sure what to do next.. I was getting more hysterical in general...I have been seeing a psychiatrist for general depression since I came home from college, which has been far too long.
Anyhow finally it got to a point that he reduced my experience to an overabundance or activity at the D2 receptor, and I reluctantly had little trials of Zyprexa (which made my hands shake and still probably has never completely stopped) and Risperdal (which made me crazy at night when I took it and caused one of my fingers to twich, which has never stopped, but that is all water over the dam, I give twitchy fingers for this problem these days)
Anyway new years past medicine free and then went on to Luvox which slowly started to actually downregulate the dopamine by increasing serotonin, at some point Remeron was added by chance because im an insomniac and it acted in my belief as a partial antipsychotic due to its blockade, the change was dramatic in my disorder for the better.
To assuade me, and a new GP that I had, I had an MRI done... which greatly relieved my concerns, all was normal.
A lot of therapy sessions and medication changes here and there and fast forward to the present, things are not gone, but they're more managable and I dont have the suicidality I had at the beginning where I felt at times at night that I could just obliterate things by crashing into something. I now have to deal with a large weight problem from the Remeron and the Seroquel although given the choice of lack of appetite and intense disorder and a complete cure and livin large to speak, I'd take the latter. I can always lose the weight. That's the problem now... whenever I increase my metabolism to excercise, it also revs up the visual symptoms that are left, slight electrical snow, damn irritating. But I do anyway for my health. And I suppose I continue to search for the holy grail, although I can't wait for Godot forever -- my life is in stasis at the moment and that's a whole different set of issues.
It's hard to think about working in the capacity you did before a sledgehammer came and raked your frontal cortex like this.I've probably omitted some details here and there but thats the general gist. And although I wandered on to a "visual snow" group on the web, most of their symptoms seem to be a bit different. Its hard when you dont appear in Medline.
Tidings
- J
poster:yxibow
thread:444643
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050124/msgs/447201.html