Does this sound like anxiety?

[honeyytoast]

For context I’m 20, female, 2nd year of uni. I’ve always struggled with low mood and (suspected) depression, and have been on 100mg sertraline for over a year now. It helped massively - went almost instantly from suicidal and unstable to coping decently. I’ve been okay, good even, for a while now.

(Because I feel it’s relevant I also struggle with obsessive thoughts and compulsions, intrusive thoughts, eating issues, sensory issues and so on - but these aren’t severe (I haven’t seen anyone about any of these things).)

However I’ve never been one to get anxious, really, apart from socially (and probably not beyond what is vaguely normal). I don’t tend to consciously get worried or nervous unless there’s good reason.

However in literally the last few days I’ve been hit with this strange feeling in my head - pressure/tightness, like a headache but without any actual acute pain. My vision has also gotten worse and it feels like I can’t see properly. At first I assumed the usual things (lack of sleep/water) but it persisted, and then I had a bad episode of it yesterday in a uni re induction lecture. I suddenly felt awful, nauseous, head felt so weird and like something was really wrong, heart beating fast. I almost had to leave the room to get fresh air, away from the bright lights, to throw up, whatever, but managed to get through the 2 hours and felt better once I’d left.

This scared me enough to ring my dad who’s a retired doctor - he said to call 111, who were worried about vaccine related clotting due to an accompanying headache and sent me to urgent care/A&E. Had a blood test, all fine, sent back (embarrassed for wasting their time but the doctors and nurses were lovely).

So I then booked an eye test which I had today, which found that not only was nothing wrong with my eyes but either my eyesight has actually gotten better since last test, or my current prescription was overkill.

So now I’m out of obvious medical explanations which I was half hoping for. I don’t feel awful currently, but the strange head feeling has never really gone away since it started.

I’m starting to suspect it’s mental health related. I’ve also felt more generally ‘strange’ and confused/slightly worse memory, the other day I woke up from a nap panicked and unsure how I got there and worrying about what had happened in the last few hours and it took about an hour to calm down and remember that I’d literally just gone for a nap. Basically, to simplify, the whole thing feels a lot like a very bad hangover with the spotty memory, feeling very ill, general awful/scary feeling but over the course of a few days and I haven’t been drinking.

Like I say I’m under no particular stress, nothing is hugely bothering me apart from long term things I’ve always had to deal with. I’ve had similar experiences only twice before - once on GCSE results morning where I suddenly started to black out in the shower and had to crawl to my room, put down to anxiety despite not being consciously nervous. And the other time earlier this year, also in the shower, started to feel very faint and sick and had to get out with shampoo still everywhere and sit down on the floor. Felt like I was very ill and again, nothing had happened to cause it (I put that one down to recently unblocking the drain and not waiting long enough for chemicals to diffuse away).

Sorry this was long I’m just annoyed now and want an answer. Painkillers do nothing. I am thinking about booking a GP appointment but not sure if it warrants it. When no actual clear pain is involved, I manage to convince myself I’m making it up the minute I have to describe how I’m feeling to someone else :/

Sorry you're feeling rotten OP. I think that because you're so focused on the sensations and wanting an answer that you're inadvertently stressing yourself and becoming hyper vigilant about probably quite normal physical ups and downs. As long as you've been checked over physically and given the all clear I'd try and distract yourself and let the physical sensations just be, they are very likely to just pass. The more you focus on them, the more you'll notice and worry about all the natural changes that our bodies just experience all the time.

I would look for some counselling/therapy to help with the obsessive thinking and intrusive thoughts, learn some techniques to let your thoughts just come and go without dragging your attention too much.

Good luck op, as long as you've had physical checks and your health is fine I'd just let these sensations pass.

@Notagain20 thanks for your reply 😊 I agree, stressing about it is definitely not helping. Being checked is reassuring though so the edge of the anxiety is gone - now it’s just discomfort, but that really starts to get to you too after a while :/

I agree re counselling/therapy, just not really sure where to start looking - I assume the nhs route is going to take a long time?

It sounds like you had a migraine - which can last on/off over a period of up to 10 days. Definitely book an appointment with your GP and see if you can get some reassurances.

I also think this sounds like migraine. All of what you describe could be migraine. There aren't tests for it, so there won't be a clear answer in that sense. It can be hard to necessarily get good quality help from a GP, as their understanding of it varies so much.
There is a newly published book called Managing Your Migraine by Katy Munro (she's a GP specialising in migraine): maybe get a copy so you're familiar with what it is and how best to approach treating it.
Migraine can feel very emotionally linked, as well as all the grim physical symptoms. Stress and distress can trigger them and while you're in one, your emotional state can be quite altered, on top of feeling some distress at feeling so physically unwell, then there is a hangover feeling afterwards. Worth exploring from the situation you've described.

Thank you both @JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn @Slavetominidictator I hadn’t considered migraines as I suppose I assumed they had to be killer headaches. I’ll look into it more :)