Help! Is anyone else having these horrible head feelings?

[allthegirls]

The night before dd1 and dd2 were about to start school after the xmas holidays I went to go to bed feeling very tired. When i got upstairs I all of a sudden started to panic for no real reason. I went very hot and very shaky and could not get my breath. I have never felt anything like it before! I decided to get in the shower to see if i could make myself feel better which it didnt so i went downstairs and begged my dh to come up to bed. i did not tell him what was happening as i was too scared. i just didnt want to be by myself. I had real trouble sleeping and felt on the edge of a panic attack till about 2am when i fell asleep. I still felt the same when I woke up in the morning. I had a bad head ache and was still in a state of panic, my head felt like it was in a complete cloud and i had memory loss and felt very paranoid. This lasted till thursday when i could take no more and went and broke down in the doctors! She thought I was suffering from depression and to be honest i thought it may well have been that. She did not want to give me any anti depressants as it had come on so suddenly but gave me sleeping pills. I still felt the same until the sunday! On monday i felt a lot better and the doctor rang me to make sure I was ok. I said i was and i really could not understand what had happened. I was with a friend when the doctor phoned and she heard my conversation, luck9ily) as she said she had felt the same. She had not told her husband either as she felt it would make it too real! I have just spoken to a lady in our village who had to take her eldelry nextdoor neighbour to the doctors yeaterday as she was having the same feelings and had a full on panic attack!
I am pretty sure this must be a horrible virus as there us 3 of us that i know about now. Its only because of chance that i know though as i certainly would not have told anyone other than the doctor as i thought i was really going mad. Now I am kind of laughing about it but to be honest I have never felt so scared in all my life.
Does anyone know of any particular virus that could do this or has anyone had any similar thing? My doctor when i told her my friend had it too did not know of any virus which would do it but surely it must be a virus? musnt it?

It could be a middle ear infection - if the Eustacian tubes get blocked it can play merry hell with your balance and give you horrible weird symptoms. I used to get huge adrenalin rushes with no warning while I was trying to get to sleep, I was terrified.

I might go and have my ears checked then as i have a weird feeling in them, not painful buta sort of blocked feeling. Thanks!

Hi,
Well I spent 4 hours in hospital last night following a panic attack after suffering severe palpatations, these I get regularly but not as bad as last night. I have had investigations for them but nothing is ever found. But last night it all came on so suddenly, palatations, dizzy, faint, sick, shaking from head to foot, and I felt freezing. They took me to hospital, did 3 ecgs, 3 lots of blood and a chest x-ray, all normal, then sent me home half dressed in a taxi with a driver who I felt very vunerable with who drove very fast with one finger on the wheel! I thought I was going to die, the taxi cost me £25! Today I am very pale, feel washed out, and scared its going to happen again. Feel I need a magic pill to take as soon as these feelings start. So I sympathize with you, its awful.

a friend of mine had Exploding head syndrome which some say could be down to eustachian tube probs - could it be something like this?

at exploding head syndrome.

atg, I have just retunred from the doctor - I went after experiencing similar to you - a headache that ahs lasted days, a panic attack as I was falling asleep last night, also achey neck, nausea and dizziness and a general feeling that things werent right. I thought I was going mad! ANyway I saw doc this morning and she confirmed my lymph nodes were swollen and I was suffering from a low-key viral infection. Rest and relaxation are on the agenda - God only knows how with 2 children and a weekend visit from MIL.

Well, this sounds awfull but I am glad that I am not the only one to have suffered this awful thing. It means I have not lost the plot and it is just a nasty virus. I hope everyone will take comfort in the fact that other people have been experiencing similar things. I wish I had posted on here last week when I was feeling really bad instead of sitting thinking I was going completeley bananas!!! Bunny 3 try and take it easy get your MIL to look after the kids!!!

Countess Dracula, I will ask my friend about the loud banging noise I didnt hear any noises but the other symptoms seem to be pretty accurate. Triplets it seenms you may have the smae thing as I had. Alll i can say really is to sit it out and dont let your thoughts run away from you like I did. You are not going mad!! Hopefully in a couple of days you will be starting to feel a lot better.

atg, I thought I was gfoing mad, I really did. Then I worried about a brain tumour ... glad its only viral. ALso glad to have helped reassure you. As for MIL, no chance, she has no granny instinct whatsoever and afer a few minutes bores of ds and dd. She wants constant looking after and entertaining too. Might use the viral thing to get some time in bed resting though and leave dh to deal with his mother

I had similar symptoms to the exploding head thing (but it was physical sensations, not noises as such) when I had ME - I feel foolish now saying it, but I genuinely thought I was either losing my mind or dying. The terror was so intense and the sensations in my head were so indescribable, I remember spending some nights just lying there praying I wouldn't die before morning. I've not really told anyone about that before (except poor dh who had to try and sleep though it) but it was awful. Sometimes I would get a sort of flooding sensation across one side of my head as though a blood vessel had burst (which it hadn't of course). Sometimes my head would go numb on one or both sides, or start throbbing, or I would get really severe shooting pains for no reason. I also used to feel sudenly completely drained of energy and too tired even to breathe, which was terrifying. And huge "fight-or-flight" responses, massive adrenaline rushes... and sometimes a sort of painful electrical buzzing in my head and mouth. I never got a proper explanation for any of it, except that the doctor mentioned fibromyalgia as part of the ME and said that migraines could be making the blood vessels in my head swell and involving the Eustachian tubes, which would produce the dizziness and disorientation. Most of it passed as I got better from ME, although I still have headaches and panic attacks and dodgy sinuses sometimes. I'd be very interested to hear how similar my experience is to the OP and anyone else (sorry is this is a hijack)

I was thinking things about brain tumours too. I also started panicing that it may have been carbon dioxide poisoning. I started going on to my husband that we had to get a new tester for carbon dioxide! All i can say is that this is one very nasty virus and I hope it disappears soon. I am really worried that an elderly person or child gets it , they would not know how to cope as it is so distressing.

CD i have just spoken to my friend and read out the website you gave me. She definetly does have this!! Thank you so much for showing the website as she has had it for 2 years now and has not told anyone about it as she was too scared. It has put her mind at rest!!!! Thank you again she is ever so grateful.

I had CAT scans and ECGs and all sorts of tests because I was convinced I must have something life-threatening. I'm not a hypochondriac, I hate illness and I've had enough hospitals to last me a lifetime...I was just terrified and nothing seemed to fit. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Meanoldmummy you really should not feel foolish saying about what you are feeling!! i have definetly found that out this week!! Keeping things to yourself makes everything seem so much worse. Whatyou describe about thinking you may not wake up was exactly what I was feeling last week. I was having really terrible thoughts about what may happen if I went to sleep. I was also having the numbeness in the head. I thought it may be to do with the migraines I get as I was having the same sort of visual disturbances and tingling in my hands but I never got the full onheadcahe although I did have a headache. How long did you have these feelings for?

It's all a bit confused because I was ill with ME for nearly 3 years - I think the height of the head symptoms was about 18 months though. I was exhausted and ended up hallucinating. But it DID end, and it doesn't seem to have come back...the residual headaches, panic etc are much less severe and get better with time. It's very hard for anyone who hasn't been through it to believe/imagine that you have lain there in pure terror praying for your life, when outwardly there's nothing wrong with you...a very lonely way to be ill!

It certainly is a very lonely thing! It musthave been so difficult for you and terrifying! I only had it for one week and that was most definetly bad enough, to have those feelings for 18 months I cannot even imagine it. Do you feel nervous about it ever happening agin? I know on Monday when I was over the worst of the virus I just started feeling very nervous that I would start feeling the same again. THe nervousness was almost as bad as the actual panic feeling! I now feel ok as I know other people have had the same sort of thing and if it does come back at any time I will be staright on mumsnet to chat about it.

I certainly do get nervous about it happening again. If I egt a slight headache it always escalates into a worse one because I am so tense and hypervigilant - every twinge makes me nervous. I am a lot better than I used to be though. I found switching to a very plain healthy diet (grump emoticon) and trying to improve my basic fitness helped me to sleep better, breathe through panic attacks better and generally feel more equipped to cope. I don't know if it was a virus or the same thing you had, but it is quite possible - I don't think doctors really understand that area of illness very well.

no the doctor I saw said she had never heard of anything like what I had and sent me to the opticians to have my eyes checked. Needless to say there is nothing wrong with my eyes!! I just hope no one else has to have those horrible feelings!!!

I havve been feeling weird since I had my DS, weird headache, dizziness, feeling depressed, blurred vision, feeling spaced, sensitive to loud noise, confusion, hard to concentrate, aches and pains, SPD, nausea, numbness, and the list goes on! HAd a lot of pain in my jaw for the past week, lots of headaches, woke up Monday morning with intense pain in heaad, t hought I waas dying, threw up several times, then had tummy cramps! Bowels have nt been great since DS born, very sensitive, and intense tummy pain! Just read what meanoldmummy said, searched about fibromyalgia and the symptons I have been getting are all those listed! I too thought there was something drastically wrong like brain tumour! Going to see doctor next week try to find out what is going on!

can I just add dont rule out caffeine for making you feel weird too. Anyone who is sensitive to caffeine will tell you it makes your heart race and makes you feel jittery and extremely edgey which of course then heightens all your senses.Only last weekend I used a serum on my thighs and butt which contained caffeine and it produced these symptoms throughout the entire next day.

loopyred: as I returned to work after having my dd I too developed an extremely painful jaw which between my doc/dentist put it down to anxiety and grinding my teeth in the night. It honestly felt like labour pains in the side of my face and whilst it didnt hurt whilst my jaw was moving when i stopped talking/eating the pain peaked like a contraction. I ended up sleeping with a dummy!! but it worked so was definitely worth it.

Hi jampots I already have a problem with my jaw, Temporo-mandibular Joint Dysfunction Syndrome, which is one of the symptons also! I was given a mouth guard years ago to help, ask your dentist if he can provide one.