Little bit of back story here... I've been taking the anti-depressant, Pristiq, for several years now to help with an ongoing depression and anxiety problem. After watching our daughter suffer with anxiety over the past year and a bit, I realised early this year that I haven't actually been depressed for 18 months to 2 years. Anxiety was still an issue for me, but I've been depression-free for a while. So, I went to the doctor a couple of months ago and asked if I could wean off the Pristiq. He said it would be fine and we worked out a weaning schedule, nice and slow to avoid a rebound depression.
Big mistake, apparently.
But, more back story. For years now I've been having what I call my 'non-days'. For a long time these non-days were just days where I had no energy whatsoever and achieved nothing at all. I'd get the kids to school, then either sit in my chair or go to sleep until it was time to pick them up again, after which I'd often go back to sleep or just sit in my chair some more until hubby got home, at which point he'd have to make dinner and I'd usually end up in bed by about 7pm. I had no idea what caused this to happen, and at the beginning it'd only be once a month or so, maybe less.
Over the past year or two, the frequency has increased and it became a fortnightly (every two weeks) thing.
When I started weaning off the Pristiq, these days got way worse very quickly. Instead of just being tired, I started having an issue with severe dizziness. Not vertigo, but disequilibrium. I was diagnosed with Meniere's disease back in 2001 so I knew all about vertigo (I've been in remission from Meniere's for many years now), and this was WORSE. I couldn't figure out what was causing the dizziness, and the only thing that would make it go away was going back to bed and sleeping for a couple of hours. I'd wake up afterwards, the dizziness gone, and just be tired for the rest of the day. These were the new version of my non-day.
Then they happened only a week apart, instead of two. And then the sleeping stopped working. I'd have the horrible dizziness, go to sleep, and wake up dizzy.
Then for the first time it lasted more than one day. Then it lasted three days. The current episode has been going for probably five weeks now, maybe six, I'm not good with time.
Somewhere in there, though, I realised that sounds made the dizziness worse. Especially my son's voice, which made me feel dreadful. Every time he spoke I had to tell him to shut up because I'd nearly fall off my chair. And I was having these things that I call 'flares'. If someone spoke to me, or even if I spoke, or if I moved my head even a little, or whatever, it kind of felt like my brain was whacked with a velvet hammer and got knocked sideways. I'd get even more dizzy for that moment, and my vision would grey out a little. When this first started happening I'd just get the one flare, but by the time I went on the new medication I'm on I was getting half a dozen flares after each sound or movement or whatever set it off.
I also spent a lot of time with one eye closed and the other open only enough for me to be able to see where I was walking. I had ear plugs in all the time and sunglasses on and I could only get around by squinting down at the floor with one eye. I couldn't take any more visual or sound input than that, and even that felt like it was killing me.
I was crying almost non-stop for about two weeks there. I had to keep telling my family to ignore the tears, I had no control over them. I felt like such an idiot, sobbing while I was trying to eat my food or help my son do up his shoe laces and other normal things I do every day.
For a little while I slept as much as I could because sensory overload is exhausting, and also because you can't get overloaded if you're asleep. Then I started not being able to sleep because even the slightest noise would jerk me violently awake and basically give me an anxiety attack. It'd take me about half an hour to calm down from that, and then I'd go through the whole process over again. All freakin' night.
Also during that time I couldn't eat crunchy food, I couldn't have the radio on in the car, couldn't be around the TV much, had to close all the windows and doors to block out outside sounds, showers (something I usually LOVE) became extremely uncomfortable because I could feel every individual drop of water hitting me over and over and over and over and every drop was an overload and it was just torture.
That's a sample of what I was going through. Doctors sent me for multiple blood tests, a CT scan, an MRI, and all kinds of things. I went through a few tentative diagnoses along the way, but it looks like it really is just (just! lol) sensory processing disorder partnered with Asperger's. Apparently the Pristiq was suppressing or protecting me from the worst of the overload while I was on it, though the effectiveness was definitely starting to wear off towards the end there before I weaned off of it. I would have been happy to go back on it but it turns out that the diarrhea I've had for the past several years WASN'T lactose intolerance, it was a side-effect, and I'm ridiculously happy to be pooing like a normal person for the first time in almost a decade, lol. Also don't have chronic dry mouth anymore, and I can stay up past 8.30pm like most adults.
So, one of the GPs put me on a new anti-depressant, Valdoxin. That has helped somewhat, but I still am dizzy a lot of the time (though not nearly as bad as I was a few weeks ago), I still get the flares - especially towards the end of the day when I'm getting tired or if I've had to be around people a lot - and noise still bothers me A LOT. My skin hurts all the time now, like I've got sunburn, but I'm not sure if that's because of the new medication (it's one that can adversely affect the liver) or if it's a sensory thing. And unfortunately, symptoms of depression are starting to show themselves. I've only been on the Valdoxin for a month, so I'll give it a little more time to work on that stuff, but I'm scared that I might have to go off it and try something else, and if I have to go off it then I'm at great risk of going through the hell I went through a few weeks ago again, and I don't want that.
Hopefully what I've typed out here makes sense as a whole... I think more generally speaking, sensory overload has always been an issue for me but constant medication for the past 14 years has suppressed the worst of the effects, or otherwise I've just assumed the symptoms of overload were part of the depression and anxiety I've been living with. It's really hard to tell.
13 Apr 2016, 5:08 pm
