Rambles that are fluffy, by fluffy
I’ve been accepted into Furality’s Dealer’s Den as a musician! I have a month to get my booth together and I’ve already got it like 90% done. It’s actually in an acceptable state already but there’s some more little things I want to do with the background video, and I’m learning so much DaVinci Resolve stuff to do it.
I also have a show on Sunday, at around 4:30 PM PDT. I hope folks can make it!
I’ve got stuff going on, figured I’d ramble a bit for those who care.
Some folks wanted an update and didn’t see the webmention-based updates on the last entry. I discontinued the Effexor and the concerning symptoms subsided throughout the day, and I only had minimal withdrawal symptoms (basically just a few hours of extreme nausea and some really intense dreams for a couple nights).
I’m annoyed that this didn’t end up being a workable solution but I’m still holding out hope for the vestibular rehabilitation, as well as some other things I’m trying, and whatever happens I’m determined to survive and thrive, regardless.
Wellp, as usual, saying anything vaguely optimistic about a new medication has angered the side effect gods, as over the course of yesterday I noticed I was having progressively more trouble breathing and swallowing and a feeling of swelling in my throat, which is on the list of Effexor side effects to watch out for and to immediately contact your doctor about. So, I’m pausing the Effexor for now (hopefully having been on it for only three days at the lowest dose will minimize the withdrawal effects, ugh) and have sent a question to my doctor about it.
If dopamine regulation is so great, why doesn’t my brain just do it on its own?
The only theory that anyone’s come up with for my vertigo issues that holds any weight is that they’re possibly vestibular migraines, so my neurologist put me on Effexor, which can help treat vestibular migraines.
It can also treat anxiety, fibromyalgia, and ADHD (which makes sense, as they’re all fundamentally dopamine dysregulation problems, and Effexor works primarily by regulating dopamine), so maybe this will be the magic bullet that helps me with everything. Several of my friends turn out to be taking it for their fibromyalgia and/or anxiety and they say it helps them somewhat, so, we’ll see.
So, I was on meclizine for a couple days, and it is definitely not the right med for me.
Basically, it made me super tired and pretty much constantly sleepy or on the edge of falling asleep (like, to the extent that I was experiencing hypnagogia), and it wasn’t helping my vertigo at all.
What’s more, for vertigo it’s meant to be used as a rescue med and not a maintenance med, getting tolerant to it can cause some major problems, and it has a bad interaction with my rescue inhaler. I’m not even sure how it would be useful as a rescue med given that my vertigo attacks usually last 10-15 seconds and are brought on at random, and it takes about an hour to kick in.
Right now my best hope seems to be the vestibular rehabilitation physical therapy I’ve been prescribed. My intake appointment for that is in about two weeks. I also have a neurologist appointment next week, which will hopefully provide some amount of clarity.
My pain flareup is finally subsiding today, and also I had a followup appointment with my ENT and another CT scan on my sinuses, which found that I do not currently have sinus polyps, although I do have a mild deviated septum. The ENT thinks it’s not necessary to get surgery and that I can just continue to manage the occasional sinus infections as they come up, and that my usual ongoing management strategies are the way to go (which I assume means saline rinses and Sudafed, although we didn’t actually discuss those at all).
Today I finally had an appointment with an ENT and an audiologist, as part of trying to figure out what’s going on with my vertigo.
The audiologist didn’t find anything wrong with my hearing and said it’s normal for someone of my age. (She also told me the correct pronunciation of “tinnitus.” It’s like TIN-nit-iss.) She didn’t have any idea what might be underlying my tinnitus but I’ve had it my whole life and it doesn’t seem to be relevant to anything going on now.
The ENT didn’t see anything particularly out of the ordinary with my sinuses from what he could see in this basic exam, but he wanted to bring me in for a more focused CT scan, especially since my previous cranial CT scan found sinus polyps as being a thing, and I have such a long history of chronic sinus issues. So that’ll happen in a month. In the meantime he also referred me to a physical therapist that can do vestibular rehabitation, and he thinks the prognosis for that is really good.
Hopefully I’ll be able to feel comfortable driving again soon, because gosh do I not like being stuck in my little bubble.
Wow, lots of stuff happened today (meaning Friday).
For several days my tinnitus and vertigo were getting progressively worse, which made me once again worry that I am developing Ménière’s disease, which has a prognosis that is very much Not Good.
And I mentioned this on a friend’s Discord’s venting channel, and someone else replied:
I had a family member diagnosed with Ménière’s and it turned out to actually be TMJ dysfunction from teeth grinding.
It was causing Eustachian tube swelling and thus the vertigo
This was actually super informative, because I’ve always had TMJ issues and pretty bad bruxism!
