<s>[INST] Hey my name is Amber Mamerow, I am 19 years old and I am having a really difficult time. I guess the only way that i can really explain how i feel is to start at the very beginning so i hope you all have time. I have no one else to ask and no one else is taking me seriously. So i decided that i would try one more time to talk to someone. Since around the age of 13 i was on paxil, it helped A LOT with anxiety, i never found a need to get off of it until i accidentally found myself pregnant at age 18. When i was at the OBGYN the nurse told me that i could not be on paxil while i was pregnant and that i needed to try Zoloft. I never saw the Dr, i never talked to them or anything, i just discontinued my paxil and i began zoloft. The first few days i didn’t feel too bad, i didn’t feel quite right, but i didn’t feel terrible. Than for the next month almost (give or take) after that i had every bad side effect that i could have imagined. I read the side effects for the zoloft and i had 90% of what was listed. I told the Drs several times that i didn’t feel good and that i didn’t want to try any other pill i just wanted to stop taking all of them. After i stopped taking everything all together i felt like i was having withdrawal. I have not felt good since. I am no longer pregnant... i did have an abortion.. but that is a touchy subject.. but i figured that’s also involved with health so i needed to not leave out any details. It has been about 8 months since i have stopped all together and i still to this day do not feel good, every single day i have this odd headache. It feels like pressure in my head. I still have some of the issues that i developed while taking zoloft, which i was told would go away once i stopped and 8 months later i am still dealing with, such as my ears ringing, constantly. I never had that problem before this. I have had countless problems since zoloft and i have been trying to feel better without resulting back to paxil, i like being able to know that i can live without it, i no longer have panic attacks, and if i do on a rare occasion i can control it. I feel i have no need to go back on to paxil, but my dr pretty much insists that i go back on it because he is convinced the way that i feel now is all because of that. The way that i feel right now is a pressure in my head, mainly in my forehead and in the back of my head. If i press on certain parts of my head its sore as if its a soft spot. I have a chronic sinus infection that i have had to treat on and off the allergy seasons with antibiotics, which make that clear up, and strangely enough make my head feel completely better. Many of the Dr s thought that it was the sinus infections that was making my head feel weird. But i asked them why than would i feel pressure in the back of my head when i have no sinus s there? So that blew that theory out. I have also had bacterial and yeast infections every once in a while that also had to be treated with antibiotics, and again, (no sinus infection issues at the time) my head would feel better. Another example of this was when i had another bacterial or yeast infection of some kind and while i was taking my antibiotic it began to make my head feel better, but before i was done taking them it started to feel weird again... So talking with my nose dr he decided that it would be a bad idea to take anymore antibiotics because he thought that they were treating SOMETHING in my head, but no one knew for sure what that SOMETHING was. But he said that if we kept miss treating it with antibiotics than it would soon become immune to them. So since then i have refused to take another antibiotic because i do not want to make anything any worse, but the problem is we have made ZERO progress on what is actually wrong, i have spent over 500 dollars trying to find out what exactly is wrong and we have gotten no where. I began to get worried and i asked for an MRI, and a CT scan, apparently they both came back normal, but i had no one read them to me or go over what exactly there was... but they did assure me that i had no tumor or anything. So that helped reassure me for the time being. I have had multiple blood tests for many different things and they assure me that i have no infections or anything, (which confuses me, because if i have a chronic sinus infection.. shouldn’t that show up?..) but either way they assure me that there is no infection. So i am feeling like i am on my own. I have done research trying to find something, anything that could give the same kind of symptoms of what i am feeling, and i stumbled across meningitis. Now i understand that meningitis is usually severe and can do damage in as little as one day... but i have also found and i will quote it exactly as i found it Occasionally, if someone has been on antibiotics for another infection, the symptoms can take longer to develop or may be less intense my source is from WEBMD. Meningitis can also be caused by the spread of an infection occurring near the brain, such as from the ears or the sinuses. It is also an occasional complication of brain, head, or neck surgery. which i was thinking could have something to do with my sinus infection ( which i now have AGAIN, but cant treat because i cant take antibiotics until we find out what is wrong with my head and why it feels better with antibiotics). I have tried talking to 3 different doctors. My primary, My ear nose and throat doctor, and they both ended up sending me to another doctor... which i cant quite remember who or what he is suppose to do.. but all i remember is him being extremely rude and ignored anything and everything that i had to say.. so i got absolutely no where with him. I left his office in tears and had to pay 80 or more dollars just to be in the same exact spot I’ve been in for months. I have had blood work done and many other things done, i asked my primary doctor out of desperation and last measures to see if i could get a spinal tap to make absolutely sure that it was not meningitis. I am exhausting every option, i am running out of money and i am desperately searching for an answer. I am 19 years old and i have no idea what is wrong with me, it is effecting my everyday life and i have spent so much time, energy and money into figuring out the possible cause of what is going on. I feel like no one is taking me seriously now because my primary doctor has just suggested that i try taking my paxil again. Its very frustrating because i feel like no one takes me seriously once they learn that i have anxiety and they assume that it is all in my head or just taking a simple pill with help make everything better. It just seems like whatever it is, is getting worse, and i would really appreciate help from anyone that is willing to help. I have not taken antibiotics in many months and i feel like my head just keeps getting worse. I don’t know how to explain it... i have been told that it could be cluster headaches... but i have had headaches, i have had migraines.. they are nothing like this. It is a constant, all day everyday, from the second that i wake up to the minute before i fall asleep the same feeling. Lately i have felt extremely tired, my eyes have started to hurt.. i had to go to the eye dr because my vision has been doing weird things, but they said that i have perfect vision and the only problem i have is i have hard corneas.. or whatever that is that causes you to have higher pressure in your eyes without having glaucoma. I have been noticing trails, i see halos around objects mostly people, i see something that i would consider visual static.. and this has all started just recently.. about maybe a month its been happening and getting worse. At first i could see visual static and maybe every once in a while i would see trails, than i started to see halos. I try to ignore it, because i don’t have enough money to go in for a check up any more, i don’t know whets wrong so i don’t know how to have anyone fix it. The reason that i decided to write to you today and not try to ignore it like i do every other day is because i was in the shower today and out of no where i felt like i was going to pass out, i felt this weird sensation that the room was just getting dark and i was just going to pass out, so i jumped out of the shower and sat on the floor for a minute. I had this stabbing pain in my back and my stomach and i felt like i was going to puke, when i felt as if i could stand i did so, and i left the room to get some fresh air, immediately i felt as if i was going to puke again and i ran into the bathroom and i had one dry heave... and felt completely normal again. That is the first time anything like that has ever happened to me before. So please, i am completely lost on what to do. All i want to know is how do i find out what could be wrong with how my head feels. What could be causing it, why does it feel better with antibiotics and what can i do. Please if you have any words of advice please let me know. I am sorry for such a long note but i am running out of people to talk to. Please and thank you. Amber Mamerow [/INST] Hello Amber. I completely understand how it feels not to be taken seriously. While I was going through your answer, diagnoses like chronic sinusitis, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and also vascular headaches did occur to me, but they are difficult to prove with a normal MRI or CT (not vascular headaches though, they appear normal on imaging). The paxil you were taking earlier is not only an anti-anxiety drug but also is used in certain intractable pains, hence I feel your doctor had asked you to restart it hoping for some positive results. However, since you are firm that you donot want to restart it, and I appreciate the decision of trying to manage without the anxiety pills, I feel we have to move on to other possibilities - Benign Intracranial Hypertension is one of them. I would suggest you to get Vitamin A levels too. A spinal tap would certainly help in this case to reach a diagnosis. Hope this helps.Regards,Dr Geeta </s>