Fear of Brain Damage and OCD
mic...@mighty.co.za
compulsive disorder (ocd) 5 years ago. I am close to giving up hope.
Most of my obsessions are related to damage to my body, especially to
my brain. I am still stuck in the worry about an incident that happened
just over a year ago. There seems to be now way I can be sure whether
any damage was caused or not.
In the incident I felt very dizzy and had bad feelings of unreality for
about half an hour after masturbation. I know this sounds like a
personal issue, but I don't know what to do anymore
I am worried that the dizziness and feelings of unreality were related
to some kind of global ischemia to the brain from low blood pressure or
were related to hypoglycemia. If it was global ischemia or hypoglycemia
could some of the cells in the hippocampus area have died. If it was
low blood pressure, would I have known when the blood pressure was low
enough to cause damage?
I have gone off prescription antidepressants completely because I feel
that by taking them, I am just causing more brain damage. I have read
so many articles about the risk of accumulated brain damage from taking
the SSRI drugs, that I refuse to take them anymore.
I don't know what the cause of the dizziness was. I had never felt so
dizzy or strange in my life. I didn't feel like I would faint but felt
very dizzy and very unreal. I felt like something was very wrong. I
don't know what it was. According to the doctors, it could have been
low blood pressure, hypoglycemia, hyperventilation or anything.
I am worried that there is some kind of subtle cognitive damage or
change that is not readily visible to others, but that does affect my
functioning in some way. I feel I will never be able to be sure whether
there is any subtle damage or not.
I've read articles that say that neuropsychological testing won't
always pick up damage if it is subtle. So I feel as if I will never
know if there is any subtle brain damage damage.
I feel I can't go through another year like this one, with this worry
about brain damage always on my mind.
The brain damage worry affects me most in social situations. I am
worried about making a bad impression or not being 100%. I am worried
that I am not speaking properly or not using the right words.
I can't go through this life alone and with this worry about brain
damage that affects me all the time. I can't cope with the regret and
the sadness over what happened a year ago either. I feel it could so
easily have been avoided and then I wouldn't have to go through this
hell.
I was in a psychiatric hospital for just over a month, but had to leave
because I refused to take the medication anymore. I have been on all
the SSRIs and Anafranil in the last 5 years and none have helped me. I
also have a problem taking them, because of the worry that they will
cause more brain damage. I am going to go for an assesment for CBT
(cognitive behavioural therapy) at the same hospital in a months time,
but I don't know whether the doctors there will agree to let me go into
CBT if I don't want to take medication.
Is there any way I can know whether any brain damage was caused or not
from the incident that happened a year ago with the very bad dizziness?
If you could help me or give me any advice, I would really appreciate
it.
Sincerely,
Michael
mi...@adderleystreet.co.za
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McGovern
them may be debatable as how to interperate. An MRI, PET, or catscan may
show major trauma. Atleast one of these can be used to actualy image brain
activity. This has been done to scaare little kids away from crack and
extacy. It is also possible to monitor brain waves by sticking electrodes
on the head. This is done to identify seizures and certain sleep
disorders.
I was under the impression that SSRI's (with the exception of Phenfen) were
nontoxic. Many people take them for extended periods of time with out ill
efect. Do you know where I can find any webpages detailing this?
Steve Mcgovern
Loonii
systems well.
If you were masturbating and felt dizzy, maybe you were breathing too much?
Hyperventilation might call that.
Sugar problems can also cause dizziness. They might be accompanied by one or
several fingers feeling as if there is not enough circulation in them and
bluish lips.
Even if some cells died, others might devide and there be more again.
Maybe you are having too little aims in life or some other problems (ornot
enough serious problems) and are therefore circling a bit too much around
yourself?
If I'd get overly worried over any time I get dizzy, I'd be busy.
Last January I got dizzy and passed out.
So what, brain seemed to take ten days to recover a bit from that, and on life
goes.
Made me watch sugar consumption a bit more.
If blood pressure is your problem, maybe make a bit more sports in a healthy
way, so the heart muscles power up.
>I have gone off prescription antidepressants completely because I feel
that by taking them, I am just causing more brain damage.<
Correct.
Apart from that they tend to mess around in emotional systems, adding hardware
damages to emotional problems, and the person still not learning how to deal
with them.
>According to the doctors, it could have been low blood pressure, hypoglycemia,
hyperventilation or anything.
Sugar problems and hyperventilation were my first guesses, too.
Sugar can go for quite a bitsy.
I forget, but longest might have been like two hours lying in bed and feeling
too dizzy to get up and organize me some coke (which usually helps me within
around 20 minutes.
As said, prewarning signs, at least in me, can be circulation seeming not good
in one or several fingers.
These prewarning signs do not need to be there, though.
If I consume too much sugar too many days following each other, then it seems
to disturb internal sugar levels.
If I watch it a bit, then usually it is O.K.
>I feel I will never be able to be sure whether there is any subtle damage or
not.<
What do you worry then? I had several brain damages that distinctly left some
functioning disturbances, no doubt about that, and worrying won't make them
heal any better.
Excuse me, but to me you seem more to whimp around yourself because you lack
some more serious aims in life, or to blend over something.
If something bothers me, I might just keep track when it pops up, and what I
did before.
I believe with some allergies I still did not figure out all, at least here in
America a new slight form seems to join in, that I was not familiar with
before.
But usually it is more like some random track keeping.
Or with sugar if I feel I am short of some real problems, or with some
alltergy, then I might for a bunch of days or even weeks more stricly supervise
how much of according substance(s) goes into my systems.
Until the problem goes down again, and then it might be back to some more
random tracking.
Do you have not enough other stuff in life to do or enjoy, that you are so
fixed while you are still so young on some problem, where you are not even
sure, if it left some damage, and where it is long ago, anyway?
Maybe you really just don't have enough real problems.
Neighbours back home have AIDS, now, that's what I call a problem.
A friend of my father's has multiple sclerosis.
A woman I met lost her eye sight.
Some people sit in a wheelchair, and are mentally & physically handicapped and
do not complain as much as you do.
You seem to me more to blame your social problems and any problem on some
dizzines where you did not even pass out.
What would you do if you were to pass out, stick your head in a grave and blame
any problem in your future life on that it must be due to some brain problem
you had?
There are enough people who have real brain problems, stutter, are slightly
handicapped, and have a partner, friends, and do not holler around like you.
Some have brain damages from birth on, and considerable, and far more than you,
and they might not complain as much as you.
My cousin (in her twenties) is mentally handicapped, and had to go through many
dangerous and painful operations due to "water" regulation being not O.K. in
her head,
and I never ever in my life heard her complain.
She has a job, she has a boy-friend,
she is into arts, and is a very kind and extremely patient person.
I believe you are just trying to blame problems in your life on that you got
dizzy, and are fixing bunches of stuff on that. If I counted all the times in
my life that I got dizzy, I'd be busy.
That were so many, I doubt I would remember many of them.
Some of those where I nearly passed out or when I did pass out, those I still
remember.
And even then my worry might be more, that there might be none of the idiots
around be willing to fetch me a coke, not even a doctor in a Berlin hospital if
the coke machine is around the corner, so that I have the choice to have it go
on, or get up, which might be hell on the brain, stagger to whereever the next
coke seems in range, and then lay down again and wait for it to have effects.
I don't get what you are making such a bit probelm over that. For me that seems
some parts of life, they are there, so what.
If I really cared I could organize my life style to be more healthy, but I
believe I rather have an interesting enough life and some problems on and off,
then watch to eat no sugar, and live way more healthy than I do.
I guess I might be just too much a barbarian to get what you are fuzzing over.
You did not even pass out and shit and pee in your trousers, like at powerful
pass-outs might happen.
Nor have a stroke with some brain areas damaged and half of the body paralyzed.
Stay of them psychodrugs, if you are really worried about brain damages, and
get some life that makes you content, man.
Get some money and travel the world, or find some nice girl friend if you do
not have one, or find some interests in life and a life style making you
content.
If you had AIDS, MS, lethal cancer (a neighbour long ago died of that, noticing
it in his twenties and dying in the start of his thirties), were blind, deaf,
sat with your spine broken or after a stroke in a wheel chair, had your
long-life partner dead, were some old person in a home waiting for own death
while around the other old ones die and sisters and brothers and most friends
already be dead, were some Kurd tortured badly in a Turkish prison or had your
family gassed while your were away, or something like that, I might get that
you are having some problems, but just over some dizziness, and that short,
starting to blame loads of your relation problems with others and bunches of
other stuff on others, sounds more like you are psychoing around instead of
working on your attitudes.
It's your life time you waste on that, so if you want to go on with that it's
your thingie.
... Thinking about it, apart from sugar with maybe 2 hours (did not really keep
track of time that well),
I guess for me the dizziness record holder is malaria cerebrales (or was it
cerebralis?), that made special dizziness fits, first several times some
minutes, then half a day, then around three days, and in the end, where I guess
I was not far from death, they stuffed me with drugs, and I was dizzy for days
in a row; that were like 5 in a doctor's place and one before.
Makes like 6 days, and parts of data missing there, more like a long grey fog
haze instead of memories and just some gaps in between,
when I had to go to the toilet, that was outside, and got hell's dizzy just
sitting up, and getting up was even worse.
When I got a bitsy better again, I took up the fight with a potato, however it
seemed impossible to eat much of it, felt nearly like eating flour pure,
spittle did not seem to work / produce O.K.; later I guessed it was one of the
meds they gave me, but there I did not know, and thought I better get going to
where they have liquid food, as I was rather thin, there I guess around 46
kilo, and did not feel like long fat reserves, and also money and visa were
running out and the rain time coming, and I knew I would not be able to pass
Sudan for two months, if I do not see to get from Zaire, where I was there,
real fast across Central Africa and reach&pass Sudan, and that I'd not have the
money to get stuck. The doctor was not delighted at all I sort of staggered
from the bed, grabbed my back-pack and decided it is time to go on, and tried
to make me stay, but I felt it is time to go where I can get liquid food. He
drove me to the border-river, that was really nice of him.
And I wasn't really fit, was sweat covered after not that long walking, and
crashed another two nights in some place - and they had yoghurt. Grand! Liquid
food.
That solved parts of the problems, and after that I went on and was O.K.
enough, though it took like a week or ten days, until I had the feeling I was
powering up to more normal levels.
I do not get what you are whimping around there.
I am more impressed how quick at times my immune systems and other systems are
powering up again.
If anyting worried me there for real afterwards, it was that I kept loosing
hair when back in Berlin months later, and felt after like 4 hours very
exhausted.
My cushion was covered with hair, the floor around was covered with hair.
Some day I combed my hair twice and collected the hairs - it was an entire
strand of hair, thick enough, that I thought, given as thin and sparse as my
hair had become, if this goes on I might be eventually rather bald.
That worried me, until more by chance I learned that my iron levels were low.
So I got me some stuff from the pharmacy with iron, and it took like 2-3 weeks,
and then it was O.K. enough again and my hair quit falling out like that.
Anyway, that had started to worry me before, I had not known it is iron, and I
was so tired so fast, and all that hair coming out made me check in the mirror
and stare at how thin my hair had gotten, and worry what is wrong. Until I
figured out it was iron, and I took it, and did not feel that freaking tired
anymore soon, and did not have my cusion and floor having so much fallen out
hair and that problem ceased.
The first time I recall feeling dizzy in my life I was a young child, maybe
around 5 and had measles, as a teeny in the years I ws growing quite a bitsy, I
was used to if I stood up too fast in the morning, to straight sit down again,
because it made me dizzy to straight get up, and took a bit of time to power up
systems, in sports in school had it I nearly passed out, then noticed sugar
problems, some drugs did not seem the best for the brain either, got dizzy at
doctors sometimes, had them malaria fits back then with dizziness and the
longer ones also with fever, some concussion (had another smaller one before) -
thinking of which, there I also was dizzy for around 5 days, but different, not
like heart, more like systems wanting that I do not go around, lay down, and so
that damages can recover, and the one mentioned in the Netherlands I was not
sure if that was sugar or one joint too many after too little sleep or what.
Anyway, I would not even know how many times I felt dizzy in my life, as a
teeny I was quite accustomed to that, and enough times afterwards in my life,
and it is beyond me why someone would make such a fuzz like you over such.
If I were as worried as you about one over each of them, I'd probably go from
one anxiety fit to the next. ;-)
Guess as long as I am not having them or think if I don't watch it more I
might hit the floor, I just find other stuff in life interesting than to be
busy with such stuff much .
I really fail to get what you are that troubled just over getting dizzy for
half an hour and over a year ago.
IMO - excuse me - you are just psychoing around to cover up other problems, is
my opinion.
Loonii
A lot of psychodrugs (and other drugs) mess up the receptor levels, by causing
too much or too little than is natural being there. Receptor molecules might
alter number therefore, to make up for the chemical imbalances that were cause
that way. With that that hardware alters to counterreact, if there is too much,
going down, or if there is too little going up.
A lot of drugs - though these I do not know about, are bad for the kidneys,
some for other organs, and a few cause irreversible brain damages.
Also if one system gets messed up, some other connected systems in the
brain&body can alter functions.
Troy Kelley
brain does become tolerant of the dosage, but as far as long term damage is
concerned, there is no evidence of long term damage that is accepted by the
medical establishment.
My advice to you Michael is to get back on your medication.
<mic...@mighty.co.za> wrote in message news:93966u$1om$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Troy Kelley
> Even if some cells died, others might devide and there be more again.
>
was, all of your brain cells are set, and you don't get any more. However,
there is extreme redundancy in the brain, and you have many more cells than
you actually need.
TK
JoshCahoon
No, neurogenesis continues throughout life. It used to be accepted that after
the early proliferation of neurons, you had all you would ever get. That is no
longer accepted. Adult neurogenesis has been documented, at the Salk Institute
in La Jolla, and other laboratories.
Troy Kelley
BTW, is this all neurons? or only some of them in some parts of the brain?
TK
JoshCahoon <joshc...@cs.com> wrote in message
news:20010120225356...@ng-mf1.news.cs.com...
JoshCahoon
areas are all I remember right now. It probably occurs in dozens of places, and
has been shown to occur in quite a few.
avys...@my-deja.com
possible that your breathing changed at this point (say you were
breathing fast and shallow) and for that period of time deprived your
brain of oxygen. This in no way would cause any sort of brain damage.
Either that or you may have had a panic attack--dizzyness and such are
very common of such occurances. I really dont think that you have any
brain damage from your attack. I have on many occasions had similar
occurances, because of things like standing up to fast, breating
incorrectly (usually because of exersize) and none of these things
cause brain damage...
If you want and need proof have you ever been able to talk to your
doctor about the possibility of an MRI or other diagnostic tests.
Also, dont worry about your hippocampus, you would have had to have
complete loss of oxygen to that area of the brain for at least a couple
of mins. to have any damnage. Besides neurons are growing all the time
in the hippocampus.
Amy
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