Only severe healthough anxiety or should I be concerned of a underlying illness?

Mental health
1

26 Male

130 IB

ADHD

About Early February I started feeling uneasy and had two of the worst panic attacks of my life. During this time I was attempting to taper down 37.5 mg XR of Effexor that I had been on for two years. I decided to keep taking it and eventually my doctor said to go back on my old dosage (75 mg xr) but this had no effect to my mood.

As the weeks went by, I started to develop severe anxiety, lack of motivation, gut issues, severe insomnia, and muscle spasms/tremors. During this time, I started to research my symptoms and found that degenerative diseases such as CJD followed my progression exactly. My doctor replaced the Effexor and put me on the antidepressant Trintillex but again I saw no improvement. He then proposed my present symptoms looked a lot like manic depressive of bipolar II and should seek a psychiatrist for further treatment.

At this point, I was in desperate need for something to eliminate my symptoms. After explaining my condition to the psychiatrist, tapered me up to 500mg XR of Depakote twice a day and 300mg of Seroquel once a day. These medications helped with the spasms, made it easier to fall asleep, and took some of the edge off of my depression.

It has been about a month and a half since I first started these medications. Since then I have noticed a worsening in short term memory, extreme brain fog; go through my day in a extreme haze like my brain is not working, extreme concentration issues, slurring words and reading wrong words. I'm also sensitive to audio and visual stimuli and weird tension headaches.

I have had several blood tests done and everything came back normal. I have requested a referral to to see a endocrinologists and a neurologist but my physician says I am fine and the referrals will take some time.

Has anyone else had symptoms like this? It should be noted, anxiety and occasional depression has always been present in my life, however not to this extent. The last time I felt well was months ago. I understand degenerative diseases are exceptionally rare but I was literally fine weeks before my symptoms started.

2

By the looks of what you posted, it looks like it is just anxiety especially that the blood tests came out fine and your doctor is in no worry about that.  

I think that if you should look anything up, it should be on decreasing your anxiety, not looking up symptoms of another disease, which will make your anxiety MUCH worse.  I always recommend books.  Books specffically on the type of anxiety you are experiencing.  A few pages a day will help keep you hopeful and also learn a lot about your condition and how to control it.  It has helped me tremendously, but I know you are going through a much tougher time that I am.  I go though panic and depression.

Also, if you haven't already, I recommend a therapist as well.  They will help give you even further hope of bettering your condition.  Because as much as the symptoms you are experiencing are very physical, we have mental disorders, which can be very much treated with the way you think, along side with medicine.

3

YES! Stop and don't take anything else. You are not bipoloar. You are having withdraw symptoms and darn it if they don't last a long time. I went through every horrible symptom, emotion, and sensation in the world (at least it felt like it) while withdrawing from Citalopram. My own little horrow show. It was so bad, and I am still not completely wel (9 months into stopping). The docs think this long withdraw doesn't exist, but it does. How long were you on your meds? You need to talk to people on surviving antidepressants a site that supports us lucky peeps going through withdraw. Stay strong!