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| | | From: juds (Original Message) | Sent: 5/23/2008 3:48 AM |
Please join me in a big to our new member, Small Town PA !!!! STPA, please take a moment to introduce yourself. Here are some of our information pages to get you started: |
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Hi! I just found this site yesterday. I'm a 44 year old married mother of three whose eye started twitching in the last month or two; I didn't note the date, because I thought it was ordinary eyeLID twitching. It was like the light was fluttering or flickering, but only in my left eye, and only when I looked down (which was most of the time in the evening, because I'm usually reading and/or on my laptop). When I couldn't detect the lid twitching, I asked my husband to look at my eye. He examined me with a flash light and said "Your eyeball is jumping up and down!" I freaked out--I was so alarmed, I started shaking all over. He's a doctor, so he called an ophthalmologist friend who saw me in his office the next day and diagnosed me with SOM. I haven't had an MRI yet to confirm that there is no serious underlying problem, and I have had a LOT of anxiety about that, though my ophthalmologist believes I would have had other symptoms of some kind (headaches or coordination problems, for example) by now if it were something more pathological. He didn't even think I needed the MRI, but I saw my primary care physician and she is trying to get my insurance to authorize one, which I hope will set my mind at ease.
For me, the twitching has been annoying, but it's the anxiety about it that has been the biggest problem. My primary care doc is even putting me on an anti-anxiety drug because I've been so obsessed with worrying that I MIGHT have some other, more serious condition, I've been constantly assessing myself for the appearance of new symptoms. Has this been the case for anyone else?
I'm so grateful to have found this site. Reading the archived histories, in which other SOM sufferers report things like slight blurring of their vision or alcohol being a trigger, has been very reassuring because it's so similar to my own experience. I'm glad to be here! |
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Welcome, Small! Funny, I was also a married forty-something (can't remember) mother of three when my eye (right) started twitiching, too. Just to make you feel at home, yes, when I heard about the MRI and the reasons for it, I freaked. Since I am not the type to visibly freak, it was all internal, and I could not have a single logical sequence of thought or ideas until I had the darn MRI, and it was found to be benign. I wonder if the anti-anxiety drug might even help a little with the SOM. I found that lorazipam and later diazepam (though used for muscle spasm in other areas) seemed to soothe the SOM a bit. Anyway, just have a good time chilling after the MRI and keep in touch. This site has been most certainly the single most important source of support for me--and I'm guessing for many. Let us know how you are doing! Annie |
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| Thanks, mad-eye-annie and Cindyloowho! I know I was lucky to get a diagnosis so quickly, but I'm not going to relax until after I have my MRI, which is scheduled for the 29th. I keep having anxiety symptoms (hot flashes, twitches, nervous shakes) which come and go (but mostly come), and though I'm fairly sure they're just anxiety, I also worry I have a brain tumor. I get the anxiety/hypochondria from my father, but when there's a real symptom or set of symptoms to hang it on, it's really hard to manage. |
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Well, Small, see if you can use the past posts and the summaries under the "History" thread to help settle your brain. Honestly, I think you will find so many Som-ers who have gone through the MRI process--just for good measure--and have come out clean except for the wonky eye plague that you might feel better. Unfortunately, if I look for symptoms, I almost always find something, and it turns out to be nothing much. (It's the fate of the "over-thinker" gene that runs in my family.) The more I read, the BETTER I feel, and I so wish I had been able to access this site at the beginning of my Amazing SOM Journey. Five days to go and you're there in the machine. Noisy, but no other problems. You even get to wear earphones with your favorite music. I do remember being intrigued with the images--several made me and my eyeballs and brain look a whole lot like Kermit the Frog. Good luck. Hey, Cindy. You are correct. Probably the kids did not produce SOM, but I will hang a bunch of the anxiety on them--especially my two boys. But we got them all raised and they are now my best friends. So, true, they should not get the rap for the be-bopping eye. Maybe the white hair (nicely disguised), but not the eye. Annie |
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| | | From: juds | Sent: 5/23/2008 8:35 PM |
Cindy, I am reposting this for you. Please do not reply from w\e-mails, or at least delete personal information before you hit send. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!  Reply
| | Welcome Small Town!! I was a thirty-something with no children when I was diagnosed with SOM so you and Annie can’t blame the children for this one. J I’m sorry for the reason you had to find this site, but glad you did. You do seem to be one of the lucky ones though who was quickly diagnosed. Most of us had to go months even years before we were diagnosed. People just thought we were crazy. I had to actually have my husband video tape my eye twitching before my doctor would even believe there was something wrong, because of course it never did it when I was in his office. They have used anti-depressants on me too. Nortryptlyn to be exact. It actually stopped the episodes and put me into remission for the moment. Oh just so you know, just in case your doctor doesn’t tell you (mine didn’t) you can go into remission periods where everything is back to normal. When I went into remission the first time I thought I was cured. No one told me it was remission. So you can imagine my disappointment when it came back. I’ve also been on Tegratol which is a seizure medication, it did nothing for me. However, some members have had success with it. That’s the thing with this funky eye problem (as I call it) it reacts differently with everyone. That’s the great thing about this site; we have the benefit of everyone’s experience. Welcome again, keep us posted on your progress and remember, ask your doctors all the questions you can. Cindy | | |
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Juds,
This email contact is my work email and I have resigned
and will be leaving in a couple of weeks. Could you please take this email
address off. I will back up from my home. Thanks and I’ll talk to you
in a few days.
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| | | From: juds | Sent: 6/24/2008 6:06 AM |
Cindy, one of the safety features here is that only a member can change anything in their member profile. Whilst you are no longer able to use that e-mail address for e-mailing, it won't make any difference in how you sign-in to MSN, view our site, or post. However, if you want to change your e-mail address, you can do that by clicking on your name and choosing the option of editing your profile. When you are finished there, be sure to click on the Save Changes button. Also, you might want to shoot me a message at the e-mail account that we used when you first joined, just so that I can contact you if necessary. If you no longer have access to that Yahoo! address, you can find it in our Documents section. And, if all else fails, e-mail me and we will figure out what specifics will solve whatever difficulty you might be having. On a more personal note, I hope that your resignation is something that benefits you. |
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