Can’t go into the grocery store
Hi everyone. I haven’t been diagnosed with VM, but I’m seeing a neurologist in a couple weeks and I suspect I have VM. I have had episodic migraines with aura (maybe 1 every month or two) for at least 10 years. However, the migraines have increased in frequency the past month because of extreme stress. I have had motion sickness for most of my life. My dad has migraines also, and my grandma had severe motion sickness.
I had multiple middle ear infections last year + BPPV, which have since been fixed.
In January of this year, I started noticing that I felt HORRIBLE going into grocery stores or restaurants with bright lighting. I literally felt like I was being drugged. I felt like I was dissociated and like everything was spinning. I could not think straight, felt like I had jelly legs, and felt an odd pressure in my head. The first few times it happened, it gave me such anxiety that I had panic attacks. My mind kept going to “you have a brain tumor and you’re going to die”.
However, I found that once I got home and laid down in a dark room, the symptoms would go away entirely. So, I tried going into the store with sunglasses on, which reduced the severity a little bit, but I still feel like looking at the aisles and the people walking around were bothersome. Car rides also are bothersome for me, depending on who is driving. If I am driving or it’s a gentle driver, I am fine. If it’s not a gentle driver, I get a milder version of the head pressure and spinning. I ended up buying FL-41 glasses and those seemed to help even more, but I still really struggle when going into a store with bright lights.
I have really bad health anxiety because I have had actual things wrong with me (Crohn’s disease, mononucleosis, and a hip fracture) but I was repeatedly told by doctors at first that all of those were just anxiety or my period, and to take an anxiety pill. This has led me to be hyper vigilant about my health. This stuff that is happening to me (which I suspect is VM) is really scaring me and I am hoping that I am not alone, which is why I came here.