(Photo credits go to Adam Biggs)
I know I have been very vague about my “health problems” but I’m here to tell you what I know so far without getting too personal about my body. About a month and a half ago I started feeling sick. Headaches every night, dizzy spells, bouts of nausea. But that wasn’t the weird part. I started getting hot flashes which many of you know, you only get during menopause. And I am only 27. My breasts were tender and swollen to the point I sometimes couldn’t move. I’d get muscle aches in my face and body and intense mood swings. At first I thought I was pregnant. Then I thought it was my period. Then I had no idea what it was except I was exhausted most days and couldn’t go to the gym anymore. I had blood work done but that was a dead end. Then my general practitioner did a hormone panel on me where she discovered two hormones were out of whack including my prolactin levels. My GP told me there could be several causes. And one of them could be a brain tumor.
I spent about two weeks thinking I could have a potential brain tumor. My psychiatrist thought my illness was a result of my medication, Risperdal, an antipsychotic that has helped my hallucinations and delusions. I went for an MRI which was nerve wracking but thank God it turned out not to be a brain tumor. The story does not end here obviously. I’m going to have to see a gynecological endocrinologist and probably be taken off the Risperdal. I’ve been diagnosed with hyperprolactinemia, which affects the amount of milk in your breasts. It is also associated with brain tumors in the pituitary gland.
So yeah, still a certain amount of uncertainty. I have to speak with my GP and my psychiatrist and oh yeah, my therapist because I am terrified of going off the Risperdal which has banished those evil demons from me for the last seven years. My psychiatrist wants to put me on Abilify again which I don’t have much faith in (it didn’t really work last time plus it gave me major akathisia). But hey, at least I don’t have a brain tumor.
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