Getting Pressure In Brain With Feeling Of Numbness, Tingling And Weakness. Drug And Alcohol Test Done

Posted on Wed, 17 Apr 2013

Question: I have odd and unusual pressure in my brain with numbness tingling and weaknessI have been feeling very wrong lately. I'm being treated for stress headaches and anxiety, however my husband and I both feel the doctor may be wrong. A week ago I passed out and went unresponsive for several hours. The doctor stated that I was slurring my words and blowing spit bubbles when I tried to respond to questions. After running drug and alcohol tests on me they decided that was out so they wanted to do a spinal tap to check for an aneurysm. I refused because when I explained I was scared to do that he stated he could restrain me and force it to be done because I was unable to make such decisions. My husband brought me home AMA. My blood sugar level was at seventy one but I had just eaten before I passed out and had an energy drink to boot. However, I have tried to explain to my doctor I'm not having PAIN, I'm having pressure in which it feels my scalp is not big enough for my skull. It feels like it's trying to get out. My neck gets very stiff, my left shoulder, chest, and arm tingles and doesn't go numb but gets very weak. My legs, both at times, get very tingly and feel as though I can't pick them up. On occasion,I do get a stabbing pain in the back top of my head but it only lasts for approximately thirty second to a minute and goes away. I'm flustered because the pressure sensation is petty constant. At times it will ease up but comes back within hours. my vision gets very blurry and often goes dark. I'm desperate to get this fixed but I get looked at as if I make no sense. We are very frustrated at this point. I want to get back to my normal life and raising my children, not be confined to my room feeling as if I can't function. Can someone help me? I haven't had any injuries but not sure which category this fell into.

Answered by Dr. Gopal Krishna Dash (58 minutes later)

Hello,

Thanks for the query,

I understand your problem

I have noted your problem

Please note that there are so many reasons for the pressure of headache. This will require evaluation which includes a clinical examination also. This in turn will tell us if you require a brain MRI scan to rule out any reason which can cause such problem. Further, a prolonged video-EEG (A TEST WHICH MAPS THE BRAIN FUNCTION) will resolve the issue if this is a seizure or not rather than telling that you have nothing wrong in you. I also advise you to get a nerve conduction test which will tell us the cause of tingling sensations in you. All these tests will establish the diagnosis so that treatment will become easy.

I advise you to get a second opinion

Hope this helps
Please feel free and get back to me in case you have any other concern

Best wishes

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar