This Story Is Not Over

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by Jay Paul

On July 28 I was hiking with a friend in a nature center. While going up a hill I felt a strange wooziness for a few seconds. I attributed it to some weird reaction to the meds I take for schizoaffective, and thought little of it. It happened a few days later when I was hiking by myself in a state park. That evening, I knew something was amiss when I felt woozy and like I was going to fall off my chair while meditating. I have felt woozy off and on ever since.

At first it was bad. It hit me the worst when I was out walking. In early August, I cut the length of my walks down considerably. What was happening to me? The only change I could identify was going from a 2 mg Risperidone cut in half to a 1 mg Risperidone. I figured I was having some withdrawal from an inactive ingredient in the 2 mg tablet. I figured I would get over it in a few weeks.

A few weeks came and went. I still had it, but it was less acute. I called my psychiatrist, and he thought it might be dehydration. I drank more. It continued.

Finally, on August 19, I had a battery of tests for anything that could be causing wooziness. They all came back fine. Since I was on a small dose of Trazadone for sleep, I decided to try weaning off that to see if it was the cause of the troubles. As of today, I am going to go off the drug entirely. Not only is the wooziness still there, I am having withdrawal from the Trazadone. My psychiatrist tells me you can't get withdrawal from Trazadone, but my body tells me otherwise. I am irritable, angry, and anxious. I also feel just a little bit queasy. But I am sleeping o.k. So I guess I didn't need the Trazodone at all.

Early this week I looked up signs for celiacs disease on the Internet. Celiacs runs in my family and is an autoimmune disease caused by an allergy to gluten, which is found in wheat. According to what I read, I have a number of signs that could point to it. For some, the chief symptom of celiacs is lightheadedness. I get tested this afternoon. Hopefully, I will get the results back by tomorrow.

Right now, I assume the wooziness is caused by either the Risperidone or celiacs. Part of me hopes it's the celiacs because I am doing so well on the Risperidone, and those blood tests I took prove it. I am having none of the many possible adverse blood reactions to the med.

I still feel woozy off and on. It's not as bad as a month ago, but it's still there. We'll see what happens.

This sort of medical issue can happen to anyone, of course. Things are made more complicated because I take a med for schizoaffective that can cause dizziness. We'll see. I will report back here next week on this, and also write another post less focused on my health. But this has been what I've been thinking about lately. It's hard to think of other stuff while woozy.

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