# Enduring DR as a Symptom



## Laya96 (Nov 17, 2016)

Hey All,

I'll try to keep this short. My derealisation (and sometimes depersonalisation) is a symptom of what has been diagnosed as vestibular migraine. I suffer a range of other symptoms (tinnitus, daily headaches/migraine, vertigo, dizziness, brain fog) but DR is by far the hardest to deal with. Literally an hour to hour struggle and I thought about joining here to get that support and insight we all need.

Before this began, I was extremely stressed and anxious, skipped meals, drank energy drinks way too much, and killed myself studying with the occasional aid of ritalin and modafinil. I began developing chronic daily headaches, and would often used codeine-based painkillers to alleviate the pain and stress. A week before it all began, I was very sick with EBV. A few days after recovery from the infection, I was in a lecture and suddenly everything looked weird and it scared me. While it has fluctuated, it has never left me since (2 months now). My nervous system just went haywire from the stress and I went into a chronic state of migraine. With the DR came photophobia, hallucinations of movement and vertigo, dizziness, visual disturbances and crippling anxiety and fear.

I'm here two months later, with some improvement, that I attribute to amitriptyline and a diagnosis. The ami has given me a clearer head and worked on my other symptoms but I'm definitely still derealised. I'm still trying to figure out how to cope with this. My day basically goes like this: dread waking up, wake up and go do whatever I have to do feeling totally surreal and out of it, eventually breakdown, feel rejuvenated after breakdown and feel more positive so on and so forth.

Any support or advice would be sooooo appreciated!


----------



## forestx5 (Aug 29, 2008)

I have suffered ocular migraines since I was 17. For the first 10 years, I didn't know what they were. I've been on amitriptyline. It ended a long period of insomnia and may have saved my life. Insomnia is torture. I had diagnostics done (MRI and EEG) and my EEG showed "significant pathology" in my temporal lobe. That explains the 4 major depressive episodes I struggled to survive. But, life is good now. Better than ever. Hang in there and make it work.


----------



## tfiio (Nov 10, 2016)

I don't have any particular applicable knowledge or experiences here, but here's some support!  I'm glad you've already started finding things that work for you.


----------

