Hello, I had a vit d deficiency of level 6 in March 2023
I went to a doctor and requested the right dose of vit d as my deficiency was severe and I was constantly shaking and felt like I would die. The doctor prescribed me 1 injection of 6L arachitol twice a week for 4 weeks.
Then also take 8 supplements of 60k iu vitamin d
I started taking it and by the end of the injections, 1 month had passed and I developed debilitating vertigo
I went back to her and she told me continue taking vitamin d supplements and quit my job and go relax in Another country. I quit my job as I was very worried about my health at this point and the doctor scared me into it. I had a very good wfh job.
I took 4 supplements as instructed but all my bones started to hurt and I was having severe heart palpitations, night sweats and shivers at the same time. I also developed s in my neck, shoulder, above ankle and below wrist, all on he right side of my body as it's the side I took all the injections.
I googled about the dosage worrying about my symptoms and it suggested Vit d toxicity so I got the levels checked and it indeed was 109 toxicity.
So I stopped supplements and restricted calcium and decided to check it next month.
But the next month it was 127 toxicity.
Anything above 100 is toxicity as per the reports.
I developed severe body pain and my upper back cramped straight for 2 weeks and I couldn't move my upper body.
My uric acid levels were Normal, calcium was in range cause I kept avoiding it.
I went to a doctor and I was suggested to walk 1 hour a day and avoid calcium and vit d
I did so but my vertigo remained and I developed tingling and numbness all over my body and burning near all my joints and my entire head tingling and numbing.
I got several infections of the ears nose and eyes due to extreme dehydration from the overdose. The ENT I visited just treated me with multiple antibiotics and loaded me up on anti vertigo medicines. Which still didn't stop my vertigo
I visited a neuro and they suggested an mri "only to calm me down" cause I was over reacting and it was a brain mri and it showed a c5-c6 annular fissure and nerve indentation.
I was advised to wear a collar which I did from sept to January 2024.
My vit d was now at 36 and finally low enough but none of my swellings subsided. I haven't been able to walk properly since months or do ANYTHING as even chewing triggers the swellings.
Vertigo is mild now but still persists.
Doctors are very dismissive of everything I say and will not provide any solution for the awellings
I've been to physiotherapy as suggested by them and do exercises but my swellings only get worse by even doing the minimum
January I visited an orthopaedic again and he told me to stay home for a year and ignore myself and that I would be fine. It makes me want to off myself that they don't provide any solutions.
My family never cared about me and thinks Im over reacting but I can't look down or move, I can't draw and pursue my hobbies cause it's making my neck swell up to the point I can barely d have difficulty swallowing because of the swelling. I am severely depressed..
Ive gained weight too and they have been body shaming me. I am 5'3, I used to be petite and I think in my 40s-early 50s in kg, I am 64-66 kgs now and doctors have said it's fine but ik I'm overweight by a few kgs. I'm meant to be 57 and everyone blames my weight but I literally can't walk more than 400 steps without debilitating pain, I have walked despite the horrible pain 4000 steps a day minimum it causes a visual issue where everything around me starts moving backwards... Idk what it is but I think it's like vertigo, atleast that's what I assume. Same when I work out..
Ive been doing back pain yoga for 20 mins everyday.
It has also effected my eye sight, I had 0.5-0. 7 vision in both eyes since I was in 5th grade and it never increased and before the overdose this is what is was. But I got it checked last sep and it is now, 1.75 in each eye and I have double vision if I look at a certain angle.. And the muscles around my right eye hurt.. My eyes take time to line up together as well and focus.. I have blurry vision often..
I did some research and online via reddit it suggested that Vit d depletes vit k2 and magnesium and may help break down calcium if they're in the wrong places.
I ate blueberries for the first time in April 2024 and my neck swelling seemed less and I really thought it may all go away cause they're rich In k2 and mag.
I did all the blood tests suggested by a doctor and all of them came back normal, including arthritis tests and bone density tests.
I also requested more mris as my back and neck still hurt massively and I found out I have c4-c6 protrusions and L5-S1 bulge.. I am at a loss on what to do with myself.
I showed the ortho all the reports and requested supplements for k2 and mag and was provided a 30 day prescription for calcimax k2. I was suggested to only walk for the disc issues..
I have been taking it and the first 3 days the swellings seemed down and I experienced much less pain but it's the 5th day and my swellings are back full fledged and it's painful enough to have a panic attack..
I am at a loss and I don't know what to do, I did approach a lawyer to sue the doctor and I have been told I cannot lose in court if I do file and then the lawyer dipped and he also wants 15% and I don't have the funds cause I've been unemployed for a year
I've been working since I was 16 cause my lifes always been hell and I've had a nail fungus issue since the past 14 years and I haven't lived normally as I can't dip my hands in water as it lifts the nails off the nail bed and it's extremely painful.
Idk what to do anymore and I can't keep being strong and keep getting through this and I feel trapped.. If any one at all, a doctor or medical professional can comment on this and assist me I would really really appreciate it.

Hi Courtney! I'm a huge fan of your channel and I've been watching you for a while now, and I would just die if you read my story! It's gonna be a little longer since I don't want to miss any important details. Also tag warning for some serious topics (drug use and pedophelia)
Okay so, let's start back in 2012. My mom worked in the NICU taking care of little premature babies. (I had been 6 weeks early, which inspired my mom) I was 11 at the time that she met her ex-husband, my ex-stepdad. We can just call him B (for bastard lol). They worked together, he was funny and stole her heart. Well at the time he was going through a divorce but lived in a house twenty minutes from where we were living at the time. B had told my mom that things were over with his ex for sure (he told his ex wife at that time that he wanted to work on things! She was so blindsided by the divorce papers!) <--- of course we didn't know about any of that until recently End of 2012 comes, he marries my mom and my older sister move in with him and his 7 year old son in this three bedroom house. Two rooms upstairs and a master bedroom downstairs. Now of the top two rooms, my ex stepbrother (lets call him C) had the larger room, while my older sister (who was high school age, I think she was a senior) and I shared the other room and slept in bunk beds.
Now C had a problem with sleeping in his room at night. He would tell us about how he was afraid of the closet (the closet also had a tiny door that led up to the attic). Ever since he was little it was always the same problem. C was simply terrified of something in the house. He had an experience where someone woke him up and warned him that there was a spider, he started screaming and sure enough they found a brown recluse spider under his bed.
Then my mom gets pregnant and gives birth to my little brother, H. My sister had moved out pretty much as soon as possible. B was awful. He would belittle us and talk down to us, constantly try to make everyone feel stupid around him- he had to be the smartest one around at all times. He was an asshole, and he would say rude stuff and then complain that we were taking him too serious and he was just being sarcastic. That we 'didn't get his sense of humor'. And for a while, he had my mom wrapped right around his finger. He was manipulating her from the very beginning. He even treated her like shit most of the time. 8th grade all the way through the end of my senior year I endured his treatment every day. I had to be careful about what I said at all times, about who came over, about being too loud at night. If my room was messy, he would take a garbage bag and take all of my stuff- I had to 'earn' back my stuff.
When the baby was born they had to do renovations on the house. There was a ton of attic space, so they ended up breaking into it- a game room leading to two bedrooms and a bathroom. This was when things went from humanly hellish to supernaturally chaotic. During the renovations before any walls went up and it was mostly just wood and plastic, C and I had seen a dark shadow of a man pass behind a plastic tarp- and it was so clear because the sunlight was coming from the other side. When I checked there was no body there. Once everything was completed the feeling changed.
My room ended up being on the other end of the opened up attic.
At the time I was watching a lot of Supernatural- so my spooked ass started putting salt barriers on my bedroom door (which guess what! Yeah! It was one of those attic bedrooms!) and also on my window too. My mom and B would ridicule me for this but I stand by my decisions to this day!
This was mostly because of the feelings you would get in the game room. Even if you were just passing through. There were always eyes on you- especially when your back was turned. I never ever walked through that room without the light on. I didn't even sleep with the light off in my room. When I would I would get really bad sleep paralysis,
One of the worst ones I was laying on my stomach with my head turned to the side. I opened my eyes and I was utterly frozen. At first I know it's just sp, so I try to stay calm and take deep breaths but then I start to feel this pressure starting down on my feet. It feels like two hands grabbing my ankles and pressing down. Then the hands move up my body and then there's more pressure- like someone's whole body is crawled over top of me. It gets closer and closer to my head. All the while I'm trying to scream but I can't open my mouth so it's just coming out as quiet whimpers. I can feel it breathing on my neck and then in my ear. That's when it finally stopped and I jerked up and immediately turned on the light. I remember just crying for a while. At the time B had made it impossible to trust my mom- and they would've just gotten mad at me for waking them up.
There was another night where I had been up late, probably 3 or 4 in the morning and I was drawing or something just sitting on my bed. All of the sudden I hear 4 distinct knocks from INSIDE my closet! No joke I shit bricks. There was no rational explanation. Because there was siding on our house that was damaged and it would make noise but it was always specific like a scraping/tapping. But this was a knock, like someone is at your door with your DoorDash meal type knock. I always tried to rationalize what was happening. Make excuses for the weird stuff.
Then one summer, my cousin had come up from another state to stay with us. We spent a lot of time in my room, just hanging out. One day, we're both up there just chilling when all of the sudden I notice something under my door.
Someone was walking back and forth in front of the bedroom door. You could even hear the floor creaking on the other side. You could see the shadow pass to the right and then to the left. I remember locking my door and calling my mom to see if it was an actual human, nope. She ended up sending B up there (of course this made him mad for some reason) to verify that there was no person up there. Basically they just said we were being kids with overactive imaginations but I can tell you right now there was no rational explanation for that experience.
A lot of the time at that house you could feel constant eyes on you, mostly in the attic. Like always- at all times, someone or something was watching.
There were also times when there was a sort of 'mimic' situation where you could think you heard something upstairs but you really didn't; one time my sister went to pick up our dog- and she thought she heard the dog crying upstairs, she started to go up and get her when her boyfriend who was there at the time stopped her because the dog crate was downstairs in my moms room AND GUESS WHO WAS IN THE CRATE and NOT upstairs.
There was also one time I was babysitting my younger siblings and it was pretty late when I heard giggling upstairs. Thinking it was my brother, I went up to reprimand him and basically tell him to go to sleep but when I entered his room- he was dead asleep. Like fully passed out. I just shut the door and quietly went back downstairs. Nope nope nope.
B ended up doing work out of state- I was like 20 ish and moved back in with my mom and the kids. What was weird that during this time I didn't really have a lot of paranormal experiences. Once or twice you would hear weird things or my cat would get tiffed up staring at blank corners of the room. It was mostly really nice when he wasn't there.
A few years ago we ended up having to leave that house. B as it turns out had gotten himself addicted to meth and also started downloading explicit photos of underage girls (11-13 approx.) I was at the house when the police came and everything. He's still not in jail btw which is such bull. When it first happened, my mom reached out to B's ex wife to talk to her.
Turns out from the moment B and his ex bought this house, she immediately noticed negativity. Weird things and scary things that would happen. We sort of deduced that HE was the one bringing that negative energy into the house, which totally made sense because most of the extreme haunting stuff was happening WHILE HE WAS THERE. So yeah I blame him because he is a disgusting demon himself.
Anyway that's all I've got for now- thank you so much for reading! Love you girl!

TLDR: I have had non spinning dizziness for 3 years, did every test, saw a world expert in dizziness at Mayo clinic, diagnosed with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, possibly Vestibular Migraines from a neurologist, but not PPPD, and I accept it finally.
Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my story with dizziness as I have read many others on many different forums and hope that this can help others like others have helped me!
I have experienced dizziness for over three years now (28M) that is non-spinning in nature, it is an up and down feeling like you are on an elevator, on a boat, or walking on sand as some may describe it, typically while walking, standing, or slight position adjustments while sitting or laying down. It has caused anxiety, panic attacks, shakiness, heart palpitations, arm/leg numbess, neck tingling, neck pain, muscle spasms, brain fog, hearing sensitivity, headaches, fevers, and others I am probably forgetting.
I recently visited with Dr. Staab at Mayo Clinic who is one of the best in the world at looking into problems with dizziness, among many countless providers over the last three years. Dr. Staab specifically researches and treats dizziness, and recently diagnosed me with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, but NOT Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as I don’t completely fit the criteria. The reason I was given was that I did not have a typical reason such as an ear infection or other PPPD pre-cursors, and that certain motion does not trigger dizziness in me like typical PPPD patients (I can play video games and watch movies with no issues). I for sure thought I had PPPD, but regardless, treatment is relatively the same with or without that diagnosis for my symptoms.
The best way it was explained to me was that my initial dizziness episode three years ago was a panic attack where the first symptom was dizziness followed by other physical symptoms, and heightened anxiety/panic over this dizziness caused my body to be overly alert/sensitive to the space/movement around me, creating a loop of constant dizziness. While my anxiety has improved tremendously and I have only experienced less than 10 (being generous with this) panic attacks my whole life, the dizziness has improved but remained, as it is described as basically a residual effect of the initial anxiety/panic attacks that my body has not yet corrected.
I also saw Dr. Beh who is a neurologist that specializes in vestibular disorders and migraines, and he further diagnosed me with Vestibular Migraines (which Dr. Staab says is a possibility but he doesn’t have enough evidence to diagnose me with it).
My current treatment includes taking Venlafaxine (going to 75mg soon) to directly treat the dizziness and help with any remaining anxiety/panic issues, receive therapy (psychoeducation and CBT) by a therapist with a PhD preferably, and vestibular rehab. Dr. Staab also said massages (light on the neck) could be helpful as dizziness can cause neck and back muscles to tighten due to the body stiffening over time to try to avoid dizziness sensations.
I was told to take Vitamin B12 (400mg) and venlafaxine in the morning. In the afternoon I take COq10 (200mg) after lunch and 200mg after dinner. Before bed, I take magnesium glycinate (500mg) and effexor. I take other supplements, but these I specifically take for migraine/dizziness related issues.
I have seen Dr. Staab, Dr. Beh, the Vestibular Psychologist Emily Kostelnik, have watched the Steady Coach on youtube, looked into the dizzy cook, and have seen multiple Neurologists, ENT’s, Cardiologists, PCP’s, Physical therapists, audiologists, gastro’s, even an allergist. I was misdiagnosed with POT’s, but otherwise every test that was done came back normal except that I have a hiatial hernia, fatty liver, low vitamin D, and a deviated septum.
I’ve had the brain scans, blood tests, heart monitoscans/ultrasounds, tilt table, ear tests, balance tests, epley maneuver, rotary chair, basically every test you can think of (some multiple times) and have tried basically every supplements/lifestyle changes you can think of as well. I have also done a lot of the above tests at Mayo Clinic in their dizziness program that I was accepted into in Minnesota.
My dizziness began at work 3 years ago when it felt like I was bouncing up and down just while standing and my body proceded to panic. I went from having this kind of episode once a month, to once every few weeks, to every day, to basically dizzy any time I stood or walked. Because of the dizziness, I stopped going to stores, didn’t shower as much as I should have, did not workout, and took off of work as it was so difficult to just walk. I currently work full time, workout, am in a relationship, and can do so much that I felt like I couldn’t do. I still have days where I need to take a break, and you won’t catch me on a boat for awhile as that triggers me GREATLY!
Two things that have for sure helped me so far, walking and time. Going for walks was a hard thing to start being dizzy, but that is something I can for sure say I’ve noticed helps without a doubt. And time; my dizziness didn’t improve overnight, it’s been three years, and i still deal with it! I’ve learned it isn’t going to hurt me and to simply learn to live with it (for now) and to push myself baby steps at a time.
Also, parasympathetic breathing has helped me tremendously as well as guided meditation to relax and practice mindfulness. I pay for an app called Downdog which has great guided programs (and yoga!) and currently get it for free for being a student.
Don’t give up, even if it feels like you are just trying to survive. Don’t let doctors write you off, advocate for yourself. If the doctor doesn’t listen or help, find new ones. Lean on your support system. Help others and share your story so there is more awareness and research for dizziness. It is one of the most difficult symptoms to diagnose. And it is just that, a SYMPTOM! You are you and not your symptoms or diagnoses!
If you have any questions, I will try my best to respond to everything no matter the question or if it is 10 years from now. There is SO much to this journey, and attempting to fit it into one post feels impossible. One thing that bothered me was people posting about their symptoms and never giving updates/responding to others, so I will try my best to do so…

TLDR: I have had non spinning dizziness for 3 years, did every test, saw a world expert in dizziness at Mayo clinic, diagnosed with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, possibly Vestibular Migraines from a neurologist, but not PPPD, and I accept it finally.
Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my story with dizziness as I have read many others on many different forums and hope that this can help others like others have helped me!
I have experienced dizziness for over three years now (28M) that is non-spinning in nature, it is an up and down feeling like you are on an elevator, on a boat, or walking on sand as some may describe it, typically while walking, standing, or slight position adjustments while sitting or laying down. It has caused anxiety, panic attacks, shakiness, heart palpitations, arm/leg numbess, neck tingling, neck pain, muscle spasms, brain fog, hearing sensitivity, headaches, fevers, and others I am probably forgetting.
I recently visited with Dr. Staab at Mayo Clinic who is one of the best in the world at looking into problems with dizziness, among many countless providers over the last three years. Dr. Staab specifically researches and treats dizziness, and recently diagnosed me with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, but NOT Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as I don’t completely fit the criteria. The reason I was given was that I did not have a typical reason such as an ear infection or other PPPD pre-cursors, and that certain motion does not trigger dizziness in me like typical PPPD patients (I can play video games and watch movies with no issues). I for sure thought I had PPPD, but regardless, treatment is relatively the same with or without that diagnosis for my symptoms.
The best way it was explained to me was that my initial dizziness episode three years ago was a panic attack where the first symptom was dizziness followed by other physical symptoms, and heightened anxiety/panic over this dizziness caused my body to be overly alert/sensitive to the space/movement around me, creating a loop of constant dizziness. While my anxiety has improved tremendously and I have only experienced less than 10 (being generous with this) panic attacks my whole life, the dizziness has improved but remained, as it is described as basically a residual effect of the initial anxiety/panic attacks that my body has not yet corrected.
I also saw Dr. Beh who is a neurologist that specializes in vestibular disorders and migraines, and he further diagnosed me with Vestibular Migraines (which Dr. Staab says is a possibility but he doesn’t have enough evidence to diagnose me with it).
My current treatment includes taking Venlafaxine (going to 75mg soon) to directly treat the dizziness and help with any remaining anxiety/panic issues, receive therapy (psychoeducation and CBT) by a therapist with a PhD preferably, and vestibular rehab. Dr. Staab also said massages (light on the neck) could be helpful as dizziness can cause neck and back muscles to tighten due to the body stiffening over time to try to avoid dizziness sensations.
I was told to take Vitamin B12 (400mg) and venlafaxine in the morning. In the afternoon I take COq10 (200mg) after lunch and 200mg after dinner. Before bed, I take magnesium glycinate (500mg) and effexor. I take other supplements, but these I specifically take for migraine/dizziness related issues.
I have seen Dr. Staab, Dr. Beh, the Vestibular Psychologist Emily Kostelnik, have watched the Steady Coach on youtube, looked into the dizzy cook, and have seen multiple Neurologists, ENT’s, Cardiologists, PCP’s, Physical therapists, audiologists, gastro’s, even an allergist. I was misdiagnosed with POT’s, but otherwise every test that was done came back normal except that I have a hiatial hernia, fatty liver, low vitamin D, and a deviated septum.
I’ve had the brain scans, blood tests, heart monitoscans/ultrasounds, tilt table, ear tests, balance tests, epley maneuver, rotary chair, basically every test you can think of (some multiple times) and have tried basically every supplements/lifestyle changes you can think of as well. I have also done a lot of the above tests at Mayo Clinic in their dizziness program that I was accepted into in Minnesota.
My dizziness began at work 3 years ago when it felt like I was bouncing up and down just while standing and my body proceded to panic. I went from having this kind of episode once a month, to once every few weeks, to every day, to basically dizzy any time I stood or walked. Because of the dizziness, I stopped going to stores, didn’t shower as much as I should have, did not workout, and took off of work as it was so difficult to just walk. I currently work full time, workout, am in a relationship, and can do so much that I felt like I couldn’t do. I still have days where I need to take a break, and you won’t catch me on a boat for awhile as that triggers me GREATLY!
Two things that have for sure helped me so far, walking and time. Going for walks was a hard thing to start being dizzy, but that is something I can for sure say I’ve noticed helps without a doubt. And time; my dizziness didn’t improve overnight, it’s been three years, and i still deal with it! I’ve learned it isn’t going to hurt me and to simply learn to live with it (for now) and to push myself baby steps at a time.
Also, parasympathetic breathing has helped me tremendously as well as guided meditation to relax and practice mindfulness. I pay for an app called Downdog which has great guided programs (and yoga!) and currently get it for free for being a student.
Don’t give up, even if it feels like you are just trying to survive. Don’t let doctors write you off, advocate for yourself. If the doctor doesn’t listen or help, find new ones. Lean on your support system. Help others and share your story so there is more awareness and research for dizziness. It is one of the most difficult symptoms to diagnose. And it is just that, a SYMPTOM! You are you and not your symptoms or diagnoses!
If you have any questions, I will try my best to respond to everything no matter the question or if it is 10 years from now. There is SO much to this journey, and attempting to fit it into one post feels impossible. One thing that bothered me was people posting about their symptoms and never giving updates/responding to others, so I will try my best to do so…

I've never posted here but hopefully I give enough info. I'm 29f, 205 lbs and five foot two. I'm very aware I need to lose weight and have been working on it but for about a year or more, I've struggled with eating full meals and can go days without eating because I do not at all get an appetite. When I do get one, it lasts maybe 5 mins and is gone before I can even make something to eat. This will be relevant later I think.
When I was about 10 years old, I had to go through something called Young D's bladder neck repair because my body hadn't developed the muscle that opens and closes my bladder so they had to go in and make one out of parts of my bladder. I also only have a functioning right kidney. The left never developed and just has blood flow.
Shortly after that surgery I started developing chronic UTI's that have only turned into a kidney infection a few times. That leads us to this past Sunday. I got up to use the bathroom an absurd amount of times between the hours of 11pm and 4am when I was supposed to get ready for work. I ended up calling out because of the kidney pain and going to my urgent care. Surprise, I have a UTI, which I expected a knew. No word on the kidney infection yet because he sent it off for culture.
Today I had to call out again after not sleeping once again due to constantly using the bathroom. None of this has direct relevance to what is going on, but I wanted to throw my history out there.
I have been more overweight in my life than I am right now and have had this squishy nonpainful lump under my left breast for a few years but I always wrote it off as I'm overweight and it's just fat. Well despite losing weight in the last few years, it has seemed to grow a little bit and now wraps onto the left side of my back. On and off it would cause some aches but nothing lasting more than a few minutes.
Today that completely changed. I have been in constant pain there and on my left side where it goes onto my back. I don't know how to describe the pain. The best way to put it is an aching fullness where the squishy thing is? I have been debating going to the er all day about it. I am scared about what it could be and miserable. I just want the pain to stop. Is this cause for going to get checked out?

TLDR: I have had non spinning dizziness for 3 years, did every test, saw a world expert in dizziness at Mayo clinic, diagnosed with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, possibly Vestibular Migraines from a neurologist, but not PPPD, and I accept it finally.
Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my story with dizziness as I have read many others on many different forums and hope that this can help others like others have helped me!
I have experienced dizziness for over three years now (28M) that is non-spinning in nature, it is an up and down feeling like you are on an elevator, on a boat, or walking on sand as some may describe it, typically while walking, standing, or slight position adjustments while sitting or laying down. It has caused anxiety, panic attacks, shakiness, heart palpitations, arm/leg numbess, neck tingling, neck pain, muscle spasms, brain fog, hearing sensitivity, headaches, fevers, and others I am probably forgetting.
I recently visited with Dr. Staab at Mayo Clinic who is one of the best in the world at looking into problems with dizziness, among many countless providers over the last three years. Dr. Staab specifically researches and treats dizziness, and recently diagnosed me with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, but NOT Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as I don’t completely fit the criteria. The reason I was given was that I did not have a typical reason such as an ear infection or other PPPD pre-cursors, and that certain motion does not trigger dizziness in me like typical PPPD patients (I can play video games and watch movies with no issues). I for sure thought I had PPPD, but regardless, treatment is relatively the same with or without that diagnosis for my symptoms.
The best way it was explained to me was that my initial dizziness episode three years ago was a panic attack where the first symptom was dizziness followed by other physical symptoms, and heightened anxiety/panic over this dizziness caused my body to be overly alert/sensitive to the space/movement around me, creating a loop of constant dizziness. While my anxiety has improved tremendously and I have only experienced less than 10 (being generous with this) panic attacks my whole life, the dizziness has improved but remained, as it is described as basically a residual effect of the initial anxiety/panic attacks that my body has not yet corrected.
I also saw Dr. Beh who is a neurologist that specializes in vestibular disorders and migraines, and he further diagnosed me with Vestibular Migraines (which Dr. Staab says is a possibility but he doesn’t have enough evidence to diagnose me with it).
My current treatment includes taking Venlafaxine (going to 75mg soon) to directly treat the dizziness and help with any remaining anxiety/panic issues, receive therapy (psychoeducation and CBT) by a therapist with a PhD preferably, and vestibular rehab. Dr. Staab also said massages (light on the neck) could be helpful as dizziness can cause neck and back muscles to tighten due to the body stiffening over time to try to avoid dizziness sensations.
I was told to take Vitamin B12 (400mg) and venlafaxine in the morning. In the afternoon I take COq10 (200mg) after lunch and 200mg after dinner. Before bed, I take magnesium glycinate (500mg) and effexor. I take other supplements, but these I specifically take for migraine/dizziness related issues.
I have seen Dr. Staab, Dr. Beh, the Vestibular Psychologist Emily Kostelnik, have watched the Steady Coach on youtube, looked into the dizzy cook, and have seen multiple Neurologists, ENT’s, Cardiologists, PCP’s, Physical therapists, audiologists, gastro’s, even an allergist. I was misdiagnosed with POT’s, but otherwise every test that was done came back normal except that I have a hiatial hernia, fatty liver, low vitamin D, and a deviated septum.
I’ve had the brain scans, blood tests, heart monitoscans/ultrasounds, tilt table, ear tests, balance tests, epley maneuver, rotary chair, basically every test you can think of (some multiple times) and have tried basically every supplements/lifestyle changes you can think of as well. I have also done a lot of the above tests at Mayo Clinic in their dizziness program that I was accepted into in Minnesota.
My dizziness began at work 3 years ago when it felt like I was bouncing up and down just while standing and my body proceded to panic. I went from having this kind of episode once a month, to once every few weeks, to every day, to basically dizzy any time I stood or walked. Because of the dizziness, I stopped going to stores, didn’t shower as much as I should have, did not workout, and took off of work as it was so difficult to just walk. I currently work full time, workout, am in a relationship, and can do so much that I felt like I couldn’t do. I still have days where I need to take a break, and you won’t catch me on a boat for awhile as that triggers me GREATLY!
Two things that have for sure helped me so far, walking and time. Going for walks was a hard thing to start being dizzy, but that is something I can for sure say I’ve noticed helps without a doubt. And time; my dizziness didn’t improve overnight, it’s been three years, and i still deal with it! I’ve learned it isn’t going to hurt me and to simply learn to live with it (for now) and to push myself baby steps at a time.
Also, parasympathetic breathing has helped me tremendously as well as guided meditation to relax and practice mindfulness. I pay for an app called Downdog which has great guided programs (and yoga!) and currently get it for free for being a student.
Don’t give up, even if it feels like you are just trying to survive. Don’t let doctors write you off, advocate for yourself. If the doctor doesn’t listen or help, find new ones. Lean on your support system. Help others and share your story so there is more awareness and research for dizziness. It is one of the most difficult symptoms to diagnose. And it is just that, a SYMPTOM! You are you and not your symptoms or diagnoses!
If you have any questions, I will try my best to respond to everything no matter the question or if it is 10 years from now. There is SO much to this journey, and attempting to fit it into one post feels impossible. One thing that bothered me was people posting about their symptoms and never giving updates/responding to others, so I will try my best to do so…

TLDR: I have had non spinning dizziness for 3 years, did every test, saw a world expert in dizziness at Mayo clinic, diagnosed with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, possibly Vestibular Migraines from a neurologist, but not PPPD, and I accept it finally.
Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my story with dizziness as I have read many others on many different forums and hope that this can help others like others have helped me!
I have experienced dizziness for over three years now (28M) that is non-spinning in nature, it is an up and down feeling like you are on an elevator, on a boat, or walking on sand as some may describe it, typically while walking, standing, or slight position adjustments while sitting or laying down. It has caused anxiety, panic attacks, shakiness, heart palpitations, arm/leg numbess, neck tingling, neck pain, muscle spasms, brain fog, hearing sensitivity, headaches, fevers, and others I am probably forgetting.
I recently visited with Dr. Staab at Mayo Clinic who is one of the best in the world at looking into problems with dizziness, among many countless providers over the last three years. Dr. Staab specifically researches and treats dizziness, and recently diagnosed me with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, but NOT Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as I don’t completely fit the criteria. The reason I was given was that I did not have a typical reason such as an ear infection or other PPPD pre-cursors, and that certain motion does not trigger dizziness in me like typical PPPD patients (I can play video games and watch movies with no issues). I for sure thought I had PPPD, but regardless, treatment is relatively the same with or without that diagnosis for my symptoms.
The best way it was explained to me was that my initial dizziness episode three years ago was a panic attack where the first symptom was dizziness followed by other physical symptoms, and heightened anxiety/panic over this dizziness caused my body to be overly alert/sensitive to the space/movement around me, creating a loop of constant dizziness. While my anxiety has improved tremendously and I have only experienced less than 10 (being generous with this) panic attacks my whole life, the dizziness has improved but remained, as it is described as basically a residual effect of the initial anxiety/panic attacks that my body has not yet corrected.
I also saw Dr. Beh who is a neurologist that specializes in vestibular disorders and migraines, and he further diagnosed me with Vestibular Migraines (which Dr. Staab says is a possibility but he doesn’t have enough evidence to diagnose me with it).
My current treatment includes taking Venlafaxine (going to 75mg soon) to directly treat the dizziness and help with any remaining anxiety/panic issues, receive therapy (psychoeducation and CBT) by a therapist with a PhD preferably, and vestibular rehab. Dr. Staab also said massages (light on the neck) could be helpful as dizziness can cause neck and back muscles to tighten due to the body stiffening over time to try to avoid dizziness sensations.
I was told to take Vitamin B12 (400mg) and venlafaxine in the morning. In the afternoon I take COq10 (200mg) after lunch and 200mg after dinner. Before bed, I take magnesium glycinate (500mg) and effexor. I take other supplements, but these I specifically take for migraine/dizziness related issues.
I have seen Dr. Staab, Dr. Beh, the Vestibular Psychologist Emily Kostelnik, have watched the Steady Coach on youtube, looked into the dizzy cook, and have seen multiple Neurologists, ENT’s, Cardiologists, PCP’s, Physical therapists, audiologists, gastro’s, even an allergist. I was misdiagnosed with POT’s, but otherwise every test that was done came back normal except that I have a hiatial hernia, fatty liver, low vitamin D, and a deviated septum.
I’ve had the brain scans, blood tests, heart monitoscans/ultrasounds, tilt table, ear tests, balance tests, epley maneuver, rotary chair, basically every test you can think of (some multiple times) and have tried basically every supplements/lifestyle changes you can think of as well. I have also done a lot of the above tests at Mayo Clinic in their dizziness program that I was accepted into in Minnesota.
My dizziness began at work 3 years ago when it felt like I was bouncing up and down just while standing and my body proceded to panic. I went from having this kind of episode once a month, to once every few weeks, to every day, to basically dizzy any time I stood or walked. Because of the dizziness, I stopped going to stores, didn’t shower as much as I should have, did not workout, and took off of work as it was so difficult to just walk. I currently work full time, workout, am in a relationship, and can do so much that I felt like I couldn’t do. I still have days where I need to take a break, and you won’t catch me on a boat for awhile as that triggers me GREATLY!
Two things that have for sure helped me so far, walking and time. Going for walks was a hard thing to start being dizzy, but that is something I can for sure say I’ve noticed helps without a doubt. And time; my dizziness didn’t improve overnight, it’s been three years, and i still deal with it! I’ve learned it isn’t going to hurt me and to simply learn to live with it (for now) and to push myself baby steps at a time.
Also, parasympathetic breathing has helped me tremendously as well as guided meditation to relax and practice mindfulness. I pay for an app called Downdog which has great guided programs (and yoga!) and currently get it for free for being a student.
Don’t give up, even if it feels like you are just trying to survive. Don’t let doctors write you off, advocate for yourself. If the doctor doesn’t listen or help, find new ones. Lean on your support system. Help others and share your story so there is more awareness and research for dizziness. It is one of the most difficult symptoms to diagnose. And it is just that, a SYMPTOM! You are you and not your symptoms or diagnoses!
If you have any questions, I will try my best to respond to everything no matter the question or if it is 10 years from now. There is SO much to this journey, and attempting to fit it into one post feels impossible. One thing that bothered me was people posting about their symptoms and never giving updates/responding to others, so I will try my best to do so…

TLDR: I have had non spinning dizziness for 3 years, did every test, saw a world expert in dizziness at Mayo clinic, diagnosed with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, possibly Vestibular Migraines from a neurologist, but not PPPD, and I accept it finally.
Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my story with dizziness as I have read many others on many different forums and hope that this can help others like others have helped me!
I have experienced dizziness for over three years now (28M) that is non-spinning in nature, it is an up and down feeling like you are on an elevator, on a boat, or walking on sand as some may describe it, typically while walking, standing, or slight position adjustments while sitting or laying down. It has caused anxiety, panic attacks, shakiness, heart palpitations, arm/leg numbess, neck tingling, neck pain, muscle spasms, brain fog, hearing sensitivity, headaches, fevers, and others I am probably forgetting.
I recently visited with Dr. Staab at Mayo Clinic who is one of the best in the world at looking into problems with dizziness, among many countless providers over the last three years. Dr. Staab specifically researches and treats dizziness, and recently diagnosed me with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, but NOT Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as I don’t completely fit the criteria. The reason I was given was that I did not have a typical reason such as an ear infection or other PPPD pre-cursors, and that certain motion does not trigger dizziness in me like typical PPPD patients (I can play video games and watch movies with no issues). I for sure thought I had PPPD, but regardless, treatment is relatively the same with or without that diagnosis for my symptoms.
The best way it was explained to me was that my initial dizziness episode three years ago was a panic attack where the first symptom was dizziness followed by other physical symptoms, and heightened anxiety/panic over this dizziness caused my body to be overly alert/sensitive to the space/movement around me, creating a loop of constant dizziness. While my anxiety has improved tremendously and I have only experienced less than 10 (being generous with this) panic attacks my whole life, the dizziness has improved but remained, as it is described as basically a residual effect of the initial anxiety/panic attacks that my body has not yet corrected.
I also saw Dr. Beh who is a neurologist that specializes in vestibular disorders and migraines, and he further diagnosed me with Vestibular Migraines (which Dr. Staab says is a possibility but he doesn’t have enough evidence to diagnose me with it).
My current treatment includes taking Venlafaxine (going to 75mg soon) to directly treat the dizziness and help with any remaining anxiety/panic issues, receive therapy (psychoeducation and CBT) by a therapist with a PhD preferably, and vestibular rehab. Dr. Staab also said massages (light on the neck) could be helpful as dizziness can cause neck and back muscles to tighten due to the body stiffening over time to try to avoid dizziness sensations.
I was told to take Vitamin B12 (400mg) and venlafaxine in the morning. In the afternoon I take COq10 (200mg) after lunch and 200mg after dinner. Before bed, I take magnesium glycinate (500mg) and effexor. I take other supplements, but these I specifically take for migraine/dizziness related issues.
I have seen Dr. Staab, Dr. Beh, the Vestibular Psychologist Emily Kostelnik, have watched the Steady Coach on youtube, looked into the dizzy cook, and have seen multiple Neurologists, ENT’s, Cardiologists, PCP’s, Physical therapists, audiologists, gastro’s, even an allergist. I was misdiagnosed with POT’s, but otherwise every test that was done came back normal except that I have a hiatial hernia, fatty liver, low vitamin D, and a deviated septum.
I’ve had the brain scans, blood tests, heart monitoscans/ultrasounds, tilt table, ear tests, balance tests, epley maneuver, rotary chair, basically every test you can think of (some multiple times) and have tried basically every supplements/lifestyle changes you can think of as well. I have also done a lot of the above tests at Mayo Clinic in their dizziness program that I was accepted into in Minnesota.
My dizziness began at work 3 years ago when it felt like I was bouncing up and down just while standing and my body proceded to panic. I went from having this kind of episode once a month, to once every few weeks, to every day, to basically dizzy any time I stood or walked. Because of the dizziness, I stopped going to stores, didn’t shower as much as I should have, did not workout, and took off of work as it was so difficult to just walk. I currently work full time, workout, am in a relationship, and can do so much that I felt like I couldn’t do. I still have days where I need to take a break, and you won’t catch me on a boat for awhile as that triggers me GREATLY!
Two things that have for sure helped me so far, walking and time. Going for walks was a hard thing to start being dizzy, but that is something I can for sure say I’ve noticed helps without a doubt. And time; my dizziness didn’t improve overnight, it’s been three years, and i still deal with it! I’ve learned it isn’t going to hurt me and to simply learn to live with it (for now) and to push myself baby steps at a time.
Also, parasympathetic breathing has helped me tremendously as well as guided meditation to relax and practice mindfulness. I pay for an app called Downdog which has great guided programs (and yoga!) and currently get it for free for being a student.
Don’t give up, even if it feels like you are just trying to survive. Don’t let doctors write you off, advocate for yourself. If the doctor doesn’t listen or help, find new ones. Lean on your support system. Help others and share your story so there is more awareness and research for dizziness. It is one of the most difficult symptoms to diagnose. And it is just that, a SYMPTOM! You are you and not your symptoms or diagnoses!
If you have any questions, I will try my best to respond to everything no matter the question or if it is 10 years from now. There is SO much to this journey, and attempting to fit it into one post feels impossible. One thing that bothered me was people posting about their symptoms and never giving updates/responding to others, so I will try my best to do so…

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

TLDR: I have had non spinning dizziness for 3 years, did every test, saw a world expert in dizziness at Mayo clinic, diagnosed with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, possibly Vestibular Migraines from a neurologist, but not PPPD, and I accept it finally.
Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my story with dizziness as I have read many others on many different forums and hope that this can help others like others have helped me!
I have experienced dizziness for over three years now (28M) that is non-spinning in nature, it is an up and down feeling like you are on an elevator, on a boat, or walking on sand as some may describe it, typically while walking, standing, or slight position adjustments while sitting or laying down. It has caused anxiety, panic attacks, shakiness, heart palpitations, arm/leg numbess, neck tingling, neck pain, muscle spasms, brain fog, hearing sensitivity, headaches, fevers, and others I am probably forgetting.
I recently visited with Dr. Staab at Mayo Clinic who is one of the best in the world at looking into problems with dizziness, among many countless providers over the last three years. Dr. Staab specifically researches and treats dizziness, and recently diagnosed me with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, but NOT Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as I don’t completely fit the criteria. The reason I was given was that I did not have a typical reason such as an ear infection or other PPPD pre-cursors, and that certain motion does not trigger dizziness in me like typical PPPD patients (I can play video games and watch movies with no issues). I for sure thought I had PPPD, but regardless, treatment is relatively the same with or without that diagnosis for my symptoms.
The best way it was explained to me was that my initial dizziness episode three years ago was a panic attack where the first symptom was dizziness followed by other physical symptoms, and heightened anxiety/panic over this dizziness caused my body to be overly alert/sensitive to the space/movement around me, creating a loop of constant dizziness. While my anxiety has improved tremendously and I have only experienced less than 10 (being generous with this) panic attacks my whole life, the dizziness has improved but remained, as it is described as basically a residual effect of the initial anxiety/panic attacks that my body has not yet corrected.
I also saw Dr. Beh who is a neurologist that specializes in vestibular disorders and migraines, and he further diagnosed me with Vestibular Migraines (which Dr. Staab says is a possibility but he doesn’t have enough evidence to diagnose me with it).
My current treatment includes taking Venlafaxine (going to 75mg soon) to directly treat the dizziness and help with any remaining anxiety/panic issues, receive therapy (psychoeducation and CBT) by a therapist with a PhD preferably, and vestibular rehab. Dr. Staab also said massages (light on the neck) could be helpful as dizziness can cause neck and back muscles to tighten due to the body stiffening over time to try to avoid dizziness sensations.
I was told to take Vitamin B12 (400mg) and venlafaxine in the morning. In the afternoon I take COq10 (200mg) after lunch and 200mg after dinner. Before bed, I take magnesium glycinate (500mg) and effexor. I take other supplements, but these I specifically take for migraine/dizziness related issues.
I have seen Dr. Staab, Dr. Beh, the Vestibular Psychologist Emily Kostelnik, have watched the Steady Coach on youtube, looked into the dizzy cook, and have seen multiple Neurologists, ENT’s, Cardiologists, PCP’s, Physical therapists, audiologists, gastro’s, even an allergist. I was misdiagnosed with POT’s, but otherwise every test that was done came back normal except that I have a hiatial hernia, fatty liver, low vitamin D, and a deviated septum.
I’ve had the brain scans, blood tests, heart monitoscans/ultrasounds, tilt table, ear tests, balance tests, epley maneuver, rotary chair, basically every test you can think of (some multiple times) and have tried basically every supplements/lifestyle changes you can think of as well. I have also done a lot of the above tests at Mayo Clinic in their dizziness program that I was accepted into in Minnesota.
My dizziness began at work 3 years ago when it felt like I was bouncing up and down just while standing and my body proceded to panic. I went from having this kind of episode once a month, to once every few weeks, to every day, to basically dizzy any time I stood or walked. Because of the dizziness, I stopped going to stores, didn’t shower as much as I should have, did not workout, and took off of work as it was so difficult to just walk. I currently work full time, workout, am in a relationship, and can do so much that I felt like I couldn’t do. I still have days where I need to take a break, and you won’t catch me on a boat for awhile as that triggers me GREATLY!
Two things that have for sure helped me so far, walking and time. Going for walks was a hard thing to start being dizzy, but that is something I can for sure say I’ve noticed helps without a doubt. And time; my dizziness didn’t improve overnight, it’s been three years, and i still deal with it! I’ve learned it isn’t going to hurt me and to simply learn to live with it (for now) and to push myself baby steps at a time.
Also, parasympathetic breathing has helped me tremendously as well as guided meditation to relax and practice mindfulness. I pay for an app called Downdog which has great guided programs (and yoga!) and currently get it for free for being a student.
Don’t give up, even if it feels like you are just trying to survive. Don’t let doctors write you off, advocate for yourself. If the doctor doesn’t listen or help, find new ones. Lean on your support system. Help others and share your story so there is more awareness and research for dizziness. It is one of the most difficult symptoms to diagnose. And it is just that, a SYMPTOM! You are you and not your symptoms or diagnoses!
If you have any questions, I will try my best to respond to everything no matter the question or if it is 10 years from now. There is SO much to this journey, and attempting to fit it into one post feels impossible. One thing that bothered me was people posting about their symptoms and never giving updates/responding to others, so I will try my best to do so…

What am I doing? Dominick Mason asked himself for the hundredth time that night. It was late on a rainy Sunday evening and Dom, a tall, lanky man-boy of twenty-five with a prominent Adam’s apple and too big eyes, stared out the rain-slicked window of the 905. The big bus swayed and jostled as it lumbered down Central Avenue, the movements strangely comforting, conducive to reflection…and self-doubt.
As if on cue, his phone buzzed, and a pit opened up in his stomach. He fumbled it out with long fingers and read the text. Are u almost here
His thumb hovered over the screen, but he did not reply. Part of him wanted to block the number, slink back home with his tail between his legs, and forget the whole thing. He could boot up his PS4 and play Red Dead Redemption or GTA V like always. Safe. Familiar. The thought, however, stirred a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.
It was dread.
Every night, he did the same thing. He came home from work to his tiny prison cell apartment. He had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He played video games until it was time to go to bed. The worst part of the whole night was when he turned off the TV and saw his murky reflection in the screen. Plaid. Scrawny. Disgusting. He hated being locked in that apartment, with its old smells and white walls, but he hated going out even more. At least in his hole, he was safe, like a mouse. No one hurt or lied to him there. No one gave him funny looks. No one rejected him. He was completely safe in his solitude, a wounded animal hiding in its den and licking its wounds.
He was wounded and he knew it.
And he hated himself for it. Hated that he wasn’t stronger or better. Hated that even though he tried so hard, everything he did fell apart…if it even came together in the first place, which it rarely did.
The phone buzzed again.
Just a question mark this time.
His heart began to race and a steely fist slowly closed around his lungs. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and took a deep breath. He pictured himself alone in his little apartment. He loved the image, but he hated it too. Most nights, he didn’t mind being alone. He had to not mind it, because he didn’t have a choice. Some nights…some nights he didn’t want to be alone. Some nights he wanted warmth, he wanted tenderness…some nights, he wanted to be human.
Every so often, Dom would get the urge to find those things. They came less frequently than they did before, but unfortunately, they still came. He would create an account on Plenty of Fish and OKCupid, maybe some of the other sites as well. He would agonize over his stupid intro and his stupid list of hobbies. He would spend hours - literally hours - writing and rewriting them, trying at first to be serious, then light and funny, then cool, then aloof, then vulnerable. He would take the best possible pictures from the best possible angles, then upload them, never lingering over them because he hated the way he looked. He didn’t think he was ugly - mid was more like it - but apparently, he was ugly. Too ugly for love, too ugly even to talk to.
The ugly barnacle. So ugly that everyone died. The end.
All of Dom’s pictures were all selfies, of course. Guys he listened to on YouTube said he needed action shots, shots with friends, shots that showed women he had a life, was valued by those around him, and knew how to have fun. Too bad for him, he had no friends and no one valued him, not even his own mother. On the surface, maybe, but she had hurt him so many times over the years in so many ways that even the most devout son would stop and think.
It had to be selfies.
When his profile was in order - or as much in order as he could get it - he would start to browse. Dom knew his place and never messaged women who were too beautiful. He used to, but they never responded. He eventually began to skip their profiles with a pang of loss and a quiet what if? Now, he barely noticed them. Blonde. Petite. Blue eyes. Maybe she was a cheerleader at one time, maybe she was the type of girl who looked down her nose at guys like him. Maybe she was a sweetheart. In any case, he would never find out, so who cares?
He went for women he could realistically obtain…the type of women he’d dated and hooked up with in the past. Some were attractive in their own way, others were hard to look at, he wasn’t picky; he couldn’t afford to be picky. One woman he saw was a good three hundred pounds. She was nice and he liked her enough, but he lapsed into depression while they were dating and he never messaged her back…not that she made a huge effort to message him. Another was a pre-K teacher in her mid-thirties. Overweight with a big nose, glasses, and a plain face when she wasn’t wearing make-up. He liked her a lot and wanted to be with her, but after a month of weekend hookups, she said she didn’t love him. She told him she wanted a family - three kids, to be exact - but “changed her mind.” No, she didn’t. She just didn’t want those things with him.
Now she was in her late thirties, single, and having regrets.
She still wouldn’t settle for him, though.
Another woman he’d seen recently (six months ago) was fifty, but not unattractive. They texted for weeks, hot and heavy. She outright told him that she wanted to have sex with him. Said all sorts of nasty and sexual things. Their first (and only date) was her coming to his apartment. Instead of tender kisses, loving caresses, and intense emotions, they shared an awkward two hours on his couch. When he tried to hold her hand and put his arm around her, she stiffened. Not much, just a little. She said she “wasn’t ready.” He sat there and watched the flowers he’d gotten her wilt as she talked about her ex for an hour and a half, his arms pointedly crossed. He even leaned as far away from her as humanly possible, trying to communicate with his body language what he didn’t have the guts to communicate with his words: I’m uncomfortable, please leave. He planned to take her to a nice restaurant after they made love. Instead, he ordered something after she finally got the hint and left, eating alone like always.
After her, he deleted his profile (again) and resolved to never bother with dating again. Obviously there was something wrong with him. He saw guys who were uglier and more awkward than him with girlfriends, some actually stunning, but there was something about him in particular, something that repelled women…and men too.
Everyone.
It repelled everyone.
Maybe it was his self-loathing. After all, no one likes a sad sack. But that’s the thing: He was like this because of those experiences. It was a what came first, the chicken or the egg situation. Looking back, he had almost normal confidence at one point. Then all of this happened. The hundreds of messages he sent on the dating apps staying on read, unanswered, like he never sent them at all, like he was garbage unworthy of even a hello. The awkward dates. The occasional “success” that eventually fell apart…sometimes because of him, and sometimes because of them. The one girl who ran away from him when he tried to walk her to her car after a date. They didn’t click, he knew that, but he didn’t say or do anything creepy. Why did she do that? The girls who lead him on, talking about sex and sometimes even love but always had a reason they couldn’t meet.
There were other examples - many others - but it was all the same. Who cared?
Dom wanted to crawl back into his hole and stay there, to stop poking his head out and getting hurt. He wanted it so bad…but he was only human. Deep down, buried beneath layer after layer of scar tissue, there was still hope. Hope for love, for companionship, for acceptance, for intimacy and human touch. It was only an ember now, but even an ember is enough to spark a fire.
Some nights, he wanted to be safe. Other nights, he wanted to take a risk.
And this night was one of the latter.
Be there soon, he texted. He swallowed hard and wetted his lips. His heart was pounding faster and his bowels were loose. He really hoped this worked out. He didn’t think he could handle another rejection. If she turned him down, he’d probably go home and kill himself. Why go on like this?
He’d had that thought before…but he never followed through.
Maybe one day he’d actually shut the fuck up and do it already.
Maybe.
Ok :)
Her name was Heather and she was fat. She was not unattractive in the face and she wore her weight well, not that that mattered - he would take what he could get. They started talking on OKCupid last week and very soon, the conversation became sexual. He didn’t start it, though, she did. She was ahem very excited, she said. He liked to think that she was lonely, desperate, and wanted intimacy - any intimacy - just like him.
That really turned him on.
They agreed to meet, and now here he was, on the bus to her apartment on the other side of the city, hoping against hope that she didn’t hurt him too.
He put the phone away and stared straight ahead. The bus was nearly deserted, save for an old bag lady up front and a few Mexican guys in the back. Lights lined the bus’s roof, providing a cold, impersonal light. Dom took a deep breath and forced his dark emotions away. It was all on him to make this work. He would accept her fat, ugly, poor, and crippled, but he had to work to earn her love. He could do it.
When the bus finally reached his stop, he yanked the cord and got off. There was a plexiglass shelter lit by a single, lonely bulb. Trash littered the ground. Beyond the shelter, a park lay in darkness. Behind him, on the other side of the road, a housing project not unlike his own towered into the sky, lit up like a ship at sail. Dom swallowed his nerves and crossed the street. He found the door that she had directed him to use, and climbed the stairs. He expected trash, graffiti, and winos passed out on every landing. Instead, the stairwell was clean and deserted. His nerves welled as he climbed but he forced them down again. On the ninth floor, he went down the hall, battered on all sides by the stale smells of cooking and the murmur of TVs and voices coming from every apartment.
Dom paused at Apartment 237.
Heather’s.
You got this, he told himself.
And really, he did. Their plan - well, Heather’s, really - was simple and straightforward. She told him that she would leave the door unlocked. He was to come in, go to the bedroom, and she would be waiting for him. She said it was a fantasy of hers.
On some level, he knew all along that the whole setup sounded fishy. Was he being set up to get robbed? Would he walk in and get jumped by a bunch of Crips? He hesitated, but his need for love - and, yes, release - pushed him on.
He opened the door.
Inside, the apartment was small and messy, a living room to the right and a tiny kitchen to the left. The only light on was the one above the stove.
Everything else was in shadows.
Dom’s heart skipped a beat.
This didn’t feel right.
That thought was overpowered by the smell, a sickly sweet odor that suddenly seemed to be everywhere. His stomach twisted and he turned his head slightly to one side, as if to spare his nose. It smelled like something spoiled.
A voice spoke from the darkness, startling him. “I’m in here.”
It was light, airy, and cute.
For the last time, Dom hesitated. Some primal sense told him to turn around and leave…
…but he wanted to be loved.
Dom entered and shut the door behind him.
The smell was stronger. The atmosphere darker.
Ahead, he could barely make out an open doorway in the shadows.
He crossed to it.
The smell was overpowering here and Dom felt like he was going to puke. Any desire he had felt was gone, replaced only by revulsion and claustrophobia. It was cold, he realized, so cold that his teeth chattered.
Okay, fuck this.
He started to turn around, intent on leaving, but a small, white hand reached from the darkness. Icy fingertips brushed his cheek and his heart blasted into his throat.
Then she was there, her body pressing against his and her lips fused with his. The smell, the freezer chill, both stronger than ever.
They were both coming from her.
Her tongue hungrily lashed his own, and she pushed him against the wall. Her hands slipped under his shirt and pressed flat against his chest. They were so cold that he almost cried out.
Dom wanted to push her away, to run, but he didn’t. Instead, he froze up and allowed her to push him onto the bed. Was he too gutless to tell her no, the way he’d been too gutless to tell the woman who went on and on about her ex to shut up and leave? Did he secretly want to go through with this? He didn’t know, and he didn’t have time to figure it out. She was on top of him now, straddling him, his legs caged between her ample thighs. She grabbed his hands and pressed them to her bare breasts.
They were as cold as the rest of her.
She leaned down and kissed him again. He hadn’t noticed it before, but her tongue was…dry. Her mouth itself tasted strange. Off.
Heather broke from his lips and peppered kisses on his cheek and forehead, assaulting him with an intimacy that Dom no longer wanted.
Through it all, she was as silent as a tomb. She wasn’t panting or rasping with excitement. In fact, he didn’t think she was even breathing.
She brushed her lips along the exposed curve of his throat, and tingles of revulsion shot down his spine. She found his pulse and kissed it. Trembles of excitement raced through her body and she started to lap his neck like a dog.
Without warning, a fiery pinprick of pain exploded over him and Heather began to shake and pant. Dom cried out and tried to fight her off, but she was too heavy, too much.
With a tiny, mouse-like squeak - a sound of pitiable fear and resignation - Dom blacked out.

TLDR: I have had non spinning dizziness for 3 years, did every test, saw a world expert in dizziness at Mayo clinic, diagnosed with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, possibly Vestibular Migraines from a neurologist, but not PPPD, and I accept it finally.
Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my story with dizziness as I have read many others on many different forums and hope that this can help others like others have helped me!
I have experienced dizziness for over three years now (28M) that is non-spinning in nature, it is an up and down feeling like you are on an elevator, on a boat, or walking on sand as some may describe it, typically while walking, standing, or slight position adjustments while sitting or laying down. It has caused anxiety, panic attacks, shakiness, heart palpitations, arm/leg numbess, neck tingling, neck pain, muscle spasms, brain fog, hearing sensitivity, headaches, fevers, and others I am probably forgetting.
I recently visited with Dr. Staab at Mayo Clinic who is one of the best in the world at looking into problems with dizziness, among many countless providers over the last three years. Dr. Staab specifically researches and treats dizziness, and recently diagnosed me with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, but NOT Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as I don’t completely fit the criteria. The reason I was given was that I did not have a typical reason such as an ear infection or other PPPD pre-cursors, and that certain motion does not trigger dizziness in me like typical PPPD patients (I can play video games and watch movies with no issues). I for sure thought I had PPPD, but regardless, treatment is relatively the same with or without that diagnosis for my symptoms.
The best way it was explained to me was that my initial dizziness episode three years ago was a panic attack where the first symptom was dizziness followed by other physical symptoms, and heightened anxiety/panic over this dizziness caused my body to be overly alert/sensitive to the space/movement around me, creating a loop of constant dizziness. While my anxiety has improved tremendously and I have only experienced less than 10 (being generous with this) panic attacks my whole life, the dizziness has improved but remained, as it is described as basically a residual effect of the initial anxiety/panic attacks that my body has not yet corrected.
I also saw Dr. Beh who is a neurologist that specializes in vestibular disorders and migraines, and he further diagnosed me with Vestibular Migraines (which Dr. Staab says is a possibility but he doesn’t have enough evidence to diagnose me with it).
My current treatment includes taking Venlafaxine (going to 75mg soon) to directly treat the dizziness and help with any remaining anxiety/panic issues, receive therapy (psychoeducation and CBT) by a therapist with a PhD preferably, and vestibular rehab. Dr. Staab also said massages (light on the neck) could be helpful as dizziness can cause neck and back muscles to tighten due to the body stiffening over time to try to avoid dizziness sensations.
I was told to take Vitamin B12 (400mg) and venlafaxine in the morning. In the afternoon I take COq10 (200mg) after lunch and 200mg after dinner. Before bed, I take magnesium glycinate (500mg) and effexor. I take other supplements, but these I specifically take for migraine/dizziness related issues.
I have seen Dr. Staab, Dr. Beh, the Vestibular Psychologist Emily Kostelnik, have watched the Steady Coach on youtube, looked into the dizzy cook, and have seen multiple Neurologists, ENT’s, Cardiologists, PCP’s, Physical therapists, audiologists, gastro’s, even an allergist. I was misdiagnosed with POT’s, but otherwise every test that was done came back normal except that I have a hiatial hernia, fatty liver, low vitamin D, and a deviated septum.
I’ve had the brain scans, blood tests, heart monitoscans/ultrasounds, tilt table, ear tests, balance tests, epley maneuver, rotary chair, basically every test you can think of (some multiple times) and have tried basically every supplements/lifestyle changes you can think of as well. I have also done a lot of the above tests at Mayo Clinic in their dizziness program that I was accepted into in Minnesota.
My dizziness began at work 3 years ago when it felt like I was bouncing up and down just while standing and my body proceded to panic. I went from having this kind of episode once a month, to once every few weeks, to every day, to basically dizzy any time I stood or walked. Because of the dizziness, I stopped going to stores, didn’t shower as much as I should have, did not workout, and took off of work as it was so difficult to just walk. I currently work full time, workout, am in a relationship, and can do so much that I felt like I couldn’t do. I still have days where I need to take a break, and you won’t catch me on a boat for awhile as that triggers me GREATLY!
Two things that have for sure helped me so far, walking and time. Going for walks was a hard thing to start being dizzy, but that is something I can for sure say I’ve noticed helps without a doubt. And time; my dizziness didn’t improve overnight, it’s been three years, and i still deal with it! I’ve learned it isn’t going to hurt me and to simply learn to live with it (for now) and to push myself baby steps at a time.
Also, parasympathetic breathing has helped me tremendously as well as guided meditation to relax and practice mindfulness. I pay for an app called Downdog which has great guided programs (and yoga!) and currently get it for free for being a student.
Don’t give up, even if it feels like you are just trying to survive. Don’t let doctors write you off, advocate for yourself. If the doctor doesn’t listen or help, find new ones. Lean on your support system. Help others and share your story so there is more awareness and research for dizziness. It is one of the most difficult symptoms to diagnose. And it is just that, a SYMPTOM! You are you and not your symptoms or diagnoses!
If you have any questions, I will try my best to respond to everything no matter the question or if it is 10 years from now. There is SO much to this journey, and attempting to fit it into one post feels impossible. One thing that bothered me was people posting about their symptoms and never giving updates/responding to others, so I will try my best to do so…

TLDR: I have had non spinning dizziness for 3 years, did every test, saw a world expert in dizziness at Mayo clinic, diagnosed with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, possibly Vestibular Migraines from a neurologist, but not PPPD, and I accept it finally.
Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my story with dizziness as I have read many others on many different forums and hope that this can help others like others have helped me!
I have experienced dizziness for over three years now (28M) that is non-spinning in nature, it is an up and down feeling like you are on an elevator, on a boat, or walking on sand as some may describe it, typically while walking, standing, or slight position adjustments while sitting or laying down. It has caused anxiety, panic attacks, shakiness, heart palpitations, arm/leg numbess, neck tingling, neck pain, muscle spasms, brain fog, hearing sensitivity, headaches, fevers, and others I am probably forgetting.
I recently visited with Dr. Staab at Mayo Clinic who is one of the best in the world at looking into problems with dizziness, among many countless providers over the last three years. Dr. Staab specifically researches and treats dizziness, and recently diagnosed me with Panic Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, but NOT Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as I don’t completely fit the criteria. The reason I was given was that I did not have a typical reason such as an ear infection or other PPPD pre-cursors, and that certain motion does not trigger dizziness in me like typical PPPD patients (I can play video games and watch movies with no issues). I for sure thought I had PPPD, but regardless, treatment is relatively the same with or without that diagnosis for my symptoms.
The best way it was explained to me was that my initial dizziness episode three years ago was a panic attack where the first symptom was dizziness followed by other physical symptoms, and heightened anxiety/panic over this dizziness caused my body to be overly alert/sensitive to the space/movement around me, creating a loop of constant dizziness. While my anxiety has improved tremendously and I have only experienced less than 10 (being generous with this) panic attacks my whole life, the dizziness has improved but remained, as it is described as basically a residual effect of the initial anxiety/panic attacks that my body has not yet corrected.
I also saw Dr. Beh who is a neurologist that specializes in vestibular disorders and migraines, and he further diagnosed me with Vestibular Migraines (which Dr. Staab says is a possibility but he doesn’t have enough evidence to diagnose me with it).
My current treatment includes taking Venlafaxine (going to 75mg soon) to directly treat the dizziness and help with any remaining anxiety/panic issues, receive therapy (psychoeducation and CBT) by a therapist with a PhD preferably, and vestibular rehab. Dr. Staab also said massages (light on the neck) could be helpful as dizziness can cause neck and back muscles to tighten due to the body stiffening over time to try to avoid dizziness sensations.
I was told to take Vitamin B12 (400mg) and venlafaxine in the morning. In the afternoon I take COq10 (200mg) after lunch and 200mg after dinner. Before bed, I take magnesium glycinate (500mg) and effexor. I take other supplements, but these I specifically take for migraine/dizziness related issues.
I have seen Dr. Staab, Dr. Beh, the Vestibular Psychologist Emily Kostelnik, have watched the Steady Coach on youtube, looked into the dizzy cook, and have seen multiple Neurologists, ENT’s, Cardiologists, PCP’s, Physical therapists, audiologists, gastro’s, even an allergist. I was misdiagnosed with POT’s, but otherwise every test that was done came back normal except that I have a hiatial hernia, fatty liver, low vitamin D, and a deviated septum.
I’ve had the brain scans, blood tests, heart monitoscans/ultrasounds, tilt table, ear tests, balance tests, epley maneuver, rotary chair, basically every test you can think of (some multiple times) and have tried basically every supplements/lifestyle changes you can think of as well. I have also done a lot of the above tests at Mayo Clinic in their dizziness program that I was accepted into in Minnesota.
My dizziness began at work 3 years ago when it felt like I was bouncing up and down just while standing and my body proceded to panic. I went from having this kind of episode once a month, to once every few weeks, to every day, to basically dizzy any time I stood or walked. Because of the dizziness, I stopped going to stores, didn’t shower as much as I should have, did not workout, and took off of work as it was so difficult to just walk. I currently work full time, workout, am in a relationship, and can do so much that I felt like I couldn’t do. I still have days where I need to take a break, and you won’t catch me on a boat for awhile as that triggers me GREATLY!
Two things that have for sure helped me so far, walking and time. Going for walks was a hard thing to start being dizzy, but that is something I can for sure say I’ve noticed helps without a doubt. And time; my dizziness didn’t improve overnight, it’s been three years, and i still deal with it! I’ve learned it isn’t going to hurt me and to simply learn to live with it (for now) and to push myself baby steps at a time.
Also, parasympathetic breathing has helped me tremendously as well as guided meditation to relax and practice mindfulness. I pay for an app called Downdog which has great guided programs (and yoga!) and currently get it for free for being a student.
Don’t give up, even if it feels like you are just trying to survive. Don’t let doctors write you off, advocate for yourself. If the doctor doesn’t listen or help, find new ones. Lean on your support system. Help others and share your story so there is more awareness and research for dizziness. It is one of the most difficult symptoms to diagnose. And it is just that, a SYMPTOM! You are you and not your symptoms or diagnoses!
If you have any questions, I will try my best to respond to everything no matter the question or if it is 10 years from now. There is SO much to this journey, and attempting to fit it into one post feels impossible. One thing that bothered me was people posting about their symptoms and never giving updates/responding to others, so I will try my best to do so…

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

Well. Here I am. My curiosity has brought on severe anxiety. HIV RISK?
So 8 days ago I met up with a man at a hotel. The agreement was that he would let me stroke his cock to completion and I could go wherever.
I was straddling his legs naked. Stroking him. I eventually started frotting, rubbing our cocks together in hopes we would both cum. He took his fingers and had put them onto my asshole, which has an open cut from a blood clot procedure (got a blood clot from constipation issues which caused a small blood clot that needed to be cut lightly to be drained, right on my asshole) his fingers were wet, not sure if it was saliva or lube.. he had been stroking himself before. I dont think it was cum or precum, I hadnt seen any. He did have “BB” as one of his interest on his Grindr, and he was not on prep, said he was clean.
A few days later i developed horrible pain throughout my body, especially spine and neck. 8th day I developed chills and was throwing up, as well as some stomach issues. No swollen lymph nodes that I can find. But currently cannot get out of bed due to the shaky chill feeling and body aches.
I am not trying to offend anyone, nor want to piss anyone off so please be polite 🙏🏻 If you want to roll your eyes and have only negative things to say all you have to do is scroll past. Thank you.

The world was a boozy whirl of lights and sounds. Images, broken and fragmented, came and went. Voices, laughter, screaming. The ground pitched like the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, and he felt heavy, as though the ground were pulling him to it. C’mere, Dommy. He fell, lay on the pavement, and pushed himself up again, staggering like a drunk on his way home. His head spun, his body ached, and things seemed blurry, like half-formed images glimpsed underwater.
It was the light blue hour before dawn and Dom was…somewhere. He should have recognized the stores and street signs around him, but he didn’t. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a sense of confusion gripped him so strongly that he was beginning to panic. Where was he? What happened?
The world spun away again and the next thing he knew, he was lying in a heap of garbage bags, used needles, and rubbish. He came awake with a jerk and sat up so fast that a bolt of pain jammed into his skull. He winced and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt hot, clammy.
Something was seriously wrong.
Somehow he got to his feet again and started walking. The sun was up now and the streets were filled with people. They all sneered in disgust as he passed, and he wrapped his arms around his chest like a baby comforting itself. He was getting cold. His muscles were sore. Tears streamed down his face and he wanted to cry.
Going on instinct alone, Dom made his way back home and climbed the steps to his apartment. Exhaustion swept over him and he sagged against the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. They shook in his hand and he had to focus really hard to get the key into the lock.
Inside, he collapsed onto the couch and his eyelids instantly drooped. He was so weary that he couldn’t lift his head, couldn’t form a single coherent thought. Dom felt himself starting to sink, and snapped his eyes open with a start. Something in his soul told him that if he slept, he would die.
He couldn’t help it, though. He was falling, tumbling, hands reaching up from hell to grab him. His eyes fluttered closed again and the world started to go dark, his heart slamming in fear. He tried to fight, but the pull of darkness was too strong, too alluring. Why was he fighting? Why not just…give up? Hadn’t he thought of killing himself before? Didn’t he hate his life and himself? What was there to fight for? A wife? Kids? A community that loved and respected him? Shit, affordable groceries?
No.
There was nothing.
He had nothing and was nothing.
A sense of peace blossomed from the darkness, and suddenly death didn’t seem so scary. In fact, it was warm…inviting.
It was life that was cold and hateful. Not death.
Death accepted you no matter who you were. It didn’t reject you…it didn’t ignore you. If you sought it, you would find it, and if you embraced it, it would embrace you.
With that thought in mind, Dom gave up.
And died.
***
Bruce Kenner, captain of the 5th Albany precinct, sat behind his desk on the morning of June 28 and lazily leafed through a stack of files as he sipped from a mug of coffee. A roughly built man with a dark goatee and graying blonde hair, he looked more like a small town southern sheriff than a low level public works functionary. In fact, he tended to act like it too. He liked to hunt, fish, and drink beer on his off time. Albany wasn’t a big city, but it was big enough that you never got a fucking break. Run here, run there, arrest this asshole, investigate that asshole. By the time Friday rolled around, he was so ready for the peace and tranquility of a fishing trip he could taste it.
Already this Monday morning, he was looking forward to another one.
Over the weekend, three kids went missing in the Pine Hills and Washington Park area, bringing the total for that summer up to eight. All were teenagers, all were troubled. Most were boys, but two were girls.
Troubled kids run away all the time. They might be gone a few days, sulking at a friend’s house over something their father or mother did, but they’d eventually come home. None of these kids had come back yet and from what he knew, a few of them weren’t the runaway types. They were shits at school and caused problems, but they had no reason to up and leave. Hell, Bruce himself raised hell as a kid, but he always found his way back home, even if he spent the previous night dying in a field from Mad Dogg 20/20 poisoning.
One or two kids going missing…okay, it happens. Eight? Over a span of four weeks?
Yeah, something was wrong here.
But what?
There was nothing on any of these kids. No one saw them, no one knew anything - one minute they were here, the next they weren’t. What could he or anyone else do with that?. The public broke cops’ balls all the time, but if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have evidence. What do you want? Door to door searches? Roadblocks? Dogs and helicopters? Yeah, then when you actually do it, they cry fascism. Guess I’ll just use my Spidey Senses.
Bruce wished he had spidey senses. He wanted to find these kids as much as anyone, and he was starting to get pissed off that he couldn’t. He took another sip from his mug and read on. The latest kids to go missing were three boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
They were all white, all thin (except for one). If there was a serial killer in town - and Bruce hoped to fuck there wasn’t - he had a type. What, black kids aren’t good enough to kill, cannibalize, and wear like a skin suit? They should charge him with a hate crime for discrimination.
That way he’d actually stay locked up.
The door opened and Vanessa Rodregiez, his deputy, came in. A tall, shapely Hispanic woman with dark eyes and a mouth poised always on the edge of a smile, she wore her black hair in a ponytail that would look stern and severe on anyone else, but on her, looked childlike. She was twenty-seven and had been on the force for three years, but you could be forgiven for thinking her much younger. “Bright and early, I see,” she said with a grin.
Bruce grumbled.
Vanessa held down the fort during the graveyard shift, acting to the night as he acted to the day. She was young and full of energy, which clashed with Bruce, who was old and just wanted to be left alone. Despite their differences, Bruce loved her like a kid sister…an annoying kid sister he wanted to throat punch sometimes.
“You missed all the fun last night,” she said and parked her butt on the edge of Bruce’s desk. He glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Good,” he said. Then: “What happened?”
“Big fight outside of Club Vlad,” she said. “It looked like a WorldStar video.”
For a moment, Bruce was lost. “Club what?”
“Club Vlad,” Vanessa said. “Where the Fuze Box used to be.”
Ah, right. The Fuze Box was an Albany landmark, a night club for punks…or goths…or someone. Certainly not for Bruce Kenner. It was small, dingy, and always had people in black waiting outside. On Friday and Saturday nights, it blasted strange music with lyrics about fighting The Man. Kids had been fighting the Man since before Bruce was even born and they hadn’t beaten him yet. Kudos to them for still trying.
Last year, The Fuze Box closed down and someone else bought it. It reopened last month and looked more or less the same: Posers, shitty music, and spiked hair. So much spiked hair. “Place is still a pain in the ass,” Bruce said.
“Yep,” Vanessa chirped. “It doesn’t know what it wants to be now. One minute they play nightcore, the next EDM. It’s all over the place.”
Bruce raised a quizzical brow.
“Not that I’ve ever been there in my free time,” Vanessa said in a tone that suggested she had,
Bruce gave a judgemental hum.
“Anyway,” Vanessa went on, “you see we have some new missing persons?”
Sighing, Bruce sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I did.”
“People are starting to ask questions,” Vanessa warned.
That brought a terse smile to Bruce’s weathered face. “Maybe they’ll solve it then.”
“Ha, fat chance,” Vanessa said. She got up and stretched. “Anyway, I’m bushed. Here’s my…” she trailed off and looked at her empty hands. “Damn, where’s my report? I just had it?” She turned in a confused circle as if she might be able to spot her report making a break for it. “Huh,” she said. She left the office and came back a moment later holding a folder. “Found it,” she grinned.
Bruce just looked at her.
“Um…here it is.”
He didn’t take it.
Her smile faltered. She carefully sat it on top of the files Bruce was looking at.
And his hands.
“I’ll just leave that right here.” She patted it for good measure.
“Thank you,” Bruce said.
“Okay. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Bruce said as she left through a shaft of morning sunlight. Alone, Bruce sat her report aside and went back to the missing kids. This case was giving him a headache and it wasn’t even nine. With a deep sigh, he slumped back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Was it Saturday yet?
He could really use a fishing trip.
***
Dom came awake in the cold purple twilight with a shocked gasp like a man coming up seconds before drowning. His eyes strained from his sweaty face and his mouth hung slack, twisted in a gruesome parody of The Scream. His mind was muddled, murky - he didn’t know where he was or even who he was, but he knew this,.
He couldn’t breathe.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but his lungs did not fill with air. A great, unseen weight seemed to bear down on his chest, and panic gripped him. He tried to move, but his arms refused to heed his brain’s command. The weight seemed heavier, all over, crushing him like a bug. Confusion filled him and he started to pant.
Without warning, his bowels and bladder loosened, and horrible wetness filled his pants. He tried to sit up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. His chest rose and fell with the frantic labor of his breath, but his lungs remained inert. A cry of fear bubbled up inside of him, but escaped his mouth only as a breathy groan.
A bust of adrenaline shot through him and he tried to stand, but succeeded only in falling off the couch instead, landing face first against the cold tile floor. He felt his nose crunch, but the pain was muted.
Dom thought he lost consciousness after that, but wasn’t sure. His next memory was of shivering so violently that his teeth clacked together. A phantom chill - perhaps from the floor - had settled into his bones, and was colder than he had ever been in his life, colder even than the time he fell into a snowbank and got lost when he was two. Shudders racked his body, and though he tried to turn over, he was too fucking heavy. It was like every muscle in his body had turned to dead weight. Fragmented thoughts swirled in his head, faint colors in the dark, but he couldn’t put any of them together.
With great effort, he managed to push himself slightly up, but a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him and he lowered his head once more. He stopped trying and simply lay there. Shortly, his eyes began to burn and he realized that he wasn’t blinking. Jesus Christ, he wasn’t blinking.
For some strange reason, that brought a fresh bout of panic. He started to hyperventilate, but his lungs still wouldn’t work. He wasn’t blinking…he wasn’t breathing…what was happening to him?
A whimper burst from his throat and he started to cry.
He must have cried himself to sleep, because he woke sometime later to the most intense headache he’d ever had. It felt like something was eating his brain from the inside out. He was sore all over, and could feel his muscles twitching, as though a thousand living things were burrowing through his body. A cramp shot down his right leg, and the toes of his left foot curled involuntarily. Slowly, his jaw clenched closed, and the muscles in his neck began to strain…then to burn. His panic turned to terror, and Dom wiggled across the floor like a worm, his limbs screaming in red agony and his brain filling with heat. He somehow wound up on his right side, and his arms curled slowly up to his chest, crossing at the wrists like a mummy. He tried to pull them apart, but the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain cutting through his body. His knees began to draw up to his stomach, and his fingers clenched tightly.
Cramps and spasms attacked every muscle in his body. He screamed through his teeth and shook, resembling a man in the electric chair as 40,000 volts of justice coursed through him. The pain grew gradually, getting worse and worse as minutes ticked by like hours. Higher, higher, higher - he clenched his eyes closed and shrieked as it became unbearable. Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind - prayers, threats, curses, Jesus fucking…FUCK.
What was happening? God, what was happening to him? Was it fentanyl? He’d seen videos of people high on fentanyl, and they leaned in weird positions. He didn’t do drugs but maybe he ingested it somehow.
His panic may have returned if all of his muscles hadn’t picked that moment to contract as one. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to utter a high. Agonized scream that echoed through his empty apartment like thunder.
A human being can only take so much before giving out. When the pain reached a crescendo, and Dom mercifully sank into consciousness once more. The sun rose and cascaded through the apartment’s sole window, falling over his huddled form. Slowly, it tracked across the sky before setting again. As the last rays disappeared behind the horizon, Dom’s eyes opened. The pain of the night before was blessedly gone, replaced by a feeling of numbness - the cool ash after the hot fire. His thoughts were slow and thick like molasses, but he could actually think again. Nightmare memories flooded back to him, but he wasn’t sure they were real. He was lying on his side, his arms wrapped around his chest as if for warmth, and his teeth lightly chattered against the icy chill. He was so cold that he didn’t want to move, but he couldn’t stay here forever. He needed help. He needed…
A shower.
Yeah, a hot shower. That would warm him up.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly sat up, ready for a burst of pain.
But none came.
He did, however, feel heavy. Getting to his feet, he stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself against the counter. His limbs had no feeling. It’s like they weren’t even there. Head hung, Dom tried to catch his breath, but it felt like he wasn’t breathing at all. His eyelids drooped closed and he felt like he was going to fall down. Summoning all the might he could, he shuffled into the bathroom with the stiff gait of an old man. He snapped the light on, and cold, white brilliance filled the space, blinding him.
Leaning heavily against the sink, he gripped the cold porcelain. Suddenly, he was afraid of looking into the mirror. He was sure that whatever reflection he saw, it would be of something else, something monstrous.
Dom lifted his head and faced the glass.
His heart shrank.
The man in the mirror was him but different. His skin was white as milk, lacking all color whatsoever save for the ugly purple patch on the left side. IResembling a giant bruise, it started at the temple and extended down to the slope of his neck, disappearing beneath his T-shirt. He gingerly lifted the shirt, and moaned when he saw that his entire left side was discolored, the purple edged with a puffy shade of pink. His sallow skin clung tight to his ribcage, and his hip bones stuck out so much it looked painful. Back in the mirror, his cheeks were sunken, hollow, and his eyes were a hazy, dishwater gray. His skull seemed bigger, his hair longer. Dom wanted to whip his head away from the phantom before him, to never see it again, but he was transfixed.
There was no way that thing was -
Dom looked away, cutting that thought off before it could finish.
A shower.
He needed a shower.
Slowly, stiffly, Dom undressed, peeling off his shirt and his soiled pants. He dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped under the spray. He could feel the water pounding against him, but it provided no heat. It was neither hot nor cold. It was simply there.
Dom pressed his head to the slick shower wall and stood there for a long time. He was spent, tired, and fried - he had no more emotions left to give. He got out after a little while, dried off, and put on a clean pair of shorts. He settled into bed and lay there with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes open. They felt gritty, dry. His stomach felt bloated, gassy. He was drowsy now, the weight of the past two days (or was it two weeks?) coming down on him all at once. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was still asleep - but aware - when the knocking on his door started the next morning. Time was funny in this state of being, fast and jerky but also slow and echoing. Keys rattled the knob turned. The landlord came in with a cop. They saw him on the bed, laid out like a corpse for a viewing, and the cop radioed in a code 35. Soon, cops were all around him, making noise and touching things. He had the vague sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the intrusion. A baling man in a suit stood over him, a cop who looked like a redneck beside him. “He didn’t die here,” the medical examiner said.
The cop looked at him questioningly. Dom caught the name KENNER on his name tag.
“See this?” the M.E. said and gestured to Dom’s face. “That’s livor mortis. When you die, your blood pools at the lowest point. If you’re on your left side, for example, it pools on the left.”
Kenner looked at Dom and then back to the M.E. “Someone moved him?”
“Looks like it,” the M.E. said.
“When did he die?”
The M.E. examined Dom as though he were nothing more than a side of beef. “At a glance? Three days. I won’t have a better answer until I open him up.”
Dom was still awake when they put him into a body bag and zipped it up. He felt a stirring of fear beneath the cold numbness, but he was too tired to worry about it now.
Later, he thought.
He would panic later.
For now, Dom slept.

My girlfriend (26) and I (26) have been dating for 2 years and live together. We have a great relationship, we support each other and are genuinely friends. We make sure to make an effort for each other and always carve out time for date nights/just spending time together. We have spoke about it before but this is someone I truly want to marry and spend my life with and I know she feels the same. The only problem is the past year our sex lives have come to a halt out of nowhere. The first year of dating it all the time and atleast several times a week. It was something both of us craved and enjoyed every time. But right around the 1 year mark it came to a screeching halt, we have it once every 2/3 months…. We have spoke about this twice now, once she brought it up and the other I did but the both times she described having low libido recently which did not used to be an issue. After we talk it’s better for like 2 weeks then back to what it was, I have expressed I appreciate her making the extra effort. The thing is throughout most days we are intimate, always touching/kissing/being around each other but every single night once we lay down in bed or are about to head to bed she announces she doesn’t feel well. Nausea, headache, bloated, tired, heartburn, body ache it is truly something every night. It’s to the point I really think she is just announcing something is wrong so I don’t try and initiate sex.
I don’t know what to do because I have been shut down so many times I have stopped initiating and we have spoke about the issue twice before but same result. I’m also feeling guilty myself because I am noticing other women more especially the longer we go without sex. I keep it to myself but I grow more frustrated when I feel like she is announcing something is wrong just because. I am really lost as to how this happened because everything else is perfect and this was never an issue before.

I’m 37 years old female, 155cm height 62kg weight, Indian origin, no international travel in the last 4 years, non smoker, social drinking 1-2 units a week but none in the recent weeks. Living in the UK for the last 10 years. I’m Non diabetic, non hyper tensive, no allergies, never undergone any medical surgeries and no other medical condition other than this.
Since 2023 I have twice had severely elevated CRP levels (both times >400mg/l) presenting meningitis/ sepsis like symptoms but without no underlying infections. Along with high CRP I have high temperature, chills, high heart rate, skin mottling, light sensitivity, vomiting , debilitating pain / reduced mobility on forearms and wrists. Inflammation levels eventually goes down with hospitalisation in acute care IV antibiotics, vit D, pain medication and magnesium. (each time 6+ days hospitalisation was required as they are unable to safely release me until inflammatory levels showed a consistently decreasing trend)
2024 hospitalisation episode placed me on sepsis watch and I was in extreme pain(upper body - restricted movement, locked jaws in addition to symptoms I experienced in 2023 - also described above such as fever chills vomiting light sensitivity followed through)
Currently I’m home it is 5+ weeks since I came back from hospital but muscle stiffness still remains, I had a rebound attack (fever, chills, skin mottling) and was again placed on 5 days antibiotics but I was able to recover at home. Currently it is more like a slow recovery. CRP although had dropped to 36mg/l 5 weeks ago.
GP is already aware and does not know what to do with me, A&E knows to contain my situation from worsening but not able to diagnose what is causing this kind of inflammatory response.
In 2023 when this happened for the first time i thought it was a one- off abnormal inflammatory response but after the second attack in April this year I’m very afraid. I tried to approach immunologists to consult but many number of them happen to be allergists and don’t take my case. Who should I approach?
I’m listing below diagnoses:
1/ tested negative for ANA, Genetic factors 2/ tested negative for rheumatoid factors (rheumatology team cleared me off any RA/ Auto immune disorders after a year long study of my test results during 2023) 3/ tested negative for lupus related diseases 4/ tested negative for myelitis although my creatine kinase levels were 18u/l as of 5 weeks ago (against normal range 20-200u/l) 5/ Globulin levels were at 41g/l as of 5 weeks ago. 6/ tested negative for a wide variety of viral and bacterial infections (including Covid, influenza, meningitis) , extensive CT and MRIs were done of abdomen, chest, pelvic and brain and nothing remarkable came up to warrant this inflammatory response.

Hi there, welcome to my post! Feel free to make an offer for anything listed :D
The Boring Stuff: - Items come from a non-smoking home, and are all new / never used unless noted. Used items have photos showing usage. - Prices exclude shipping & insurance, to be calculated to your zip code ($5+).

ISO List

(trades only, not looking to purchase at this time. Will also look at lists!)

• Imaginary Authors: A City on Fire, Memoirs of a Trespasser, O Unknown, Saint Julep, Whispered Myths
  
• Too Faced mini Gingerbread Spice palette
  
• Too Faced mini Salted Caramel palette
  
• Tetris x Ipsy brushes
  
• Christophe Robin Regenerating Hair Mask - FS or multiple minis from beauty boxes
  
• Necromancy Cosmetica lipsticks in Ancient Queen, Lydia, Solis Mortem, or Ophidian
  
• Try me on lip scrubs (new please)
  
• Pat McGrath Subversive palette (also interested in other gold PM items)
  
• Lalique fragrances: Fleur Universelle, Or Intemporel, Silver, Zamak, and Zinc
  
• Jo Malone fragrances: particularly interested in Bloomsbury (non-floral - Leather & Artemisia, Tobacco & Mandarin, and Whiskey & Cedarwood) and Ginger Biscuit, but try me
  
• Zoologist samples
  
• Marc Jacobs fragrances: Ginger Cocktail
  
• Diptyque fragrances: Eau Lente and Eau Duelle
  
• Ginger / clove forward fragrances in general...if someone has a decant of CB I hate perfume Gingerbread that would be awesome
  

Palettes, Kits, and Sets

Anastasia Beverly Hills eyeshadow singles, listed L-R, top then bottom. $25 for the 4 shadows, or priced individually below: - ABH eyeshadow single in Wine, full size, swatched - $8 - ABH eyeshadow single in Surface of the Sun, full size, swatched - $8 - ABH eyeshadow single in Chocolate Crumble, full size, new - $8 - ABH eyeshadow single in Metal, full size, swatched - $8
Benefit Greeting From Cabana Glama DesTANation Makeup Kit, used as shown - $15
Karl Lagerfeld x ModelCo Minaudière with Mini Lip Kit, full size, NIB P - $100 Includes: - Minaudière hard clutch / makeup bag, with attachable (heavy) chain to use as a shoulder bag and dust bag - Full-size Lip Liner in Rosewood (0.05 oz.) - 2 Mini Lip Glosses in Ramatuelle and St Tropez Sunset (0.04 oz. each) - 2 Mini Lipsticks in Kate and Stella (0.05 oz. each)
Flesh Starshine eyeshadow palette, full size, new. Open. Back of palette. - $20
Kat von D Shade + Light eyeshadow palette in Plum, full size, used 2x as shown. Back of palette. - $10
Make Up For Ever MUFE 9 artist shadow palette Volume 4 (shades 100, 842, 240, 620, 806, 536, 126, 546, 530), full size, used 2x as shown. Back of palette. - $25
Smith & Cult Book of Eyes quad palette in Noonsuite (bronzey), full size, NIB - $25
Tarte Be Your Own Tarteist Eye & Cheek Palette, used as shown - $20
Urban Decay Naked Cherry palette, full size, NIB - $40

Eyes

Brows:
Anastasia Beverly Hills ABH Clear Brow Gel, travel size (2.5ml), NIB - $7
ModelCo More Brows in Light / Medium, Full Size - $10
Ulta Brow Tint in Medium, full size, new - $6
Eyeliner:
BareMinerals Lasting Line Long-wearing Eye Liner in Absolute Black, Full Size, New - $10
Beauty For Real I-Line 24-7 Eyeliner in Black Magic, full size, new - $10
Estée Lauder Automatic Eye Pencil Duo Refill in Charcoal, full size, NIB - $10
Lancome Drama Liqui-Pencil in Noir Intense, Travel Size, .018oz - $5
Laura Geller I-Care Waterproof Eyeliner in Charcoal, Full Size - $10
NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk (white), full size, new - $3
Sephora Waterproof Contour Eye Pencil in 33 Love Affair (plum), new, travel size (.017oz) - $3
Stila Smudge Stick Waterproof Eyeliner in Stingray (jet black), full size, NIB - $15
Tarte Sex Kitten Eyeliner in Black, travel size (half size, .0035oz), new - $8
Ulta Dual-Ended Liner, in Halo & Black/Brown, Full Size - $3
Victoria's Secret Very Sexy Sparkling Eyeliner in Blacklight, Full Size, cracked cap used 2x - $5
Eyeshadow:
Kat Von D KVD Metal Crush Eyeshadow in Thunderstruck (warm white gold), full size (.1oz), swatched - $12
Laura Geller Baked Marble Eyeshadow in Amethyst, full size, new - $12
Maybelline Expert Wear Eyeshadow in Amethyst Smokes, used 3x - $2
NYC HD Color Trio Eye Shadow in Late Night Latte, Full Size, used 5x - $2
NYX Prismatic Eyeshadow Single in Punk Heart (plum with purple shimmer), full size, used as shown - $3
Trestique Color and Smudge Shadow Crayon in Marimoto Pink Pearl, full size, NIB - $15
Ulta Eye Shadow singles Duo in Petite (light beige matte) and Beauty Junkie (mauve glitter), both full size (.06oz), both new - $8 for the pair
Ulta Eye Shadow Palette in Lace, Charm, Nostalgia, Vintage, Delicate, and Seaside, .21oz, new - $6
Lashes:
Eyelure London Limited Edition Party Lashes in Snow Princess, full size, NIB - $3
Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers Blue Glow in the Dark Lashes, full size, NIB - $2
Mascara:
BellaPierre Volume Lash Waterproof Mascara, full size, new & sealed - $10
Butter London Double Decker Lashes Mascara in Black, travel size (.18oz), NIB - $6
Clinique Chubby Lash Mascara in 01 Jumbo Jet (black), travel size (4ml), NIB - $5
Clinique High Impact Mascara in black, half size (.15oz), new - $10
Clinique Lash Power Flutter-to-Full Mascara in 01 Black Onyx, travel size, new - $8
Estée Lauder Sumptuous Knockout Mascara in 01 Black, travel size (.09oz), new - $10
Julep Length Matters Mascara in Jet Black, travel size (.2oz), NIB - $8
Laura Geller StyleLASH Intense Lengthening Mascara, FS (.33oz), NWOB - $14
Maybelline Great Lash Mascara in Black, travel size (.15oz), new - $2
Pur Big Look Mascara with Argan oil, full size (.12oz), new - $6
Ulta Amped Lashes Mascara in Jet Black, full size, new - $6
Ulta Beauty Maximum Lashes Defining and Lengthening Mascara, full size, new - $6

Lips

Lip Gloss, Balms, & Stains:
ChapStick Lip Butter in Green Tea Mint, full size, NIB - $2
First Aid Beauty FAB Ultra Repair Lip Therapy, full size (.5oz), new - $8
Jane Iredale SPF 15 Lip Drink Lip Balm in Flirt (sheer pink), full size, NIB - $10
MAC Vamplify Lip Gloss in Suggestive, FS, new - $12
Mally Beans High Shine Lip Gloss in Pilar Bean, DS (.07oz), new - $6
NYC City Proof Extended Wear Lip Gloss in Mauving All Night #458, Full Size - $3
Philosophy High-Gloss Lip Shine in Fresh Cream, full size (.4oz), new and sealed - $6
Pur Chrome Glaze High-Shine Lip Gloss In DIY (pinky nude), full size (0.07 oz), NIB - $10
Ulta Double Duty Lip Stain and Balm in Drama (Dark Red), full size, new - $4
Ulta Double Duty Lip Stain and Balm in Romance (Pink), full size, new - $4
Urban Decay Revolution Lip Gloss in Savage (bright pink), travel size (.05oz), new - $5
Whole Foods organic lip balm in Peppermint, full size, new and sealed - $1
Whole Foods organic lip balm in Pomegranate Orange, full size, new and sealed - $1
Whole Foods organic lip balm in Tangerine, full size, new and sealed - $1
Victoria's Secret Beauty Rush Lip Balm in Minty Kiss, Full Size - $3
Lip Liners & Primers:
Kat Von D Everlasting Lip Liner in Homegirl, full size (.25g), used 2x as shown - $10
Milani Color Statement Lip Liner in 02 True Red, full size, new - $2
Tarte Tarteist Lip Crayon in Thirsty (bright red), .01oz, NIB - $10
Lipstick - Liquid:
Julep It's Whipped Matte Lip Mousse in At Midnight (Fireball Red Matte), full size (.14oz), new - $10 for 1, $16 for 2
Julep It's Whipped Matte Lip Mousse in Love Potion (Bronzed Black Metallic Matte), full size (.14oz), new P - $10 for 1, $16 for 2
Julep It's Whipped Matte Lip Mousse in Pillow Talk (Victorian Pink Matte), full size (.14oz), new - $10 for 1, $16 for 2
Julep It's Whipped Matte Lip Mousse in Say Hello (Rich Marsala Matte), full size (.14oz), new - $10 for 1, $16 for 2
Julep It's Whipped Matte Lip Mousse in XOXO (Femme Fuchsia Matte), full size (.14oz), new - $10 for 1, $16 for 2
Laura Geller Lip Silk Liquid Lipstick in French Kiss (soft pink), full size, new - $10
Maybelline Color Sensational Vivid Matte Liquid Lip Color in Nude Flush , Full Size, swatched 1x - $3
NYX Suede Cream Liquid Lipstick in Orange County (bright orange), travel size (.05oz), new - $4, or 2/$6
NYX Suede Cream Liquid Lipstick in Pink Lust (bright pink), travel size (.05oz), new - $4, or 2/$6
NYX Cosmetics Soft Matte Lip Cream in Transylvania (deep wine), full size (0.27 oz), new - $4, or 2/$6
OCC Lip Tar in Disintegration (pale plum metallic), full size, NIB - $12
OCC Lip Tar in Hoochie (magenta / purple), full size, NIB - $12
Tarte Lip Sculptor, Lipstick & Lipgloss, in VIP (cool nude), travel size (1.5g lipstick 1ml lipgloss), new - $10
Tarte Tarteist Lip Paint in Bae (red), full size, new - $13
Lipstick - Bullet & Pencil:
Almay Demi-Sheer Creme Lipcolor in 80 Demi Mauve, full size, used 3x as shown - $8
Bite Beauty Luminous Creme Lipstick Topper, no shade listed but a shimmery bronze, full size, new - $18
Bite Beauty High Pigment Pencil in Rhubarb, full size (.09oz), used 1x - $10
Bite Beauty Matte Cream Lipstick in Barberry (cool dark plum), full size, used as shown - $16
DCA Lipstick in No. 108, full size, used 2x as shown - $4
Estée Lauder All-Day Lipstick in Ancient Brick, full size, swatched as shown - $12
Estée Lauder Pure Color Envy Sculpting Lipstick in Irresistible, full size (.12oz), new P - $15
Illamasqua Glamour Lipstick in Tease (pale Nude), full size, used 3x - $12
Kat Von D Studded Kiss Lipstick in Homegirl (satin matte berry), travel size (.04oz), used as shown - $6
Kat Von D Studded Kiss Lipstick in Poe (cool metallic blue), full size, NIB - $12
Kat Von D Studded Kiss Lipstick in Roxy (purple), mini size (1g), used 1x as shown - $6
Korres Matte Twist Lipstick in Tempting Coral, full size (.05oz), new - $10
Lancome Rouge Absolu Lipstick in Rose Espace, full size, used 3x as shown - $12
Laura Geller Color Brilliance Lustrous Lipstick in Cute, full size, new - $12
Laura Geller Italian Marble lipstick in Strawberry Toffee, full size, new - $12
MAC Retro Matte Lipstick in Flat Out Fabulous (bright pink/purple), full size, new - $12
Makeup Academy Lipstick in Persian Rose (bright pink), full size, used 1x - $3
Makeup Revolution Scandalous Lipstick in Depraved (violet), full size, used 1x - $3
NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in 413 BLKR (fuchsia), full size (.08oz), new - $16
NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in Let's Go Crazy (cool fuchsia), 3/4 size (1.8g, FS is 2.4g), new - $10
Nudestix Magnetic Matte Lip Color in Greystone (greige), .088oz (FS is .1oz), new - $12
NYC Lipstick in Fragile Pink, Full Size - used as shown - $2
NYC Ultra Moist Lip Wear in Blossom #316, Full Size, Used 2x - $2
NYC Ultra Moist Lip Wear in Ruby #305, Full Size, Used 2x - $2
Sephora Collection Rouge Cream in #49 Belly-Dancing (red), mini (.03oz, FS is .14) - $2
Smashbox Be Legendary Cream Lipstick in Inspiration (cool fuchsia), .08oz (FS is .1oz), new - $10, or 2/$15
Smashbox Be Legendary Cream Lipstick in Legendary (cool red), .08oz (FS is .1oz), new - $10, or 2/$15
Smashbox Be Legendary Cream Lipstick in Tabloid (cool violet), .08oz (FS is .1oz), new - $10, or 2/$15
Ulta Lipstick in Cherry Picked 202 (medium true red), Full Size, Used 1x - $4
Urban Decay x Gwen Stefani lipstick in Spiderweb (satin red cream), full size, NIB - $12
Urban Decay Matte Revolution Lipstick in Temper (red-orange), full size, NIB - $12
Urban Decay Vice Lipstick in Phone Call (bright pink with cream finish), full size, NIB - $10
Wander Beauty Wanderout Dual Lipstick in Wanderberry (rich burgundy), half size (.07oz), new - $10
Winky Lux Matte Lip Velour in Royal (purple), .14oz, NIB - $10

Face

Blush:
Lancome Blush Subtil in in Rose Fresque, full size (.18oz), used as shown - $12
Ulta Cheek Palette in Fresh Glow Highlighter and Nude Pink Blush, .155oz, new - $5
Bronzer & Contour:
BareMinerals BareSkin Serum Bronzer in Sheer Sun, Travel Size (.1oz) - $3
St. Tropez One Night Only Finishing Gloss, travel size (.16oz), new - $2
Foundations, Concealers, CC Cream, & Powders:
Bee Naturals Tinted Moisturizer in Shade 2 (Medium/Dark), Full Size (1oz) - 1/$15 or 2/$20
Benefit Porefessional Pore Minimizing Makeup in Shade 1, travel size (.16oz), new - $10
Dermablend Loose Setting Powder, travel size (.11oz), new - $10
Jane Iredale Smooth Affair, travel size (.24oz), new - $8
Julep Cushion Complexion concealer 5-in-1 Skin Perfector with Turmeric in 200 Nude, full size, NIB - $18
Laura Geller Balance-N-Brighten Baked Foundation in Medium, full size, new - $15
Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder, travel size (.12oz), new - $6
Pixi by Petra Beauty Bronzer in Summertime, Travel Size, .16oz - $4
Highlighters:
Laura Geller Baked Gelato Lace Illuminator in Ballerina, full size, new - $15
Laura Geller Baked Golden Rose Highlighter, full size, new - $12
P/Y/T Upgrade Highlighter in Backstage Pass (warm shimmer nude), .07oz, NIP - $8
Primers & Setting Sprays:
Becca First Light Priming Filter, travel size (.2oz), NIB - $7
Japonesque Velvet Touch Primer, travel size (.3oz), new - $8
Laura Geller Spackle Even Tone Primer, travel size (.5oz), new - $6
Pur Correcting Primer, travel size (.3oz), new - $10
Too Faced Hangover 3-in-1 Face Primer & Setting Spray, travel size (.06oz), NIB - $4
Too Faced Hangover Replenishing Face Primer, travel size (.16oz), NIB - $4
Urban Decay All Nighter Long Lasting Makeup Spray, travel size (.5oz), new - $6

Skincare & Body

BareMinerals Skinlongevity Vital Power Infusion, full size (1.7oz), new - $35
Bliss Leave it to Cleavage, Travel Size, .5oz - $4
Bliss Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Foaming Mask, new, travel size (.16oz) - $3
Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel, new, Travel Size (.5oz) - $4
Clinique 7 Day Scrub Cream, travel size (1oz), new - $5
Daily Concepts Exfoliating Body Scrubber - $5
Elizabeth Arden Prevage Daily Anti-Aging Serum, Travel Size, .17oz - $8
Erborian Bamboo Creme Frappe Skin Reviving Gel, new, travel size (.17oz) - $4
Estée Lauder Advanced Night Micro Cleansing Foam, travel size (1oz), new - $6
Estée Lauder Revitalizing Supreme+ Global Anti-Aging Cell Power Creme, .5oz, new - $15
First Aid Beauty FAB Facial Radiance Intensive Peel, travel size (.34oz), new - $6
First Aid Beauty FAB Ultra Repair Cream, travel size (1oz), new - $6
First Aid Beauty FAB Ultra Repair Cream Intense Hydration in Honeysuckle, travel size (1oz), new - $6
First Botany Cosmeceuticals 50X Strength Hyaluronic Acid Serum, .5oz, new - $8
MAC Cleanse Off Oil, travel size (.2oz), new - $4
Milk Makeup Sunshine Oil, Sample, .1oz - $2
Murad Age Reform Nutrient-Charged Water Gel, travel size (.25oz), NIB - $10
Omorovicza Budapest Magic Moisture Mist, full size (1.7oz), NIB - $65
Omorovicza Balancing Moisturizer, full size (30ml), new - $50
Perricone MD Blue Plasma Cleansing Treatment (gentle cleanser), travel size (2oz), new - $18
Perricone MD Cold Plasma Plus + Eye Cream, travel size (.25oz), new - $30
Proactiv Skin Purifying Mask, travel size (1oz), NIB - $10
Shiseido Ultimune Power Infusing Concentrate, travel size (.33oz), new - $15
Strivectin TL Advanced Light Tightening Neck Cream, travel size (.25oz), NIB - $10
Toulon Mineral Infusion Serum-92, 1oz - $6
Whish Self-Tanner, Travel Size (.75oz) - $2

Hair / Tools / Nail Polish / Etc

Alterna Haircare Caviar Anti-Aging Miracle Volume Mist, travel size (1.4oz), new - $6
Bumble & Bumble BB Pret-a-Powder, travel size (.5oz), used 1x - $8
Essie Nail Lacquer in Say it Aint Soho (metallic copper), full size, new - $5
Fatboy Spray Putty, full size (4.8oz), new - $15
Julep Color Treat Polish in It Girl Lillian (pink creme), full size, new - $8
Living Proof TBD Multi-Tasking Styler, travel size (1oz), new - $7
OPI Nail Lacquer in Can i Bairro This Shade (dusty teal), full size, new - $5
OPI Nail Lacquer in The Taupe of the Iceberg, full size, new - $5
Phyto Paris Phytoelixir Cleansing Care Hair Cream, travel size (1oz), new - $8
Phyto Paris Intense Hydrating Brilliance Mask (Dry Hair Phytojoba), 1.7oz, NIB - $8
Matrix Total Results Miracle Creator Multi-Tasking Treatment, travel size (1oz), new - $3
Urban Decay Heavy Metal loose glitter in Reverb (blue), full size (.10oz), NIB - $10

Fragrance

Full Size
Aromachology Exotic & Spicy EDP, full size (1.7oz), used 1x - $40
Jo Malone English Oak & Redcurrant Cologne, full size (3.4 oz), sprayed 1x - $100
Penhaligon's Heartless Helen, full size (75ml) in box, used 3x - $160
Ralph Lauren Polo Sport for Women, used as shown - $12
Travel Size
Armani Air di Gioia EDP, travel size spray (.5oz - bigger than a rollerball), NIB - $20
Armani Sky di Gioia EDP, travel size spray bottle (.5oz - bigger than a rollerball), NIB - $20
Bvlgari Au The Rouge EDC, travel size (.17oz), used 2x - $10
Candie's Candie's EDT, travel size (.5oz), about 60% remaining - $5
Lush All Good Things solid perfume, travel size (12g), used 1x as shown - $15
Origins Ginger Essence Sensuous Skin Scent, travel size (.5 oz), used as shown (about 80% remaining) - $12
Philosophy Pure Grace EDT spray, travel size (.5oz), NIB - $15
Samples 3/$5
Atelier Cologne Vanilla Insensée Cologne Absolue, sample size + postcard, new - $3
Burberry Mr. Burberry EDT, sample size (2ml), new - $2
Calvin Klein Eternity for Men EDT, sample size (1.2ml), new - $2
Clean for Men Classic EDT, sample size (1ml), new - $2
Versace Eros EDT, sample size (1ml), new - $2
Viktor & Rolf Spicebomb EDT, sample size (1.2ml), new - $2.

Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) is the subject of heated debate. How are mast cell activation syndromes defined? Which diseases are included? What is the diagnosis and treatment of mast cell activation syndrome? Prof. Dr. Knut Brockow, Clinic and Polyclinic for Dermatology and Allergology at the Biederstein, Technical University of Munich answers these questions in an interview with MeinAllergiePortal.
Mast cell activation syndrome: The most important facts!
-The prototype of mast cell activation syndrome is recurrent anaphylaxis
-Other forms of idiopathic mast cell activation syndrome are being sought; however, there are mainly symptom descriptions where the diagnosis cannot be made
-Clinical suspicion of MCAS is based on recurring allergy-like symptoms on the skin, nose, respiratory tract, gastrointestinal tract and circulation
-The diagnosis of MCAS is made according to recognized international criteria based on three criteria
-MCAS is often suspected even when symptoms are inappropriate and the diagnosis is unclear; the suspicion is then not helpful for patients
-The same medications are used to treat MCAS as are used to treat allergies, in particular antihistamines and cromoglicic acid
Prof. Brockow, what kind of disease is MCAS?
Mast cell activation syndrome is not an established diagnosis, but rather a concept. Historically, this concept arose because an increasing number of patients came to the doctor's office with complaints that gave the impression of having been triggered by mast cells. These patients sometimes showed symptoms similar to those of allergic reactions, anaphylaxis or mastocytosis, but a clear diagnosis for these diseases could not be made. Nevertheless, it was suspected that there could at least be a connection with mast cell diseases. Unfortunately, the term MCAS created more uncertainty than understanding. This is because MCAS is now thrown around as a diagnosis for many patients with many symptoms and an unclear diagnosis. This is not helpful for patients and fuels short-term hope of diagnosis and cure, which cannot be fulfilled later.
Is MCAS an autoimmune disease?
No, in autoimmune diseases mast cells are not primarily involved and not as lead cells, but lymphocytes that attack the body's own structures, in some cases by forming antibodies.
Is there a connection between mast cell activation syndrome and autoimmune diseases?
No, there is no known connection between MCAS and autoimmune diseases. It has also been claimed by specific authors that other diseases, such as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) are related to mast cell activation syndrome. However, there are no good arguments for this. Unfortunately, such claims are easy to make and difficult to refute.
What is the cause of mast cell activation syndrome?
Mast cell activation syndrome is actually more of a symptom description than a diagnosis in its own right. Mast cell activation syndrome is fully applicable to recurrent anaphylaxis (severe allergic reactions in several organ systems such as the skin, respiratory tract, digestive tract and circulatory system), for example due to insect bites. All the criteria for mast cell activation syndrome are met here. Severe allergic reactions are the most common cause of MCAS. However, although the term MCAS is correct in this context, it does not provide any additional information, as patients with such events are better described as patients with a diagnosis of anaphylaxis or allergy, and the term MCAS is somewhat confusing.
Is mast cell activation syndrome genetic?
MCAS itself is not genetic, but patients with the genetic disease mastocytosis often suffer from anaphylaxis, particularly to insect venom, and therefore MCAS. In addition, it is currently being investigated whether people with genetically determined hereditary alpha-tryptasemia suffer more frequently from MCAS.
How did the term mast cell activation syndrome come about?
There were many patients without a clear diagnosis, some of whom predominantly showed the symptoms typical of mast cell diseases. Accordingly, the experts dealing with mast cell diseases saw the need to develop a concept that took into account the “undiagnosable” symptoms of the patients. In the course of this, the terms “mast cell activation” and “mast cell activation syndrome” were defined. In addition, an attempt was made to sort all mast cell diseases into a classification with regard to mast cell activation. However, the difficulty in classifying these complaints is that many of the complaints described by patients are subjective, relatively non-specific and can be both organic and psychosomatic.
How have you defined mast cell diseases and which diseases do they include?
Mast cell diseases are defined as recurring chronic symptoms that are compatible with mast cell activation.
Mast cell activation is classified on the basis of three criteria:
Recurrent typical clinical symptoms in at least two organ systems
An increase in mast cell mediators can be detected in the blood, most frequently by determining the serum tryptase level during an acute attack
Good response of symptoms to anti-mast cell mediator-directed therapy, especially H1 antihistamines
What types of mast cell disease are there?
The classification of mast cell diseases associated with mast cell activation syndromes defines three groups:
1. primary mast cell activation syndrome
Primary mast cell activation syndrome is explained by a clonal expansion of mutated overactive mast cells. It manifests as systemic or cutaneous mastocytosis. If these criteria are not completely fulfilled, but clonal mast cells have been detected, it is referred to as monoclonal mast cell activation syndrome.
2 Secondary mast cell activation syndrome
Secondary mast cell activation syndrome is present when clear triggers of mast cell activation are known. There are established terms for secondary mast cell activation syndrome that we are more familiar with, such as “anaphylaxis” to a known trigger. The classification in the second group of mast cell diseases is therefore merely a reclassification. Examples of mast cell activation are physical urticaria or cold urticaria. Allergies such as pollen allergies are also secondary mast cell activations, as hay fever also causes symptoms typical of mast cell diseases. In pollen allergies, mast cell mediators are found in the blood serum and drugs directed against mast cells have a good effect. If the symptoms recur in several organ systems, this is referred to as mast cell activation syndrome.
3. tertiary or idiopathic mast cell activation syndrome
Tertiary or idiopathic mast cell activation syndrome refers to mast cell diseases whose triggers are unknown. This group would include, for example, chronic spontaneous urticaria, which has additional symptoms in other organs. Here we know that mast cells are activated, but not by what. This group of idiopathic mast cell activation syndromes would also include patients with as yet undescribed clinical pictures who do not fulfill the diagnostic criteria of known mast cell diseases, e.g. allergy, anaphylaxis, but in whom the disease is triggered by mast cells. In these patients, however, the connection between the symptoms and the activities of the mast cells must be proven.
Does this mean that tertiary or idiopathic mast cell activation syndrome is a diagnosis of exclusion?
Idiopathic mast cell activation syndrome can be described as a diagnosis of exclusion insofar as the prerequisite for the diagnosis is that there is no other disease causing the symptoms. However, the symptoms described are often very, very unspecific and could also be caused by a variety of other diseases. However, there are the three criteria for mast cell activation syndrome already mentioned. If these are not all fulfilled, this diagnosis cannot be made.
How common is mast cell activation syndrome?
Anaphylaxis and severe recurrent allergies are not uncommon and represent the vast majority of appropriate cases for MCAS. In addition, mastocytosis patients often have multiple anaphylaxis and therefore also MCAS. However, our initial idea of finding a new disease, idiopathic mast cell activation syndrome, has not yet been confirmed. There are many patients with many symptoms for whom a clear organic diagnosis cannot yet be made. However, it is almost never possible to prove that a defect in the mast cells is primarily responsible for the symptoms. Many of these patients describe symptoms that could fit, and in some patients anti-allergic drugs also have a positive effect. But in only very few patients can an increase in mast cell mediators be detected during an acute attack. I now believe that somatic stress disorders could play a significant role in many of the patients examined.
Histamine intolerance is also a diagnosis of exclusion, is there a connection with mast cell activation syndrome?
Histamine intolerance can cause similar symptoms, but is not a mast cell disorder and has nothing to do with MCAS. When mast cells are activated, the messenger substance histamine is released, which in turn can cause symptoms. In histamine intolerance, the mast cell is not activated - it is not involved in any way. Rather, histamine intolerance describes patients with an increased sensitivity to histamine, which is supplied, for example, via the diet. This can lead to similar symptoms, but in contrast to mast cell activation syndrome, histamine intolerance has a clear trigger, histamine. As a result, the symptoms occur after eating histamine-rich foods, but disappear again if the patient follows a low-histamine diet. A test is also available to diagnose histamine intolerance.
So there are also patients with suspected mast cell activation syndrome who cannot be assigned to a classification group, even though they have corresponding symptoms?
There are many patients in whom no mast cell activation syndrome can be detected despite suspicion. They do not fit into one of the three groups. However, this also used to include monoclonal mast cell activation syndrome. These patients showed anaphylaxis and a KIT mutation, but not the full criteria for mastocytosis. In the meantime, a separate disease diagnosis has been created for these patients. The independent accepted disease of these patients therefore lies between mastocytosis and normal findings.
We thought that there might be other forms of idiopathic MCAS with clinical pictures that have not yet been described. However, this is not supported by the findings to date. There are patients who show symptoms but do not meet the necessary criteria for idiopathic mast cell activation syndrome. In these patients, the diagnosis remains unclear. In how many of these patients functional physical complaints play a role still needs to be investigated.
Are there risk factors that favor mast cell activation syndrome?
There are hardly any recognized studies on this. In a study conducted by Cem Akin in the USA, patients were examined who met the three criteria for idiopathic mast cell activation syndrome. They had the right symptoms, there was an increase in mediators and their symptoms improved with treatment. It was shown that many of these patients suffered from urticaria factitia, a scratch-induced urticaria, abdominal pain and flushing.
Recently, a genetic trait was discovered, hereditary alpha-tryptasemia with elevated basal serum tryptase levels. In patients with this trait and insect venom allergy, the severity of the allergic reaction appears to be increased. It is also discussed that the frequency of mast cell activation syndrome is increased in patients with this genetic trait. However, the published studies are not yet unanimous in this respect.
What symptoms can occur with MCAS?
The following symptoms could be signs of mast cell activation syndrome:
MCAS symptoms on the skin:
Appearance of sudden intense redness (flushing)
itching
wheal formation
Deep wheal formation (angioedema or Quincke's edema)
MCAS symptoms on the nose:
Nasal congestion
Nasal itching
MCAS symptoms in the airways:
Swelling of the upper airways
Wheezing
Shortness of breath
MCAS symptoms of the digestive tract:
Vomiting
abdominal pain
diarrhea
Systemic MCAS symptoms:
Syncope - where you suddenly lose consciousness, but only for a short time
Sudden drop in blood pressure
Allergic shock
These symptoms can occur together or individually. In principle, symptoms must occur in two or more organ systems for MCAS. These symptoms, together with the typical skin changes and anaphylaxis, are also typical of mastocytosis.
Are muscle pain and hair loss also symptoms of MCAS?
No, why would anyone think that these symptoms are primarily caused by a malfunction of mast cells? Mast cells are not important cells for muscle pain and hair loss.
How is MCAS diagnosed?
MCAS is a diagnosis of exclusion, i.e. there is no mast cell activation syndrome test. However, this does not mean that all other diseases must be ruled out before a diagnosis of MCAS can be made.
When testing directly for mast cell activation syndrome, three criteria would be examined, all of which must be met, not just two:
First, there must be a matching of symptoms to see if the above symptoms are leading, recurrent and occur in at least two organ systems.
Is there a substantial or complete improvement in the clinical symptoms when taking anti-allergic medication, antihistamines or cromoglicic acid? Then this criterion would apply.
The blood levels of tryptase in the serum can now be examined at two different points in time. This would check whether there is an increase in mast cell mediators or tryptase in the blood serum in a highly symptomatic phase or during a seizure compared to a time when there are no symptoms.
What does the tryptase level in the blood mean in the diagnosis of mast cell activation syndrome?
If the mast cell mediator tryptase rises by 20 percent of the basal value, i.e. the initial value, + 2 ng/ml during such an episode, the diagnosis of mast cell activation syndrome has been made without the need to rule out other diseases beforehand. However, taking blood samples to determine the tryptase levels is very time-consuming, because a blood sample should be taken in the normal state and then another blood sample should be taken during a seizure or a highly symptomatic episode. This means that the patient must see a doctor in good time for a blood test during the acute phase. If these tests are negative, mast cell activation syndrome cannot be confirmed.
Elevated tryptase levels also play a role in anaphylaxis, is there a connection with mast cell activation syndrome?
Anaphylaxis is an extremely strong mast cell activation, the “prototype” of mast cell activation, so to speak. The tryptase level rises, so that it is considered an indicator of anaphylaxis. Here too, the basal value is measured and compared with the value during an episode. The relevant factor is the resulting increase in the tryptase value. The therapy against mast cells is effective in this case. In this respect, anaphylaxis is the classic form of mast cell activation syndrome.
The tryptase value also plays a role in the diagnosis of mastocytosis, what are the correlations here?
Mastocytosis patients also have an elevated baseline tryptase level. This is therefore an indication of mastocytosis and an indication for a final diagnosis by means of a bone marrow biopsy. However, there is also a mastocytosis-independent correlation between tryptase and anaphylaxis. People who have a higher number of mast cells often develop more severe anaphylaxis than people with fewer mast cells. The tryptase basal value is therefore considered a kind of indicator for the total mast cells in the body. For example, insect venom anaphylactic patients with elevated basal mast cell tryptase levels in the blood are at increased risk of severe anaphylaxis.
What can be done against MCAS and which medications help?
The aim of treatment for mast cell activation syndrome is to slow down the effect of the overactivated mast cells and to calm the mast cells. In particular, the avoidance of allergic triggers is available for this purpose.
Histamine receptor blockers are tried as medication to block the effects of mast cell activation by histamine. Mast cell stabilizers or blockers of mast cell release, cromoglicic acid, can also calm the mast cells. Cromoglicic acid is also used in mastocytosis patients. It is important to know that the use of cromoglicic acid is not advisable if the attack has already run its course. On the other hand, many patients achieve a significant improvement in symptoms if cromoglicic acid is taken continuously as a preventive measure and in a sufficiently high dose. This has also been shown to be the case with antihistamines.
Another option would be leukotriene receptor antagonists and corticosteroids in the short term, but never over a longer period of time.
Unfortunately, many patients with previously unexplained complaints are given a suspected diagnosis of MCAS in the hope that this knowledge will lead to better treatment or perhaps a cure. However, apart from the drugs mentioned, which can also be used on a trial basis in cases of suspected MCAS, there are no other useful drugs available. In this respect, the suspicion of MCAS unfortunately does not offer patients any additional treatment options.
Are there foods that activate or deactivate mast cells?
No such foods are known in humans. Of course, it is possible to bombard mast cells in a test tube with high concentrations of food and measure whether the natural activation of mast cells is increased or reduced. However, such tests are generally not meaningful for humans when consumed.
Can naturopathy help with mast cell activation syndrome?
I don't know how it could help. Naturopathy is the attempt to achieve a positive effect through naturally occurring active substances. Is the avoidance of allergens in our natural environment already naturopathy?
Could certain vitamins, for example vitamin C, be beneficial for MCAS?
This is claimed by a few doctors without any convincing results. Vitamin C is also said to help against seasickness. After all, vitamin C, taken in normal amounts, is not harmful and is beneficial. Sometimes the conviction that a substance is good for you also helps. That's why the experiment doesn't bother me.
Is it possible to prevent mast cell activation syndrome?
Yes, by avoiding MCAS with a known trigger. This is the case with allergies. In the case of allergies and recurrent anaphylaxis as a form of MCAS, omalizumab, an antibody against immunoglobulin E, can also be used in individual patients.
Prof. Brockow, thank you very much for this interview!
https://www.mein-allergie-portal.com/mastozytose-mastzellaktivierungssyndrom-mcas/925-idiopathisches-mastzellenaktivierungssyndrom-ein-neues-krankheitsbild.html

Update post on my progress and protocols for my treatment with side effects and how I managed it all.
Now that I'm done with treatment, I hope that this can help others who may be starting the same journey and have questions. I attribute my easy time to the premeds and my mental willpower. I focus on the positives and silver linings over the negatives. You can only control one thing -- your reactions. The rest requires you to practice acceptance.
Diagnosis: Stage 2 Endocervical Adenocarcinoma Gastric Type with LVSI
Treatment Plan: Surgery (cervix, uterus, and ovaries) followed by concurrent Chemo with Radiation with a PET Scan scheduled 2 months after treatment to determine if NED or more treatment is required.
I was scheduled for 6 chemo cycles, once a week, and 28 radiation beam therapies. Chemo happened on Monday and Radiation was Monday through Friday. I had to skip Cycle 3 on Chemo only because I was hospitalized with Norovirus and my counts were too low. I still did radiation those days.
Chemo Protocol in order of meds:

1. Magnesium Sulfate + Potassium Chloride. Cisplatin strips this from your body, supplements.
2. Emend (Fosaprepitant) - antiemetic. I had to get a port for this, it burned my arm vein and I had to use other arm for Chemo, no fun.
3. Aloxi (Palonosetron) - antiemetic.
4. Decadron (Dexamethasone) - steroid. It burns in your nether region, if it burns too much, ask them to push it slower.
5. Lasix (Furosemide) - diuretic. Cisplatin is hard on kidneys, this is to help purge the chemo faster. Be close to a bathroom and ask nurse if you can just unplug your IV pole and go to bathroom freely vs. pushing call button -- its easier.
6. Cisplatin (Platinol) 70mg (my dose). Didn't make me feel any different than the other infusions.

Plan for at least 5 hours for the above. I started at 7:30am and ended between 12 and 12:30pm.
Cisplatin Symptoms: This is going to vary person to person and you may get different premeds than me.

• Mon (Day 1) - just the cold feeling in your veins from all the fluid infusions. You also gain like 5lbs of water weight that day. I was typically ravenous and ate whatever I wanted, the antiemetics made this possible. Be wary of constipation from chemo, it took me by surprise the first week. The other weeks I ate a few prunes on Sunday and then after chemo on Monday to help. Otherwise you won't poop for a week and be miserable.
• Tues (Day 2) - no appetite and I don't eat. Even marijuana does not work to stimulate. I'll force myself if DH forces me, but since I eat everything in sight Day 1 I'm not too hard on myself. Important to have first BM this day, if nothing then you need to start addressing. Of course I BM daily so this may not apply to you.
• Wed - Thu (Day 3 - 4) - acid reflux and indigestion. Keep some Tums handy or use pills, it doesn't really help and you get used to it. All in, better than throwing up, so take it as a win if this is the worst for you. Appetite back.
• Fri - Sun (Day 5 -7) - less side effects, should be at normal BMs, if you are not you need to address for next cycle. Very important to purge your bowels if you are constipated before your next chemo. I ended up doing Miralax my first week, I had zero BM before Sat and I could feel the pressure. The following weeks I just did a handful of prunes Sunday night after dinner and Monday when I got home from chemo. I happen to like prunes and they worked to keep me regular.

Pelvic Radiation Symptoms: This is going to be different based on what areas are treated. My bladder, vagina, and pelvic nodes were heavily treated. Be sure you understand the side effects before you start treatment - so you can be on top of everything. Below is my experience and I had a fairly easy time of it.

• The fatigue sets in slowly. By week 3/4 I needed 12 hours a night to sleep. Don't ignore this important rest. I adjusted my work schedule from day 1 -- from 7a to 1p Tue - Thu. I didn't work Mon due to Chemo and Fri I had to get labs done and radiation so I worked from 7a to 11am. I did this from day 1 to set the tone with my boss and ensure I had the time needed to rest even if I didn't need it. I ended up working Sat and sometimes Sun to make up for things. I am a WFH executive - right hand of CEO and in charge of operations. Helps to have a great boss pick up the slack and an amazing team who supported me every step of the way.
• Bowels get softer over time, they do not go from hard to diarrhea overnight. If you have diarrhea fast, don't ignore it or let your doctor's ignore. I thought it was the prunes week 2 that did it, no it was norovirus. They didn't catch it until I had a 102 fever week 3 and had to be hospitalized. The chemo constipation masked it during the week.
• AZO is your BEST FRIEND. Take it every day. It is made to as a pain reliever for the bladder. I missed it for a week and paid for it so bad. Do not skip this important drug. I need to keep taking it for a few weeks until the symptoms subside.
• When you go in for your initial telemetry setup for the machines, make sure you are comfortable before they start anything. The moment you lay down on the machine bed, you need to make sure you are in a good position. They used a mold on my legs and I was not in a good position so it really hurt my hips every session thereafter.
• You have to put your hands on your chest. They give a ring, I hated it. I recommend relaxing your shoulders or you'll have a hard time while they do the treatment.
• You get used to the flow. You walk into the treatment room, hop on a bed while two techs adjust you (I had x marks on both hips and belly that they lined up). Then you get a quick CT to ensure your bladder is full and you're in a good position. Adjustments are made as needed. You know when the radiation beam starts because it is the only thing with noise. Don't move until they say you can. Whole thing is 10 mins or less.
• Bladder management is the worst part. You need to have a full bladder for this and as the treatment progresses you will have a harder time determining if your bladder is full or not. Your kidneys will also work slower (I attribute to the chemo) as the weeks go on, so you'll need to drink earlier. I recommend drinking what will fill your bladder two hours before your treatment. It is easier to let of some pressure than it is to fill the bladder. Tea is a natural diuretic and is very helpful to giving your kidneys a boost. I usually drank 20+ oz of Powerade two hours before (chugging), then tea when I arrived (they had fancy machines) and this worked 90% of the time.
• Be wary of foods you eat. I did great until Week 4 when I had lots of stuff with red sauce and it caused gas. I had to pass this gas before they could do my treatment, it was a riot but you don't want your visits to be like that every day. Stay away from tomato products and anything else that gives you even mild gas outside of treatment. It is nearly impossible to pass gas with an overfull bladder.

Nurses are your best friend. Having cancer and going through treatment sucks, but the nurses are there for you and my experience was all-inclusive resort service. Take advantage of the snacks (yes they have ice cream) when you're getting chemo. Don't be shy about asking them about your meds, they did a good job explaining this to me, but I still had questions now and again. It takes a special person to be an oncology nurse and you feel it. It never felt fake or like they were putting on a show/smile just for me. They truly cared. I never want to see them again either way :)
Edited to add: get a port. You will not regret it. I plan on keeping mine for a year after NED, which will require a monthly flush. It makes things so much easier, especially if you have to be hospitalized. I didn't need the numbing cream, it hurts less than the arm pokes for labs and infusions. I asked for mine before chemo and doctor didn't think it was necessary. First treatment proved it was - I had three IV's that day and I'm still suffering from the Emend infusion (not the chemo surprisingly) on my arm. Yes, its surgery but its easy. I had it in place before my 2nd chemo and it was lifechanging. I'd keep it for life it wasn't for the monthly flushes lol, my arm veins were crap to start and the more they are poked the worse they get.