Pulsating feeling in head - slight dizziness

this is in reply to guest. while i was suffering anxiety bad i was unable to do pt in the army because of that very same feeling you describe. i used to work out 3x a day and was unable to stay in shape, it was a horrible feeling to think i was unable to keep healthy even with the desire because of the head pressure i would gain from running. Like i was saying earlier its best to get checked by doctors, but as for me the best i learned is that it is muscle tension in your head. muscle tension can cause you to have head pressure anywhere in your head, to where it feels like your head is going to explode "especially for me working out." accompied with that can be nausia dizziness, or lightheaded feelings. I still unfortunately have some head muscle tension problems but only in extreme conditions. I stay away from running all togather and instead i swim laps. From my head pressure problems I developed TMJ but im pretty much over that too exept those long nights of drinking, but I am only 24 and must get intoxicated from time to time lol despite the consequences.

Hope I helped some :-)

Quote:

I believe these symptoms you are experiencing -- all of you-- are due to, poor diet, unhealthy sleeping habits, and low levels of Vitamin B Complex and Vitamin D, AND limited to no exercise.

Very objective, almost negative. My diet, and my physical shape were both near perfect. I worked out 2 times a day as well as ran 4 miles. I will agree I was averaging 4-6 hours a day of sleep for almost 3 weeks, but I was in the field and have trained for that for almost 2 years by then. Truth is lacking anything of what you described can contribute to most any physical / mental condition, but hardly would I assume its the cause.

ive been experiencing theese waves of lightheadedness for about a week and a half now.. they last only a few seconds, but are quite irritating.. I notice that in this same time i have stopped taking anti-anxiety medication..lexapro. it was a mild dosage, so i figured i could stop at anytime. I also in this time, have relocated to a new city, so it may be anxiety.. or stress. but i hate to think i should have to continue dosing up on lexapro..i have taken ecstasy before..and the waves feel similar to that experience just more subdued..could be a seratonin imbalance. but aside from the waves of lightheadedness i feel completely fine..well maybe a little tired. any suggestions?

Sometimes it can be an inner ear problem too SO you have to see a ENT but who knows

Google Cervicogenic Dizziness this may well answer your questions, I get a very very short zap / whoosh, no pain at all , but i had a whiplash injury and well, it sort of all fits together,

Any updates on the possibilities. I have had the similar symptoms of sudden rush on the right side of my head with few seconds of dizziness. NO pain involved. Thought was related to occasional head/neck position but now more frequent and no triggers that I can seem to pin point. THe first thing that should be ruled out is a TIA or a transient ischemic attack. I'm fairly young and healthy without a family history of stroke. If you are hypertensive (high blood pressure) and history of stroke would get checked out by cardiology or vascular asap. THe other is a carotid transient occlusion by either a spasm of the artery or strange anatomy? I was told by a physician it could be trigeminal neuralgia but I do not have any pain as described. Remember there are also levels and variations of any disease or condition. I think I'm going to bite the bullet and get an MRI possible MRA to rule out an occlusion or forbid a TIA.

Any that has had some answers, feedback is welcomed.

I GET THESE TOO!!! I thought I was alone on this one! I was starting to think that I am totally crazy! Nobody has any kind of explanation for this? I get electric pulses from my eyes to my back when I look a certain way or while walking. I also have been checked for thyroid problems. I am also on cytalapram for depression and anxiety.

Is anyone else here on anti depressants?
I read a withdrawal from certain drugs can cause this feeling. I have the feeling really bad right now and i havn't taken my citalapram in a few days so i think there may be some truth to it.

First, to Guest poster above, from my understanding (and this could be way off), you typically only get withdrawal type symptoms from various types of controlled substances or things you may be dependent on. I suppose it could happen with something like an anti-depressant if you were taking it regularly for a long period of time and stopped, but I find it hard to believe the symptoms talked about in this thread could be associated with withdrawal. I have gone through withdrawal before because I didn't pay attention to my prescription and it ran out. It was probably the worst thing I've gone through in my life, but I didn't have these types of symptoms that day. Once again, this is only from personal experience and I could be completely wrong... Just a thought! ;-)

Now for me, I posted this somewhere else, but this thread sounds more like what I'm going through. Here's my story:

I am 26 years old and in the USAF. I started having back problems about 6 years ago. That's another problem and another story, but it has relevance because the first time I got these flashes was after I had been put on long acting narcotics.

At one point, I was up to 160mg of MS Contin twice a day. The side effects proved to be too much, so I told my doc I wanted out. He changed me over to Methodone, and I weened myself off (from 3 pills 3x daily to nada). I've been off the long acting pain medication for about 2 full weeks now, but I still take Percocet (about 4 a day) and Ambien at night Sun-Thurs. I try not to take the Ambien on the weekends because I just want a break from the meds. During the week, I work 0600-1400 (2:00PM) and usually don't get a whole lot of sleep. On the weekends though, I can get 10-12 hours.

While I was on the MS Contin (I can't remember at what dose things started), I started to get these dizzy flashes / pulses in the mornings on the weekends. I explained it to my doctor as thinking of an electrical circuit running through your brain and someone turning a switch on and off really fast... or imagine turning on your shower, putting fingers up to your ears, and pressing them in and out quickly. The flashes themselves literally last a millisecond, but I can have 6-10 back to back and usually start if I move my head or eyes. These spells would last an hour or two after I got up, and then they'd go away. I figured it was because I had essentially slept out my meds and when I got up and took them, I'd be fine again.

I went to one of my doctors about it, and then set me up for a CT (no contrast). When I made my follow-up, I had to make it with a different doctor. The CT results said they didn't for sure see anything, but they recommended I get an MRI done. The new doctor pretty much didn't want to hear this, so she did a few visual type tests (follow my finger, look up, look down, you're fine). Since the spells only really happened on the weekends, and only lasted for an hour or two I just said screw it.

When I switched to Methodone, I never had a spell (at least that I can remember). The day I went completely off the medication, the spells came back only now, they persist through the whole day and are accompanied by a pressure in my head.

So, symptoms now: Short quick dizzy flashes (best description I can come up with), head pressure, eyes getting hot or dry, face gets hot, and when I eat certain things the flavor is really intense for the first few seconds.. like shocks up the back sides of my jaw near my ears. I have also been sneezing a lot lately (2,3,4 sneezes at a time in quick succession). That is very unusual for me, and I don't have any allergies.

Military docs can be fantastic and they can be terrible. I would just like to be prepared when I go in.

From reading the posts here, I can tell that there literally could be 1,000 different things going on here, so any help / suggestions would be great! I just don't want to go in and have another look up, look down, you're fine diagnosis.

Thanks for your time (and for reading this short story)!

Josh

I have been having periods of dizziness. I get weak when this happens. It is a whoosh whoosh whoosh feeling. Real weird. I have a pretty big medical history. 3x collapse lungs, lyme disease 3x, enlarged prostate, enlarged bladder, benign tumor in appendix, numbness throughout body, ringing in the ears, pain behind right eye etc..... It goes on and on. Anyways I went to the sleep clinic one night and they found out I have sleep apnea too. I have respritory problems all the time. Gotta make myself breathe at times. Going on CPAP on the 3rd, that is when it starts. They believe alot of the problems I have are because I'm not getting enough rest. I have arthritus from the lyme disease and it hurts alot but I can't take meds for the pain forever. I have a motility disease so I can't take tylenol because it desolves in my throat. And no ibruprofen because of the same thing. I take prevacid for acid. I'm on quite a few different meds to treat everything. I do feel the neck pain, right eye pain go hand and hand with that dizzy feeling. I also get a rash on the index and middle finger all the time no other fingers. I think that lack of oxygen at times and lack of real sleep causes alot of these problems. Maybe some of you can try a sleep specialist to see if you get enough REM sleep. Just a thought. I will post if I actually see results after a bit of this. Good luck all.

I also have a balance/dizzy problem that has not been diagnosed. I've been searching about it for weeks. I finally found some info that makes sense. Check these links out - they could be helpful.

Good luck.

I was in a post 2 back talking about starting CPAP. I did one night on the machine and did ok. They are coming and setting up the machine at my house on Monday. I have to go back to the lab in 2 months for check up but will probably have to do another night because they found problems with my nervous system. Whoosh feeling has settled for a few days but noticed it is coming back.

Ok I think I figured it out for me. I have been posting with the CPAP study. I really have been trying to figure this thing out. I have been looking at everything, even the small things to see what can cause my whoosh feeling. And it all stems to allergies. When my allergies are bad they get worse. When I have nothing around to bother them it goes away. It might help some people. By the way allergy medicine did not help me much in this. I had to litterly get rid of dust and anything that would bother my allergies in my home. Living in a place with a dirt driveway don't make that easy.

HI there, I googled about the pulsation of the head and got myself into this site. Very helpful knowing that there are people suffering from similar symptoms that I'm experiencing.
My symptoms started about 4 months ago with a vertigo attack that lasted about 20 minutes. Since the first attack I had a few more attacks follow by unremmitting unsteadiness and dizziness. My symptoms are worse in the morning. I feel like someone is drawing all fluid out from my body; very unpleasant and scary feeling. As with a lot of you, I had seen pretty much all doctors and specialist you can think of (eg: 2 ENT, neurologist, opthalmoligist, psychaitrist and oriental medicine doctor) and tried following medicines (meclinzine, phenergan, valium, dyazide, lorazepam, prozac and occupuncture and herbal extracts) but none of them help. Right now I'm concern that I might have to live with these debilitating symptoms for the rest of my life. One ENT doctor think that I have a meniere's disease/syndrome but I do not experience rignning in the ear and my attack last only a fewseconds to minutes compare to 20 minutes to several hours in true meniere's patients.
No one can really appreciate how devastating these symptoms are unless they experience it personally. Sadly, most doctors I saw wasn't compassionate about my illness. They didn't appear very competent about diagnosing my symptoms either. So I no longer see any more medical doctors.
It has been over 4 months since I had a first vertigo attack, and since, I suffer from constant unsteadiness/dizziness. My neck stiffens up all the time try to maintain some balance through out the day. Battling my symptoms are very exhausting and I feel like I'm running out of options. I welcome any suggestions and recommendations.

Never go cold turkey on getting off antidepressants. Slowly taper off by cutting in halves then fourths for weeks. This will ease some of the weird symptoms. I am tapering off very slowly and still get the little head whooshes but just try to ignore them because I know what they are caused from. Yes, someone mentioned your vitamans. B-12, vitaman D, and omega-3 are great to take during this time.

( and thereafter). Take a deep breathe and just know these are just withdrawal symptoms. Good luck!