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Treatment Party gone wrong, too much nicotine, alcohol, weed and hearing loss. Worst Insomnia

Th3_uN1Qu3

Greenlighter
Joined
Mar 16, 2019
Messages
3
Warning: Long post ahead.

Hello folks and some background. I'm 27 years old. I had a single grand mal seizure at age 6.5, i took treatment for that until age 14 (sodium valproate). I started drinking at age 15, although it was not recommended to me, and have been drinking occasionally since. I have always avoided coffee (unless it's Irish, and that's like twice an year) and cola. Coffee just gives me a headache anyway. Drug experience: A couple joints of legal highs when i didn't know better, two good experiences and one really really fucked up one, these were spaced several years apart. I have started smoking cigarettes at around age 17, but only buying them since age 19. I'd smoke about 10 cigs a day. Have switched to vaping since 2016. I have also smoked weed every now and then, with the past 4 years being more often (up to 4 times a week, with 2-3 week pauses in between).

I usually have no problem controlling my drinking, but have gone over the limit sometimes (more when young, now I've got a tolerance). Ever since I started going to the clubs several years ago, I started to binge drink all night almost every Saturday, sometimes smoking a joint beforehand. My hangovers can be particularly bad sometimes, but most of the times I would sleep them off no problem. If sleep is interrupted during a hangover then it gets a little hairy, but I mostly handle alcohol fine, and clubs and booze have accounted for all my hookups and relationships in the past 5 years.

Now, I occasionally get bad bouts of insomnia unrelated to drinking, mostly because of stressful situations. These episodes scare me every time because sleep deprivation can cause seizures (i've yet to have any serious one ever again, thankfully, but I am still wary). I sometimes drink myself to sleep but that isn't too bright of an idea when you've got work the next day. Melatonin and valerian usually do the trick, but not always. When I cannot sleep, I find myself drinking lots of water, then going to the toilet to pee, then coming back, getting thirsty again, drinking more water and the cycle repeats until morning. You get the idea. Also sometimes around morning (when I should wake up) i'd get hit with something like i'd think IV melatonin would feel like, and i've no choice but to comply and sleep a few more hours.

I've been putting off the cancer sticks and vaping quite a lot lately (5-15ml of 3-6mg nicotine solution, 75/25 VG/PG, every day). I've been doing this for almost 2 years with little problems, but lately i had gotten some sick taste in my mouth when talking too much after vaping too much, kinda like what you get when you smoke too many cigarettes. I still hadn't attributed it to the vape though... I had also been smoking weed about once a week, sometimes twice, with 2-3 week pauses in between. I would smoke very little amounts though, as I no longer do it to get stupid high, just to feel that time and audio distortion a little (i have a story for you about that, for a later time).

We had a pretty crazy St Andrew's party, where a couple that are my friends stayed over and we also shared a joint. My friend's girlfriend ended up getting sick (we didn't ask her about her alcohol intake before the j....) and I went to bed rather late to take care of her. I'd turned the speakers rather loud in the treble department (i normally use those speakers outside), which I thought nothing of at that point but will end up mattering later on... Next day I forgot to delete a greeting message from one of my ex GFs and my girlfriend got upset about it because I'd told her i no longer talk to that girl. I showed her everything, it was nothing personal but that was it. Then I had to leave for a few days to see family and was feeling generally shitty so i spent 2.5 days in bed and then one night with the boys at the bar, but only hung around for about 2 hours, a few beers, a few cigs (made an exception here) and a sandwich.

Anyway. My girlfriend also got upset about my sudden leave (some bloke offered to drive me and my mom there on day x, when I was supposed to go one day later), and i wasn't exactly feeling well so i was a bit weak and not manlish on the phone with her, so when I got back she decided that we're done, after 2.5 years of living together. That hurt! I had a sleepless night. Few days later I dropped by a friend's and we went out all night, got drunk and smoked some. I told him i'm going to stay and live with him for a while but eventually went back to my mom's place (which sucks). That day I went with a couple of my friends and tried to convince my GF to reconsider her decision but all I got was that we're still invited to New Year's party.

In the meantime, I backed down on the vaping quite a bit, as i was feeling low and all i did was doze off at any time possible. I took a few herbal sleeping pills too, and basically all the time spent outside work was lying in bed, not even showering... I started to feel that my nodding out was a little weird because i'd get an arm or leg jerk after I would fall asleep, which would wake me up and kept me up due to anxiety, for some reason I've always been afraid that a seizure could happen when i get random body parts twitching, despite that it never did.

Due to all the anxiety about having to move a whole crapload of stuff from there to mom's place again if I don't make up with my gf (among other things, I'd bought a 60" TV at my gf's place which i've yet to take back), and maybe due to nicotine withdrawals as well, i had pretty shitty sleep. I also wasn't really in the mood to have a shower, an when I wanted to, the water went out. Great.

Each of us spent Christmas with their family, I was still feeling a bit crap, so I was popping herbal sleeping pills and watching TV, i'd barely gotten out of bed at all for the whole Christmas, and the only alcohol I had was a cider and a couple shots of brandy. Then as new years' approached I continued to feel miserable and sleep would be all over the place, my balance problem started showing up again, so much so that I didn't want to go, but I did, since i'd left all my stuff there - it's MY SPEAKERS, MY MUSIC. I also bought firecrackers (BAD mistake)... I hadn't slept almost at all that night.

On New Years' I had the speakers set to "stun" again, we played mostly rock, and i stayed at the laptop and right next to the speakers for a couple hours (BAD mistake, again). I had already thought there was something wrong with the music when I first turned it on as it was set for only highs to come thru and i didn't hear much (while at that level they would literally hurt, I guess I was either tired, or I'd already fried some of my hearing from last time...). I thought nothing of it once I found the high cut switch was pressed and had the music blaring full spectrum.

2 hours later (around 22:00) a drunk friend of mine starts throwing some of those little firecrackers from the window. I follow suit, until we start getting cocky and keeping them in our hand to explode them in the air (BAD mistake, again). Yes, i had one blow up in my hand, inside a room. It was a little cracker so no damage on my hand, however, my left ear instantly started ringing, and I noticed that in that ear I didn't find the highs in the music blaring anymore as I went into the other room with the speakers.

Being sleep deprived and semi-drunk, I took 2 of my friends and went out to town to see the "official" fireworks and throw some more of my own. Smoked and vaped some more on the way and had 2 bottles of champagne between 3 people. My ear was still ringing but i still didn't think much about it. Then we came back with a few more beers and played Cards Against Humanity for 2 hours before me finally leaving for home at 8AM, after a failed attempt of getting my gf to let me sleep there.

Next day I only slept for 2 hours again despite being up for quite some time and drinking so much. No hangover, just a bad headache and wonky hearing - my left ear had started picking up sound as very loud and occasionaly distorted! I did a check with an online sound test and i'd burned myself a hole inbetween 11 and 14kHz on that ear. This isn't too bad in itself, what was bothering me, besides the tinnitus, is that I perceived sounds so loudly with my left ear that simple things like opening a plastic bag would make my head throb in pain! I was still able to sleep reasonably well, so for a couple weeks I tried to sleep it off (another BAD mistake).

I eventually went to see an ENT, she did an audiogram and apparently from a physical standpoint both ears are within normal range... I did mention to her that some of the tones she played while testing my ears really hurt. She did gave me some treatment (a methylprednisone taper), which did little as it was a bit too late after the event, and also gave me restleness and even worse insomnia. Due to the bad and constant headache and tinnitus, combined with the anxiety, I was unable to sleep for almost 2 full months (I KID YOU NOT!) This should be physically impossible! If i would fall asleep it would be for a few minutes then I'd be jolted back to reality, and for at least 30 days i would get maybe a couple minutes sleep every few days. I ate a lot and put on quite a bit of weight to counteract this and be able to function in any meaningful way. Since the 20th of January i have completely stopped any and all nicotine intake.

Also, this extremely severe insomnia along with the balance problems and twitching got me worrying about a seizure and again, anxiety adds to it and there I lay awake, tossing and turning... Herbal sleeping pills stopped helping, the headache was just too big. And did i mention that NO headache medication helps with it? I've tried Aspirin, Paracetamol, Ibuprofen, Ketonal, Ketoprofen, Metamizole and a bunch of anti-inflamatory meds with zero effect.

My mom gave me a nitrazepam and that helped, but only for a few hours one night, she didn't have any more. I started to get a floater on my left eye which I still have, my concentration was shot to shit, my balance is really off and my hands almost stop listening to me sometimes. As the sleeples nights passed on, my hearing got worse, worse and worse every day, till one night that I lost my left ear entirely, then it came back, but it was like I was hearing in mono! Like, i'd get input to both "channels" of the brain, but was utterly incapable of figuring out where the sound was coming from. I was almost sure I was going to die so I started writing stuff around for my mom in case I have a seizure and die (that message's still hidden somewhere). I keep going to work but you can imagine how productive i can be. Any attempted concentration results in an instant headache that feels like it's going to split my brain from one ear to the other.

About 20 days in this craziness, I went to a shrink that was pretty quick to prescribe me some benzos, she gave me Gerodorm 40mg (Cinolazepam). I was initially reluctant to take it, and only would take half a pill every other day, but every other day was zero sleep in that case.

I eventually went to the ER for the debilitating headache and they gave me a shot of Desketoprofen, which did exactly nothing for my pain. Then they put me in the xray, revealing some minor issues on the cervical area, so they wrote me a script and sent me home. I only took it a few times and it did... precisely nothing. I was prescribed Mydocalm for the night (muscle relaxant), and Vimovo and Algocalmin (metamizole) for the day, as anti-inflammatory and painkillers. I admit i didn't really take it because i was sure it wouldn't work, but the few days that I did stick to this regime, the situation did not improve AT ALL and still zero sleep. I also started to get random veins pulsing in my brain, those things that you call "brain zaps", short-term memory disturbances, loss of fine control in my right hand, and extra moles started showing up everywhere on my body (mostly arms, chest, belly and back, and a few little, under-the-skin ones on my face), also 2 of the old ones I have on the back of my head slightly increased in size. I honestly thought I was heading towards certain death.

I went to get a MRI on my brain and everything's fine, go figure... I also got a cervical MRI and there are some issues there, but nowhere to the magnitude that it would cause this bad of a pain. I'm 99% sure it's got to do with the ears, and that i've got damage to the auditory nerve. Years of maximum volume listening on earbuds have something to do with it, I'm sure. I stick cotton in my ears or use earplugs about 90% of my day now (which only makes the tinnitus worse).

Next I saw a neurologist which has prescribed me with a stronger anti-inflamatory medicine (Celecoxib) to take 1x in the morning and a SSRI (Fluoxetine) also 1x in the morning, then i am to take either Mydocalm or Baclofen both in the morning at night, this would be for 10 days. Then 1 week of taking 1.5mg Bromazepam at night and continuing with the Fluoxetine for 6 months. She explicitly asked not to take any benzo with the anti-inflamatory medicine and muscle relaxant. Now, I delayed this treatment because of two reasons. One, both the anti-inflamatory med and the fluoxetine lower seizure threshold and insomnia is one of the common side effects of both - I am not sure I would still be alive for another 10 days of no sleep.

I wanted to get *some* sleep so I kept taking the cinolazepam every night, eventually progressing to about 4/5 of a full pill. Currently I'm about day 20 having about 30-35mg cinolazepam a night, this has a short half-life so i get at most 6 hours of low quality sleep, head still hurts like a mofo when I wake up, balance's still shot, and i still get twitches and all sorts of nasty crap, and also some withdrawal effects already starting about 5-6pm, like more severe "robotic" movement, more twitches, more unsteady hands and just before i pop my nightly pill, metallic taste in my mouth.

I only have 9 cinolazepam left and since it's been almost a month I don't want to get bad withdrawal so i have to taper them somehow. Tonight I also ate three of the 3mg Bromazepam (longer half-life) and a pill of gingko biloba which was also prescribed. I was only prescribed 1.5mg a night but it did nothing, and 9mg is still within normal therapeutic dose that can be prescribed at home. I've also got enough of those for the 10 days and can get more for tapering off. Besides walking like I'm drunk but without the nausea, I feel slightly better but I'm still not sleepy. Took an aspirin and my head finally hurts a bit less. I am still not feeling sleepy though (am up writing this long story). I am unsure whether I should start on the Fluoxetine today, or wait a few more days with just benzos so my body has a chance to sleep properly.

My mom will be gone all the way to Paris for a month starting tomorrow night so I have to fix myself good enough to take care of the cats, cook myself food and go to work! This will be quite the undertaking. Normally in this situation I would be all PARTY PARTY PARTY, but hell, in my current state, i'd be happy to be able to even listen to any music without feeling like my head's gonna blow up.

Thanks for reading and hope I can fix my sleeping issue and headache, this is quite literally killing me. I have to eat a lot to even have the appearance of normality, and all the things I can do, I do slow and clumsy, which isn't doing any good for the depression, either.
 
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Wow Th3, you're really going through alot. Having a bad headache for this long is horrible. I understand. I have chronic cluster headaches.

I'm sorry your gf had such a strong reaction to the greeting messages. I know that really hurts.

You sound like you have a good head on your shoulders. What do you mean when you say you have to eat alot to maintain the appearance of normality?
 
Well, to start with, it's likely that there was something messed up in my head to begin with, and i shouldn't have done about half the stuff I did in my life. :( I'll try to keep it as short as possible...

It's like i'm mad panicking or something, and i quit all the smoking and vaping, so i guess it would be natural to replace it with something even if otherwise my health was ok. So I pace around a lot and eat a bit more than I used to and do it more often. Also, before i started taking the sleep meds, i would get random jerking of limbs when i would fall asleep. I was afraid I was going to have a seizure or something, and that kept me up, and so it went on and on... this has happened in the past but not anywhere near this magnitude.
 
I kid you not that I was not able to sleep more than minutes, maybe 10s of minutes at a time every night for over 20 days, otherwise I wouldn't have touched benzos... I waited for another sleepless week (and with my hearing fading away every day, going to almost nothing during that time!) after they got prescribed to me before taking the first one. And I was only supposed to take them for a week but ahh well, how the fuck am i going to sleep with that headache otherwise... The headache I am sure is due to auditory nerve damage but nobody believes me.

Some breakdown of how stupid I was, despite being clever to build and use the stuff in the first place:

#1, the nicotine. I think I had a sensitivity to it or something. I'd been vaping too much for too long, to the point I would feel a bit sick in my throat if I talked too much. One would think I would have figured that one out... Especially since some years back i had a seriously nasty episode of vertigo triggered by too much alcohol and cigs over another new years' night where i went out really tired. No other drugs were involved. I was not vaping too much by other peoples' standards, but i guess my nervous system has some bad reaction towards nicotine, still I continued every day. I'd gone with a nicotine free vape for a few days but always picked it back up... Apparently, propylene glycol is also ototoxic, but i was vaping high VG so i think that's less likely to have hurt.

#2, the noise. I'd been to quite a bit of noisy events in the past 2 years including a lot of protests in my country, and the famous 10th of August one where we got tear gassed, i'll try to keep it shorter, here's the things that were 100% under my control:
These speakers had dedicated amplifiers (will spare the technicalities for now) for the highs, i built the things myself. The highs were too loud and had plenty of power on tap. I had already lost some high-end in my ears due to years of loud earbud use, so i didn't figure out they were too. damn. loud. Mistake #1. I'd used the same speakers last year but for a shorter period of time...
That night i sat about 2 hours right next to the speakers. Mistake #2.
Also the whole thing with throwing firecrackers out the window of the apartment while sick and tipsy. Mistake #3 and guaranteed recipe for disaster (which happened). Fuck. :(

I have decided against taking the fluoxetine. I'm taking the anti-inflammatory meds (which do almost nothing but i feel it's just a bit better than nothing, so maybe it'll get better), cut the cinolazepam down to 1/3 pill, that'd be about 14mg, and going on 3mg bromazepam which i'll try to go down from, as well. Sleeping just a bit better and i don't feel like i'm gonna die that often anymore. At least until I'll try to get off the benzos, i guess. :D Sadly, the tinnitus keeps getting louder, it went from only being in the left ear also into the right. This is either my brain compensating somehow, or it's due to the benzos as they are known ototoxic as well...

The main issue and I guess the reason for the debilitating headache is that due to the noise damage, my left ear got really, really bad hyperacusis. To the point where someone talking close to me will sound distorted and painful. Needless to say i'm not able to enjoy music anymore, I even gave my nice bluetooth headphones away... Have my ears plugged with cotton balls almost all the time. I also started getting "crickets" in my left ear. It's so not fun, and I know that hearing damage isn't exactly going to go away...
 
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