(This entry, as you might have noticed, is locked to my friends as I still have to go over all of this with the folks at work and a few of them are casual viewers of my journal, especially with the E.R. visits of late… I feel it will be better if I get a chance to discuss this before they read it here and freak out.)
Well, I had my first visit with my new doctor…
The good news is they were able to induce my symptoms while in the MRI and no know what my problem is. The bad news is they figured out that I’m essentially having a bad response to the stresses I’m under right now.
A good, old fashioned anxiety attack brought on by excessive stress, pain, and lack of sleep.
They put me in the MRI and a psychologist asked me a lot of questions about my day-to-day life and simply discussing my average day right now triggered the attack. Essentially the combination of back and neck pain, lack of sleep, not taking lunches or breaks, working on work stuff evenings and weekends, worry over my current medical bills and other finances, driving myself too hard to get results for things like the last client I worked with, and never being able to get away from it because I seem to constantly be under a deadline for some miracle because I’m the only person who can do it has caused brain issues.
They’re looking over my blood work to make sure I won’t have any compatibility issues with the medications I’ll be on starting around the first of the month. Zoloft was mentioned a few times. I’m not sure how happy I am at the prospect of taking brain chemistry altering medications…
Apparently what I’m going through right now is very common in the software industry and they have plans to deal with it which involve medication and psych visits, of which my first one is on the 30th.
The doctor said I should take vacation if possible, and he looked at me squarely and said “And I mean vacation, not ‘work from home’.” I don’t know if that’s possible though as I’m under a few deadlines right now to produce at least two miracles and I’m the only one who can do it…