Yuku free message boards

ksomething wrote:

---

Hello Jodie, that doesn't sound like well supported medical advise.

If your neuro-ophthalmologist can make no diagnosis, I wonder how he can recommend then a re-start of therapy with Zoloft and suggest that it can cure you. Two probable explanation: (1) "Jumping for conclusion", i.e. suggesting something as therapy for which there is no rationale argument at all. (2) He may think it's "just psychological" so that you may need an antidepressant. According to the impression I got from your descriptions, I don't think that the "just psychological" diagnosis would be right. - That no MRI is warranted in the diagnostic check-up of palinopsia is not state of the art in medicine, this may also point to possibility (2) that he maybe doesn't consider your symptoms as somatic complaints.

Next step could/should be visiting a neurologist with some experience in migraine/headaches. You can show him the case summary from teh MAA website and ask for his opinion about the suspected diagnosis suggested. Also a neurologist should order a MRI if a patient reports palinopsia.

This is why I value you so much. You are genuinely concerned and you have the knowledge to support your arguments and diagnosis (although you haven't seen me *medically* your assumptions are correct I feel). I know I should get an MRI but I had a CT scan a few months ago and it came back perfectly normal. To be honest Ksomething I think I'm just going to let it go...I'm going to move on with my life and stop trying to find a "cure" or cause, because I know that Zoloft caused this. Besides, I've seen several doctors all of whom don't have a clue as to where to begin with my symptoms. On my way to the beach to enjoy my life.

ksomething wrote:

---

Re. the MRI you'r right, you had a normal CT, so stroke/tumour is also excluded by the CT and MRI adds only very few additional info.

Whether to further pursue the way of seeking a doctor for confirmation on diagnosis and start of a therapeutical trial depends on your general feeling whether you want to have that cleared up and given an official name (the "rationae approach" would be to say: yes, that should be done) and, even more importantly, whether you would be willing to try some of the pharmaceutical treatments e.g. valproic acid, lamotrigene. Only in the latter case, would have a doctors confirmation of diagnosis of PMA, and start of a therapy based theron, make sense.

Moving on with life... on the way to beacvh... is a good approach anyway, but this doesn't necessarily exlude 1 further attempt with a neurologist/headache specialist. Peter Goadsby is practising in San Francisco, he has seen several PMA patients and has also researched on this condition, don't know how far that is from your place and whether it would be possible for you to get an examination there

I used to live in Cali but now I am on the East Coast, almost 3,000 miles away.

Also, I inquired if he would prescribe me meds for my ocular migraines. He said that the side effects of the medication far outweighed the once per month attack of migraine aura. Maybe true if he was only speaking about my ocular migraines, but couldn't this type of med (lamotrigene?) benefit my persistent palinopsia which I have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

I understand the rational thing to do is to continue to seek help so that I can get a definitive diagnosis but I have been doing that for four years now with no resolution. I'm getting tired. I'm also numb to hearing the same thing from every doctor, "Your symptoms are so rare and very unusual. How do you spell palinopsia?" I've actually had an opthalmologist at an eye emergency hospital ask me how to spell palinopsia! So far I have seen an Opthalmologist, a Neuro-Opthalmologist, my PCP, a Nurse Practitioner, a Psychologist and Psychiatrist and back to a Neurologist for full exam and CT scan. And why am I the one educating these doctors? Besides, I don't know of any migraine specialists in Maryland...or New York for that matter.