⭓ My Symptoms

For the most part, my symptoms started in March 2024. I'm going to list my current symptoms in order of appearance, and then underneath I'll go into more details.

✸ A few bouts of vertigo
✸ Cervicogenic dizziness
✸ Cracking/popping in my neck
✸ Shooting pains in my neck & shoulders
✸ Choking sensation
✸ Throat weakness / fatigue and Cervicogenic dysphagia
✸ Shortness of breath (usually accompanied by the above)
✸ Occipital Pain / Neuralgia (self-diagnosed)
✸ Jolting awake while falling asleep (usually accompanied by the above)
✸ Muscle twitches / vibration / buzzing / internal tremors
✸ Aches, mostly at night (muscles or bones or joints, it's hard to tell)
✸ Seeing "stars" in my vision, happening more requently and randomly
✸ Seeing "dark spots" in my vision randomly, usually in short flashes


And some other symptoms that may or may not be related:

✸ Headaches
✸ Fatigue
✸ Sensitivity to sights and sounds
✸ Tinnitus
✸ Arm(s) sometimes going numb at night
✸ Tingling sensations (pinched nerves?)
✸ Chills
✸ Nausea

Vertigo: March 2024: The first thing that happened was that I got woken up from my sleep because of the room spinning. It lasted a few seconds. It also returned briefly a few more times depending on which positions I was in, maybe a couple of nights that week, but I haven't had it since.

Cervicogenic Dizziness: This I started noticing a few days after the spinning vertigo, first when my friend was scrolling on the laptop, and it made my brain all "whoa!" and felt weird. Ever since then, it got worse, and has never gone away. The best days I get are when the dizziness is maybe a 3/10 and I can still do a lot of things with minimal "dizzy discomfort". The worst day that I had, when I consider it a 10/10, it was so bad that I was struggling to do anything and everything was so uncomfortable and agitating. I couldn't even lay in bed and watch a movie because looking at anything was pretty much "painful". For me, as soon as my dizziness reaches a level of 7/10, then I know it might take a while before it goes down a bit. I'm also not sure if what I refer to as "dizziness" is the same thing as others would, because it's an uncomfortable feeling that's very hard to put into words.
I will say though that for me, the two main things that really make my dizziness much worse and unbearable often are: going to the mall, and using my computer (especially scrolling and seeing things that move).

I actually didn't know this was cervicogenic dizziness until after the next symptom arrived. Initially I just thought I had BPPV, which I ruled out on my own and then once again by my physiotherapist.

Cracking/popping in my neck: This appeared a few weeks after the dizziness began. It's not your usual "ah my neck randomly cracked" type of thing. It's a lot of crackling popping sounds, that happen every single day, multiple times a day, during various neck movements. They make me uneasy, but it doesn't come with pain.

Shooting pains in my neck & shoulders: This appeared a few weeks after the cracking in my neck and got worse and worse until I implemented more massaging. The pains have also been all over the place and constantly changing where they are.

Choking sensation: This appeared about a month or more after the pains started. When this started it was kind of bad and really annoying. There was one day where I felt the choking sensation the entire day which really sucked. In the last month it slowed down a bit, but I realized it still gently arrives again especailly if I've done a lot of neck massaging or stretching.

Throat weakness / fatigue: This started about a month ago, and when it did it was pretty annoying. I first noticed it when trying to sing to my music, and I could barely sing one song, because my throat would just get fatigued and uncomfortable. I also noticed it when trying to eat or drink. It went down a bit after a while, and then came back worse again.

Occipital pain: Not sure if it's related, but not long after I started massaging my neck/shoulders a lot, my occipital area started to hurt a lot. Sometimes jolting pains. It hurt so much just to touch my scalp and it went pretty high up. I think this might be what kept me awake many nights.

Jolting awake while falling asleep: Like I mentioned, it's possible this is related mostly to when my occipital area hurts more. This is not the same thing as your usual "jolting away right before falling asleep" type feeling. This one feels much more uncomfortable, and it almost feels at times like my occipital area sort of "zaps" me. I can't explain it. Anyway, within a span of a couple of weeks I had four nights where it took me over 4.5 hours to fall asleep. It really really sucked. I had many mental breakdowns...

Muscles twitches / internal tremors: I'm not sure if "internal tremors" is accurate but based on my research, I think it might be. This gradually started in my upper back but now it's spraeding everywhere, and I mostly feel it if I stop or sit down, and especailly at night while trying to sleep. It's mostly uncomfortable, but not nearly as bad as any other symptom I've had so far.

The other symptoms: As for the other symptoms that may or may not be related, I'm sure a bunch of them are a result of this, but they might not happen as often or they might seem like an isolated thing, so I'm just not sure about these yet!