Hi all,
I've been wondering about
this terrifying experience I had 20 years ago, as a teenager. It happened again in my 20s and lately I'm worried about
it happening again. Has anyone else experienced this? I am wondering if it can be linked to any co-infections or lyme?
Growing up I had the constant urge to crack my knuckles, ankles, wrists, bones in my hands by pressing on my palms, & frequently cracking my neck. There was always pressure in them, they needed to "pop".
When I was 17 I traveled with my mom to Italy to move her elderly parents to the States. I had a temporary bed/pallet on the floor. Once, in the middle of the night during a usual 'light' sleep, I rolled over and heard a squishy popping sound in the base of my neck where my skull connects to it. It was the usual neck "pop" accompanied by a strange watery sound, like there was liquid mixed in with the gas that escaped from the pop.
I was instantly paralyzed. I was lying on my stomach at this point and my face was in the pillow. I couldn't lift my head. There was overwhelming sudden devastating nausea--I thought I would black out from it. Slowly, I managed to get my arms under me and push myself up off the bed. I crawled to my mom's room slowly with my head hanging down between my shoulders and whispered to her that I hurt myself. I couldn't talk louder than a whisper. She carried me back to my room and propped my neck up on some books on my pallet & said she'd make an appointment with a chiropractor in the morning. I laid awake all night, absolutely terrified. I couldn't move my head or shoulders but could wiggle my fingers and move my legs.
In the morning I was carried by my mom and uncle on either side of me to the chiropractor and he took x-rays--said nothing was wrong. Gave me a customary adjustment and sent me on my way. I laid down for the next 24 hours, slowly getting better. The next day I managed to stumble to the shower & stand up while holding onto the wall. After a short shower I got overwhelmingly sick and nauseous and almost blacked out again. I remember thinking I was going to crash onto the marble floor and die naked right there on my grandparents' bathroom floor. I crawled to get a towel with the room spinning; it took me about
10 minutes to get out of there. (I've had terrible sports injuries and debilitating monthly cramps that always caused me to vomit--but this was by far the worst pain/foreign feeling of helplessness and total sickness I'd ever experienced.) I was sure I was dying.
My mom said I was doing this to get attention on the trip.
I stopped talking about
how weird I felt and eventually got better. I stopped cracking my neck after this. I was terrified this episode would happen again. It did, in a lesser form, when i was in my mid-20s: I turned my neck too fast heard the squishy pop, then I was paralyzed and nauseous again--my legs went out from under me. i recovered from it quickly but never forgot it--totally terrifying. Lately I'm always half-awake when I finally fall asleep and am very afraid of this happening again. I'm hyper-aware of my symptoms being connected now.
Has anyone had an episode like this? Does anyone know about the bacteria hiding out in the spine or neck joints? Now that I'm learning more about Lyme I'm wondering if it's in my spinal fluid...Does this indicate any co-infection that you are familiar with?Thanks for reading this long post!!
Post Edited (mauihawaii) : 12/17/2014 10:58:41 AM (GMT-7)