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Avatar universal

Head pressure and heaviness, like being pulled by gravity, on-off for 3 weeks

Hi, so first of all I have a horrible fear especially of brain aneurysms when I feel anything in my head, so the first thing I'd like to ask is, would it be possible for an unruptured aneurysm to cause these kind of symptoms what I'm feeling (just kind of trying to put my mind at ease for my worst-case scenario to begin with..) And I'd also like to know, if it does not sound like an aneurysm, tumor or other brain issue, what else do you think it could be?

So my biggest problem is that I get these sensations of either some kind of pressure building up inside my head, most often happens when I lie down (but not every time I lie down). So far there has been no pain with it, just a very uncomfortable pressure. I can't tell where exactly it is, seems to be kind of all around the head, occasionally even in the face.  More recently I've had a sensation of weight more often than pressure. This sensation feels like my head weighs a ton, and sometimes it affects the rest of my body as well. It also feels like gravity is huge and really trying to pull me down. Again this weight sensation itself doesn't seem to come with pain. Only in the last few days I've also had headaches.
  Yesterday I noticed that I got this intolerable pressure/weight feeling on my head when I tried to lay down on my right side, right ear to the pillow. Turning to the other side, I felt it a bit less, turning back to the right side, I felt it more again. It's the first time I've noticed a difference on the side that I'm on.

Before this pressure / weight sensation started, I had been unusually tired for 2 weeks. I've been to 2 doctors, one for the tiredness and another a little later for the pressure. Both ordered blood tests and the latter did an EKG and some simple neurological tests (no scans). Everything came back normal.

I will mention that
a) I've had lots and lots of anxiety and stress this year
b) I've been working tons in front of my computer with a very poor posture

So I'm wondering if perhaps my head pressure issues could have to do with those factors, or is my fear of a brain aneurysm actually rational? I don't have them in my family, I'm just about 26 years old at the moment.. I don't have a lot of issues with my vision, other than that it's slightly decreased but not a lot, left eye seems to have a slightly worse vision than the right (although I went to eye exams too and oddly they didn't see any difference there.) Eyes ache slightly sometimes, lately the left eye has ached a little bit and its eyelid often feels like it's kind of drooping but it doesn't look like it is. To be honest I'm not sure whether I'm just noticing that slight ache more than before simply because I've worried so much about aneurysms. I've had pretty bad tension headaches the last 3 days but painkillers seem to help at least to most of it.

I know this is a lot of stuff, and I'm sorry, but I'm hoping maybe someone could help me get an idea what it could be, since my doctor didn't help me a lot.. Or maybe someone could reassure me about this fear, since it's affecting my life dramatically and I wish I could just get over it.


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Avatar universal
Whether it's rational or not, obsessing over it isn't.  That's an anxiety problem.  You're doing what you can to get a diagnosis, but it's unlikely any general practitioner is very good at diagnosing this sort of thing.  It sounds a bit like a mild migraine condition, which can be caused by stress and anxiety causing constriction and then relaxation of your blood vessels, sending blood to the brain and therefore pressure.  If you want to see a specialist it would probably be a neurologist.  And yes, poor posture on a computer can also cause neck pain and associated problems.  Your general doc probably can tell, however, if you've had something as dramatic as an aneurysm.  But my point is, for that, you keep trying to get a diagnosis.  The obsession over it, though, is an anxiety problem.
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