Hi Everyone, I’m new here and found this forum a few days ago after getting an MAV diagnosis last month. I am a bit skeptical of the dx so wanted to share my story and hope that someone on here can relate/has had a similar experience.
It all started Oct. 2012, I had gone to dinner and was driving to church while on the phone with my husband, while driving I had a “blank out” moment. Yes blank out, not black out 
Its hard to describe but for about 5 seconds my brain just wasn’t processing, I’m sure if the car in front of me would’ve slammed on the breaks I wouldn’t have reacted. After the few seconds of “blank out” passed, I couldn’t think of what to say, I was very confused and disoriented, luckily my husband was driving behind me so he directed me to church which wasn’t far. When I got out of the car I felt a bit dizzy and had a surreal kind of feeling. I remember sitting in church and looking up at the lights and back down and it making me feel like I was falling. After church I had to drive home, I lived 30 min. away and did my usual routine of calling my husband for the drive home. After a few minutes of driving I had tingling/chills all over my body, my right leg practically became dead weight, and I was having an extremely difficult time focusing. I felt weak, overwhelmed, and that’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me, to this day have no idea if I was having a panic attack or if that was part of my MAV.
I tried to chalk all this up to eating something I must be ridiculously allergic to since it happened after eating out. 3 weeks went by and I felt fine, there were mb 2 episodes of feeling a little off or dizzy but I tried not to think much of it. On the 3rd week I was traveling and towards the end of my trip there were times I felt like I was moving when I wasn’t and just felt kind of strange. I figured it was because I had been riding elevators and had a cold earlier that week. When I got back to town I was driving home from work and doing my usual talking on the phone (bad habit I know!). I was close to my exit and then I had that 5 second “blank out” again. The next day the hubby accidentally took my keys to work so i had to get a ride from a co-worker, but i noticed how strange everything looked when she was driving me and I felt strange and “dizzy” at work that day. The next day I had my keys back and went to do my 30 min. commute to work but something was terribly wrong. As soon as I started driving I felt like my eyes couldn’t focus, a car changing lanes in front of me would make me disoriented but looking too far ahead did too. It’s like my eyes couldn’t figure out what to look at. I also felt like I had to struggle to keep my eyes open, they felt like they wanted to shut, I felt a strange giddiness like I would pass out or fall asleep…not the kind of pass out like your scared but like my brain was slipping away into some other world and I couldn’t control it. I had strange feelings like I was falling or floating away or that my brain was riding a wave (you know that feeling when you stand on the beach and you think your moving but your not). I also had really bad brain fog…the caloric reflex test is the closest I can get to describing my brain fog. Idk about you but when they put the warm water in my ear I felt totally unfocused and wasn’t able to carry on a conversation when I had it done. Anyways I felt so visually overwhelmed and nauseated. A change in scenery like closed to open sky really messed with my head, as did scattered light coming through trees which would make me feel like I would have a seizure. There have also been times my vision completely blurrs…like a microscope totally out of focus but this only last a few seconds but would happen several times and only while driving. A few days later I had yet another episode of the tingling/chills all over my body, weakness, overwhelming feeling, and a practically useless right leg when driving home at night. The tingling stayed for a long time, maybe a month or more. Lost count and now I have a spot in the center of my back that tingles, not sure if that’s related.
Other symptoms I have/had is shaky vision, dizziness/vertigo of varying degrees, bad neck pain which has mostly resolved on it’s own but did affect my dizziness - I spent most of my time with my head on a table or supporting it with my hand. If I even dared tilt my head when driving it would really set me off. Derealization for months, sometimes I’d feel really shocked/surprised like when you miss a step, ringing in the ears, ear pain, and ear pressure, confusion when following conversations, difficulty writing (letters/words would come out all wrong),visual vertigo, aaaand, I developed really bad anxiety/depression about 2 months after this all started. Which is really strange for me bc I have no history of either and come from a family that thinks all that is make believe. Both have gotten much better. Praise God! But I’m still surprised at how physical both can be. Anyways sorry to be so long!
My main question is has anyone ever had a “blank out” moment? Or had strange experiences only when doing a certain activity such as driving? Just seems a little strange to me that both times I’ve blanked out or had a tingling/weakness/overwhelmed episode it happened while driving and I’ve only experienced blurred vision when driving. Now I hardly drive because I worry about it happening again and because it’s so visually overwhelming for me. I also don’t talk on the phone when driving anymore just in case there’s some hidden trigger there though I’m prob just paranoid. Thank you for listening and any insight would be so greatly appreciated!!
