I have suffered from MDD since the 80's. I was first stricken with the disease when I went on a trip to Hawaii. We flew straight through from Chicago to Honolulu. It was a rather bumpy flight and when I felt a bit off I attributed it to fatigue from the time change and the flight itself. The feeling did not go away and I had a miserable vacation, I tried to keep up but constantly felt fatigued.
On the return flight it made it worse. I went to see my Dr. right away thinking it must be an inner ear infection from the pressure of the flight. There was no infection but he suspected mineres, and gave me antivert. Of course that did nothing for me. The next step was blood work up, when that showed nothing he did an MRI of the brain. That too, showed nothing. Next he sent me to a neurologist and he tested me for what he thought it might be, but nothing appeared to be wrong. I still felt the fatigue and fogginess so the Dr. did a sleep deprivation test. However my father died shortly before the test was performed and I was unable to fall asleep after 24 hours of no sleep!
Of course then the diagnosis of depression was imminent. My father had suffered a slow death from congestive heart failure and the pressure of that must be what was causing these unusual symptoms. I saw a very good psychiatrist that told me that he did not feel I was depressed and felt that I actually was handling my father's death very well. My personal doctor was not in agreement and decided that I should try Prozac. By this time about 6 months had gone by and suddenly without a reason the symptoms began to subside. Delighted, I thought that he must have been right and I had been unaware that I was depressed.
All went well, untill 1995. We had moved to California and I had not been home for a visit since we left in 1991. My daughter and I decided to fly to Omaha and visit across the midwest, seeing friends and family on a whirlwind tour that lasted two weeks and spanned from Lincoln, Nebraska to Kenosha, Wisconsin and many stops inbetween. Needless to say it was a tiring trip at best. My daughter noticed that I seemed unusually tired but we both thought it was from the trip. When we arrived home the old feeling was back with a vengeance. This time my whole body swayed to the motion. I could not walk a straight line and stumbled and fell alot. When I sat in a chair I made everyone around me seasick from the constant swaying.
My Dr. was stumped when the usual tests came back negative. He sent me to the regular specialists, ENT, Heart, and finally a neurologist. The neurologist was a very patient and understanding man, and felt that my symptoms imitated MS right down the line, however the MRI only showed a fluffy spot on the front left lobe of no special significance. I gave in to a spinal tap thinking that he may be right and this would definitely tell us. The spinal tap showed nothing exceptional. We were back to square one. Since he had no further ideas, he sent me to UCLA to the balance clinic (Ed note: Dr Baloh). After tellling my story he didn't hesisitate when he said "you have MDD" (Mal De Debarquement).
I have a good friend with the same disease, we met before I contracted the disease for the second time, but she already had it. She hadn't told me about it, until I was diagnosed and then we started comparing notes. She too had a "fluffly spot on the front lobe. We don't know if that is of any significance but it is curious that we both have it in the same spot. Well that is my story. Write to me if you want, it helps to have the support of other people, no matter what you are suffering from.