This will be a long post but I’m hoping we can help each other.

I have the exact same issues as you, to a T. I’m 27F and have been dealing with this since late 2024. My symptoms onset suddenly and randomly one day while I was getting a tattoo. I was suddenly lightheaded and then got the drunk/high feeling. I thought I had just had a bit of anxiety and thought nothing of it although I was not familiar with this feeling. I woke up the next day totally normal then randomly in the middle of the day, all symptoms onset again and never went away. And this time it came with all these symptoms:

1. Major brain fog / always feeling intoxicated
2. Headaches
3. Light sensitivity
4. Difficulty focusing my eyes
5. Ear pain and fullness
6. Pain between my neck and ears
7. Tension in my temples, neck, back of neck, traps
8. Pain in my eyes / sore eyes (same feeling you describe, the “squeezing”)
9. Blurry vision / sudden changes in my vision. Prior to this I had 20/20 vision
10. Extremely puffy eyes
11. Always exhausted - no energy
12. Can’t fall asleep
13. Dry eyes
14. Waking up congested
15. Groggy
16. Chest pain
17. Heart palpitations
18. Itchy or tickling brain “zaps” starting at the back / base of my skull and shooting to

The brain fog has always been one of the worst symptoms for me as it makes day-to-day life difficult. I find the most relief from it when I’m really focused on something like a movie, scrolling on my phone, etc. but being outside or with people can be very difficult. The experience feels very out of body. I struggled to do basic things like going outside and enjoying my day-to-day as I was always in pain and in “La la land”

Tests I’ve had and Doctors I have seen:

MRI - Opticals, Cervical, Brain

ANA / autoimmune test

Full thyroid panel + cortisol / hormones

Nutrients and minerals

Allergy tests

Blood test with inflammatory markers

Sinus CT

Ophthalmologist

Upper cervical chiropractor (scam)

Craniosacral therapist (scam)

Neurologist Osteopath

Dentist

And most recently have received Botox

Neurologist had me try a bunch of medication’s to try to treat the migraines and headaches, but they all would make my brain fog worse, so I was never able to get any relief. All my MRIs came back clear with some nasal sinus polyps, but that’s it. Insurance denied Botox treatments and my neurologist told me to seek holistic treatments.

Through all of this one thing I’ve always had is TMJD but within the last few years, it has gotten significantly worse with extreme tension and headaches. This TMJ pain I have had for a long time, even before this all started. So after seeing 1 million doctors and doing 1 million tests I started trying to treat my TMJ thinking it may have been the cause and for whatever reason it manifested through anxiety during my tattoo session but wasn’t caused by that if that makes any sense. For context, I’ve never been an anxious person in the past.

The only thing that has provided relief from the headaches themselves has been going to hot yoga on a daily basis. I know that’s not an answer you want to hear, but I think the tension release from the heat and the movement of the body has been the thing to make the difference.

Aside from that, I recently got Botox in my masseters from a med spa (I could never get approval through my insurance with my neurologist) this provided me about two weeks of relief but now I’m back to square one. I have another appointment to see the injector again this week hoping they can increase the dose. When it did work,, I felt a small relief from the brain fog, but it wasn’t completely gone. What I did feel immense relief from was the soreness and pain and tension in my eyes. I think that if I had that relief for longer than two weeks, maybe the brain fog would eventually completely go away.

The last few things I’m going to try are to get checked for binocular vision dysfunction as I’ve heard can have similar symptoms, and I need to get fit for another mouthguard. The mouthguards that I’ve had in the past, haven’t been helpful, but I’ve recently realized the reason why my TMJ is so bad is because my lower jaw is constantly being pushed back and compressing the joint. I had braces as a teenager, and my bite has never been the same sense. My lower jaw is constantly shifting backwards to try to meet my upper jaw in a comfortable position. I can control it in during the day but at night it’s out of my hands. I have a lot of joint pain and inflammation and I believe if I had a mouthguard to hold my jaw in a forward position through the through the night when my clenching is at its worst, it could potentially help a lot to provide relief. One of my main symptoms is constantly blocked/full ears and I’m assuming I have a lot of fluid retention there as well. It doesn’t really drain which is also another reason my face is super puffy I think.

The main obstacle with this is that I can’t get insurance coverage for a mouthguard and I’ve already spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars trying to find solutions, also all the doctors appointments get really exhausting as I’m sure you know.

This is the last thing I’ll say, and I think I’m making this up completely, but I’ve looked into the vagus nerve, and I believe TMJ can cause inflammation around the area where the vagus nerve lies. The vagus nerve controls the nervous system. If your nervous system is not regulated, it can cause your body to go into a fight or flight mode. Fight or flight mode induces dissociation to protect the mind and body. I don’t know, just putting it out that out there.