@jordanametepe Hello and welcome to Connect. I know this is frustrating to not have a diagnosis for your symptoms. There are discussions here about CSF leaks, and typically they come after spine surgeries or a diagnostic test that may puncture the dural covering over the brain and spinal canal. From what patients say about them, the symptoms change if position changes such as laying down or standing up.
I think you may have better success, if you were to see a functional medicine specialist or environmental allergist. Those doctors look for causes and try to fine tune things to diminish inflammation, and they tend not to prescribe a lot of medication, and instead promote healthy living, and perhaps customized allergy treatments.
A couple sites where you can search for these types of doctors are Forum Health, https://forumhealth.com/ or
the American Academy of Environmental Medicine https://www.aaemonline.org/
If you have had injuries or physical trauma, perhaps a whiplash, there could be reasons for muscle spasms in the neck or shoulders. If spasms are moving or turning vertebrae, it may cause some of those symptoms such as dizziness face tingling, vertigo, head aches and nausea. A lot of symptoms can have multiple possible causes.
I have a lot of allergies, and I had an injury to my neck that years down the road resulted in spine surgery. I also have thoracic outlet syndrome that causes neck tightness and compression of nerves in my shoulder. If you have had Covid, that can cause a loss of smell.
I can understand why doctors are not accepting a CSF leak because your symptoms could have multiple possible causes, and if there is no history of something that may cause it, why would they look for it? A CSF leak is a serious business to treat and they don't want to put you through a difficult procedure if it's not warranted. If this information isn't what you need, please understand that in diagnosing and trouble shooting problems, you need to be objective and consider things that perhaps hadn't been considered before or eliminated from possible causes. Specialists only really consider what their specialty is about.
You may also be interested in this new group for headaches and migraines https://connect.mayoclinic.org/group/headache-migraine/
Thanks for the response. I understand the possibly of these symptoms being related to something else. However, I’ve had extensive work up… multiple blood test, panels, CT’s/MRI’s, etc. I don’t have allergies or deal with inflammation. This was ruled out very early on. I took antibiotics due to suspicion of a sinus/ bacterial infection. My symptoms were the same before and after the course of antibiotics. I’ve been very subjective to ruling out multiple things and have seen various specialist for that. In addition, ALL my symptoms are actually pointing a leak, but I haven’t seen a provider who’s specializing in leaks. The headaches started years ago. However, the majority of the neurological symptoms were sudden and got worse extremely quickly. Most people don’t realize there are many types of leaks, including ones that are missed on imaging. Diagnosing a leak is very difficult and the average person will see over 7 different doctors before getting a diagnose. Nobody wants to be labeled a hypochondriac. In conclusion, due to my continuous debilitating symptoms it’s extremely hard to live a normal life. It’s easy to say you might just have allergies or an occasional migraine but there have been tests done early to rule that out. There are many patients who were once overlooked after seeing several specialist and a long time of suffering are now telling their story about how a leak was found years later because the right doctor heard them and didn’t give up. Having perspective in a field like medicine is so important. Unfortunately many physicians carry bias and are quick to dismiss a patient’s concerns based off their own experience and understanding. Being put in front of the right person can change a persons life.