So I have Costco and I’ve had it since I was younger. Bad flare up in February and it started to ease up but two weeks ago got a flare up that was bothering me and asked for prednisone. Started that and finished most of it but doctor told me to stop so I could start taking Propanolol and Lexapro. Lexapro apparently gave me brain fog (or whatever the heck that was) with the addition of a costo induced headache that I’ve never had before with the costo.

Got side effects that I now realize a lot of you all have had including: horrible tension headache, dizziness, heavy headache feeling, pressure on the back of the skull, and weird equilibrium issues. It was so bad for three days I couldn’t do much.

Brain fog / spacy feeling / inability to think & focus is something new to me and terrified me. It made my anxiety shoot through the roof and I went to urgent care twice and the ER eventually because my heart rate was crazy and I couldn’t focus on any one thing for longer than 5 mins. Doctor assumed Lexapro cause the brain for and we switched to Fluoxetine (which I was on years ago but stopped).

Now the headaches have improved greatly (I have been working on some stretching with backpod and door frames, icing/heating my head and neck, and going to the chiropractor among other things but I’m not 100% sure what is helping the most…) but I still have a bit of the spacy feeling and a lot of it is part of the fixation on the pressure at the top of my head and how it feels…

So to end my rambling rant, i would love your feedback from the following:

1. Anyone who has suffered from Costco headaches and pains did to SUCCESSFULLY alleviate the symptoms? Medications? Stretches? Also - what was the cause??

1A. Those who had the headaches - did you feel brain fog with it? I’m trying to figure out if the somewhat brain fog feeling I have is left over symptoms from the Lexapro or the pressure from the headache is just messing with me…

1. I am planning to go to PT next week - what things have you done with your PT that made you go “wow that did the trick” with your costo?

2. How are you guys sleeping? I’m finding it impossible to sleep because of the pressure on the back of the head. I did notice last night that a heat back on my neck/back helped put me to sleep but I have been taking lorazepam for the past 4 nights but I hate to take it and want to stop. Any suggestions??

Thanks for listening to my long spiel. I hope costo gets a thorough study in the future and we suffer no more!