mhadley

Hi, I'm new here. I'm 27 years old since March, and I've had a problem for a while that I've sort of overlooked, but I'm becoming concerned about it. About a year ago, I noticed a very faint numbness around my right ear that would sort of come and go. I dismissed it as nothing because it was really faint. As the months passed, though, it was still there, and so it started to get my attention, and I figured maybe I should get it checked if it gets any worse.

Well, other things happened that distracted me from the issue; I had to get an eyelid operation done to remove a lesion that could have become cancerous in years to come. My attention was so much on my eyelid that I completely forgot about my ear for a few more months.

By this time, I had been downsized from my job, and my medical insurance was gone... and that's also when I noticed that the numbness hadn't gone away. In fact, now that I was paying attention to it again, it was noticably there pretty much all the time now. With a lack of medical insurance, though, I was reluctant to get a checkup done because I wasn't sure if I could afford a bunch of tests and stuff. (On reflection, I'm wondering if I can afford NOT to.) I figured that I could get another job, and get insurance, then immediately go for a check-up when I do.

That was in December. It's May, and still no job, no insurance. And now, I'm also noticing a more or less constant headache around the ears on BOTH sides of my head (the numbness is still only on the right side). The numbness itself hasn't gotten any worse, but the headache worries me. I don't even know if it's related, but it's constant and doesn't seem to go away. It's not really pain, it's sort of a pressure on both sides.

It makes me wonder if maybe I had some kind of really small stroke last year. I was wondering if that's what this might be, or if it could be something else. Also, maybe some consul on how I should go about getting this checked up. I don't know how much the tests for this sort of thing are going to cost me, and I really don't know what I should do about it. I could use some advice.