Headjob

[clevermanka]

We took a bottle of this to dinner last night with anerys. It was delightful. I'll be buying/drinking that again. It comes with a little plastic toy bull. Bonus! I would love to buy bottled anerys, too. She lightened my mood yesterday.

Today, however, well...120mg of Sudafed yesterday afternoon and again this morning. Still dizzy. Still unable to move much. This blows. I wonder how much of the dizziness is playing off the depression, and vice versa.

I need to find a solution to this problem, but I don't know where to start looking. Three doctors, including an otolaryngologist (ENT doc), saw nothing unusual with my inner ear or sinuses, except the fact that I have very large sinuses in a fairly small face. I've had x-rays, a CT-scan, and numerous pokes and prods in my ear canals. Zip. My chiropractor, who worked wonders with my allergies, tried for four sessions to get some results/relief and absolutely nothing happened.

Nobody disbelieves me that have crazy dizzy spells that last for days, or that I get motion-sick from something as simple as turning around in my chair too fast, but nobody can see the cause of the problem. Why can I do a headstand from a forward-leaning position, but if I let my head lean backwards towards the floor, I start to get sick?

The situation puts "it's all in your head" in an entirely different light.

Comments

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

oh, YUCK. I hope you're able to find a cause and solution soon. Very glad to hear your medical allies believe you.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I don't have much hope for finding a cause or solution anytime soon. I've been dealing with this for most of my life. I've noticed it getting worse the past few months, which makes me worry.

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

As someone who deals with intermittent vertigo myself, I well know how frustrating it can be when the dizziness strikes. I've seemed to find that mine recur when my upper right sinus blocks and then drains (once it drains 2 days later, strong dizziness, like clockwork)...but I got told by the ENT who treated me that it was not possible for events to be related.

When the ENT tested you, did they do either of the following tests?:

Putting balloons in your ears to fill first with warm and then cold water, while hooked up to electrodes watching your eyes track on a light that moved?

Putting you in a completely dark room, in a chair that moves, while you are hooked to electrodes, so they can see how your body tracks motion in space?

Those were two of the tests they did to me to determine what might have been causing my vertigo (which at one point got so bad I couldn't track how my body was moving in space...I forget the technical term for that now). They found that I was having hardcore nystagmus (http://www.lowvision.org/nystagmus.htm) (a misfiring of my maxillofacial nerve that was causing my eyes to move (creating the visual shift that caused my brain to think I was moving in space)...they gave me a drug that dried up all fluids in my body (that was trippy) and really, really low dose Valium to stop that particular nerve from firing...when I had a later recurrence, though, I got told that once one has had vertigo, one is simply more sensitive (so many health concerns come down to that sort of crap answer), and that I "simply had to get used to it and that my body would work to compensate for it (cold words when you're trying to puke from being goddamned dizzy all the time). I also got told that my time as a gymnast probably gave me "a more heightened sense of balance" so that I would trigger more easily than someone who had not trained thusly.

I think it all depends on how one breaks the plane and what visual cues your body takes physically to find orientation that causes it ultimately. There is an exercise I've been doing in the yoga/qi gong class that gets me every time...standing...we twist our head to one side (which I'm fine with)...but then we continue to move our eyes further around in the twist, farther than our head can move...when I do that I get dizzy and nauseous immediately...and my head doesn't break the plane leaning at any point.

Trippy, huh?


D.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

My ENT didn't do either of those tests, no. The balloon one, in particular, sounds awful. I hate water in my ears.

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

I can say that neither was a pleasant experience (the one on the little room was nightmarish actually). However, it may point out that they have not necessarily done all testing possible to determine the source of the problem for you.


D.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

I have low blood pressure, and it gives me a lot of dizzy spells.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I have fairly low blood pressure too (my record is 60/90). But my BP is always low...why do the dizzy spells come and go? Do you have problems with your spins in dance? Or getting nauseated doing a backbend?

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Backbends are fine for me, but I *cannot* do a barrel turn. Doing more than one barrel turn makes me want to puke. And yes, general spins leave me very dizzy, whether I spot or not.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Eeeeenteresting.

[redheadfae.livejournal.com]

Ugh, what horror.

OTOH, that wine looks delightful, no sinus issues with it?

Can you drink Argentinian (Argentine?) wines?

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

The only wines I consistently have issues with are California wines. I've just made it a general rule to avoid domestic wines and I've had pretty good luck.

[adammaker.livejournal.com]

I'll be talking this up with you in email.
-
I'm suspecting a very mild inflammation/infection in the ear.
With your background, I can see how a very mild change in your balance reading could really throw you for a loop.

[caitlin-storm.livejournal.com]

Since your blood pressure is low, you might ask your personal physician about a tilt test. This could explain some of the dizziness. This is a test that takes approximately 45 min to an hour. Just a thought. I truly hope you get to feeling better and discover what the cause is.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Between this and rougewench's suggestions of tests, perhaps I should go ahead and make an appointment. I'm going to try a couple things suggested by adammaker first, but if those don't work...