vertigo

how do i stop feeling like i'm on a boat? (without seeing a doctor)

O_o There is also documented evidence that Genital Warts can cause it.[citation needed]

4 episodes in 2 days... how did you beat it harblz?

COnstant vertigo can be a sign of labrynthitis, which my housemate had some attacks of a few years ago, he was fallin over and dizzy all the time, apparently it just comes and goes on its own and isnt really treatable, he tells me.

The extreme version of this is Menieres disease which my grandad and sis in law have - attacks are like when you're massively drunk and the room is spinning. No cure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLp5hlyrtnE

turned over in in bed at 6-ish this morning, entire room started spinning wildly PLUS it felt like my eyeballs were also spinning (they weren't): it calmed down fairly quickly but afterwards i felt nauseous
(after earlier much briefer episode which i took little notice of)

still -- some hours later -- feeling a little queasy (positional vertigo obviously but caused by what? shd probably see a doctor?)

(mild lol at the fact that there are lots of VERTIGO threads on ilx but they're all hitchcock and record labels and blah blah)

Really don't know how to prevent it. I keep stemetil around which controls it and take a couple when my head starts spinning.
But it seems to trigger every time i get a bad cold. Maybe it's just a case of needing to take a lot more exercise so blood pressure is better. Not sure. i think I'm getting a decent reading when my blood pressure is being taken anyway.

I have a friend who is suffering from very bad vertigo all the time which must be a really nasty thing to have to deal with. it's bad enough intermittently.

this was a first for me at this noticeable level of intensity anyway, from rest (as opposed to mild light-headedness when i get up too quickly, which i've had all my life)

though come to think of it i do sometimes get a very mild version of it when i blow my nose

i had labyrinthitis some years ago - it sounds very similar to what you're feeling mark. see a doc maybe to confirm.

i've got a lot of sinus problems and stuff and i always feel like labyrinthitis never really cleared up in full, which is normal i think. heights have become more and more unpleasant for me over the years, bridges also freak me out a bit sometimes.

it's usually really minor and the more intense symptoms pass quickly, i had like a week of needing to hold on to things when i moved around.

I was just thinking of that nose blowing thing. Had it happen a few days ago when my cold was even more streaming. Blew my nose, felt my ears pop and head spin like I'd taken poppers or something.

"the labyrinths that house the vestibular system" <-- i like this phrase, i feel like i'd like to live there

(phrase from wikipedia obv, that's where i go to diagnose myself)

If you have an affordable way of seeing a doctor or somebody with some level of medical expertise I'd go and see one, especially if this is a persistent problem.

will do, don't worry

like when you're massively drunk and the room is spinning

This describes the labyrinthitis I had. I had no idea what was going on as I hadn't had a drop to drink and it came on very suddenly.

I needed to get fresh air so with great difficulty went downstairs and ended up outside my house regurgitating my dinner. I couldn't make it back up the stairs so still not knowing what was causing it I called an ambulance.

Being in a rolling vehicle and then on a wheelchair is really not the one when you're trying to keep a lid on severe nausea. I was also barely dressed with slippers on and no cash so when they booted me out of the hospital in the early hours I had to literally stagger half a mile to a cash machine and call a cab. I must have looked like I was totally fucked on drugs. The female cab driver did not seem comfortable at all.

I mean, it was quite comical tbh.

The vertigo faded over a week or so. I'm reminded of this as it's hit again this morning, although not as bad so far.

I remember saying to the very young paramedic, "are you familiar with the phrase 'to pull a whitey'?"

haha.

my dad had labyrinthitis come on very suddenly as he got ready for bed one night and promptly keeled over. cue my mum driving him to the hospital, thinking he'd had some sort of brain event, but in the end very glad to be disabused of that notion.

Apparently anxiety attacks often accompany it which doesn't help when you don't know what's causing it.

Update: it did get worse after I posted earlier and I haven't managed to eat anything due to the kitchen being located on a waltzer. Fortunately I'm accustomed to fasting.

Not keen on taking prochlorperazine but may otherwise have to cancel some work. Even with the medication I might not be up to it.

ok so i had my worst go yet this morning: vertigo plus cold sweats *and* serious nausea

fine again now and probably what i shd have done is just gone straight back to bed for 30 mins to let it fully settle instead of trying to power all through the various things you do when you get up (like get washed and dressed and make breakfast while the room is spinning and you can only stand by grabbing onto a doorframe or whatever) which i think prolonged and amplified it (i thought a cup of coffee wd settle my stomach, reader it did NOT)

i then did a COVID test just in case (negative) and went back to bed for most of the day -- and i'm fine now except a little headachey (i'm usually a little headachey)

this had really died down since i first posted about it -- i did go and see the health-centre nurse about it at the time and she explained abt the little crystals that form in yr inner ear (!!) called OTOCONIA, which can be fixed by the EPLEY MANOEUVRE, but we never got to that stage bcz it was in the middle of my early adventures with AFib and she didn't want to epley me when i had a runaway heartbeat

and now i live at the other end of the country and tbh it's been very intermittent for the last two years UNTIL THIS MORNING yuk

I've had this twice and both times it lasted a few hours after waking until I felt queasy enough to actually throw up after which I was fine.

the guy across the road from me blanked me on multiple occasions and it started to make me rather paranoid. It really pissed me off because despite falling out with him a few years back over something ridiculously trivial, I'd made efforts to rebuild bridges and helped him out a few times and made peace offerings and we had a few good chats, now he was just blanking me out every time I saw him in his drive. So one day I said what the fuck is your problem with me, Pete?

And it turned out he wasn't blanking me, the doc had told him it was possibly vestibular vertigo or something related, he'd gone intermittently deaf on the side I was always facing him from across the road and I was grumpily storming off before he'd noticed my presence. He said the first major incident caused a fall while he was cutting his hedges with an electric cutter and he was lucky not to cut a main artery and bleed out.

well saturday's event came back and kicked me in the fkn arse -- i was so much better by monday that i didn't bother talking to a GP about it, and happily travelled up to london for various appointments and social things, including seeing my aged cousin. and on wed night the dizziness returned with a vengeance, incluidng not being able to keep food or drink down, and long story short i ended up in kingston hospital emergency being checked out for all the worst possiblities

viz heart attack? (not a heart attack phew)
stroke? (not a stroke even bigger phew)
viral inner ear infection <-- this is considered the most likely (and also the least worrying) -- i am on anti-dizziness and anti-nausea meds for a couple of weeks and already feeling much more stable on my pins etc

re the stroke i had a CT scan and an MRI to ensure nothing untoward in my brain 🧠: the noises the MRI makes are extremely TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO so while i can't quite say i enjoyed it it was an intriguing experience, and besides tbh like most of my weird family i enjoy hospitals more than i hate them -- my cousin didn't like all the waiting but i don't mind it, responsiblity is out of my hands and i can just watch the unwell world go by and see what ppl are like. this was my mum's line and she was correct…

my london social life is a bit in tatters 😔 but other than that the outcome could have been a lot worse tbh

Really good it wasn't a stroke. London socials can always wait.

I had BPPV (benign paroxysmal positional vertigo) a few years ago and finally resolved it by means of the Epley Manouevre. Not much fun, in fact it feels like you've been thrown out of an airplane and are spinning uncolntrollably to earth, but it's the only way! Now, like a sheepdog of the inner ear, I've herded my crystals back where they belong, and all is good.

Good luck with the diagnosis! I was an MRI guinea pig a few times last year and spent 2 hours in the chamber on occasion, with bladder bursting to boot, so hopefully that won't happen to you and you're done with the Aphex Twin phase.

It's such a trip to hold your head in one position and find the bed spinning. Then change and find your body spinning on what feels like a vertical plane.
Who needs drugs.
Or is this Cirque or however it's spelt work and take a few days to really kick in.

back at my cousin's since friday evening -- he is looking after me very well (he has plenty else on his plate and very much did not sign on for this task, i was meant to be a pleasant distraction from his other family duties but that is not how it worked out) (he is a lovely man luckily)

meds are gradually stabilising me, room sometimes still threatens to spin when i move my head quickly but then in fact remains in place, and i can walk around w/o grabbing at doors knobs and chairbacks (i often still do this anyway but i no longer actually need to); there's a kind of residual light-headedness not cleared away but it is dminishing

slow and steady and stay out of trouble

I keep hoping this is a temporary condition I'll wake up the next morning absolutely clear of. Was getting some symptoms every time I visited London but nothing that lasted. Stemetil used to seem to clear it up or at least remove most of the symptoms. But had what seemed to be a flu mid summer that seemed to linger for ages and seemed to be before the major return of students to university taht normally had me feeling fluey and then developed into this. Which has now been around for a couple of months. Doctor said last week normally lasts about 6 weeks or something to that effect and this has been longer

hope it dies down soon for you stevo, i am very much not a fan!

STEMETIL for me too but only since friday

I've only experienced vertigo once. I'd gone away for a few days and forgot to pack my mirtazapine. after I got back, I started getting really dizzy and nearly fell over the middle of the office once, had to grab on to some lockers. turns out vertigo is a mirtazapine withdrawal symptom. it went away after a day or 2 once I got back on the medication.

hope you get some relief soon

I have periodic bouts of relatively mild vertigo that are almost always tied to lack of sleep and/or stress (which tend to go together). Mostly it's navigable, just makes me a little swimmy. But I had one last year that was so bad it actually made me throw up, and for about a day I felt like I was taking my life in my hands walking from the living room to the kitchen. Super unpleasant!

so yesterday to get to my appointment -- which was waaaaay across town -- i borrowed my cousin's STICK: he's 83 and allowed stick and now i have vertigo and i am too

anyway tl;dr young ppl on the tube got up and gave me their seat! i was startled and charmed, i am not used to this side of life!

lol as i walked across hammersmith bridge with friend of the ilxpod GEETA just now she asked me where something was and i pointed WITH THE STICK and she laughed and said "you're using the stick right!"

my cousin had two and i now own one of them apparently -- wasn't expecting to return to the west country as a STICKMAN but there it is

anyway tl;dr young ppl on the tube got up and gave me their seat! i was startled and charmed, i am not used to this side of life!

― mark s, Tuesday, 7 November 2023 bookmarkflaglink

When I broke my toe and was in a cast for 3 weeks ppl would always give me a seat. I was impressed.

tfw you wish lovecraft wd just fuck off for a little while

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Balance_Disorder_Illustration_A.png

the meds i got at the hospitl finish this week, which seems about right symptoms-wise

nausea and room-spinning long gone, balance 97% fine -- i get an ever-so-slight sense of uh oh when
(a) i put shoes on to go outside and walk a bit (i guess bcz they subtly alter the plane the soles of yr feet are in?)
(b) if i stand still in the dark (which is yes a very avoidable activity but not one i ever had reason to be all-alerts about till now)

i take my stick when e.g. shopping but my last big shop involved carrying two big bags for more than a mile and i stashed the stick in one of the bags for convenience
(there may be a clever way to use a stick and carry three bags but to me it felt like i needed a handy third hand)