As those with a vestibular disorder know, living with this disorder has its challenges. It is unpredictable & you never know how you will feel day to day or when your symptoms will flare. The choice to have kids can be a tough decision for some women with vestibular dysfunction. You ask yourself, “Will I feel better or worse in pregnancy? How will I feel postpartum?” For myself, I wanted to be in a good place symptom wise before deciding to get pregnant after my vestibular Migraine & PPPD diagnoses. I have experienced pregnancy and postpartum both pre-vestibular & post-vestibular disorder.
Post-Pregnancy & Vestibular Migraine
I had my first baby in the of fall 2020 pre-vestibular dysfunction & in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Vestibular was a word I did not know at the time that I now know well. Some days more than I would like to know. In summer 2021, I was struck with a laundry list of symptoms (positional vertigo, dizziness, imbalance, tinnitus, insomnia, head pressure, light, sound & smell sensitivity, brain fog, etc.) resulting in diagnoses of BPPV & Vestibular Migraine. Later that fall, a new diagnosis of PPPD was introduced to me.
Questions started running through my mind as to what caused this. Was it the postpartum hormones? Was it the illness I had had three weeks prior? Was it the COVID vaccine I had gotten not quite three months prior? It is hard to say, but if I had to guess, I would say it was a potential combination of factors including my history of motion sickness as a child, migraine, and my postpartum hormonal factors that set it into motion.
For a year, I spent my life in a 24/7 dizzy state. Being a first-time mom is hard enough, but being dizzy all day long & taking care of a baby is beyond hard. The happiest moments of my life as a brand-new mom were ripped away from me due to chronic Vestibular Migraine and PPPD. I could not enjoy my baby, and quite frankly I do not remember a lot of happy times. I wanted to do all these things with my daughter and go places, but I could not because the dizziness was so severe that I found myself in bed or on the couch unable to move much.
Waking up dizzy every day, struggling to maintain balance and then taking care of a child made life difficult. I felt as if I were living my life separately from those around me. as no one understood or could relate to what I was going through. I looked fine on the outside, but inside was a whole different bodily sensation that was obviously (and still is) not visible to others.
Vestibular Migraine & Pregnancy
Flash forward to the end of 2022. I am feeling so much better on my treatment plan, symptoms are being managed, and I am finally ready to try to get pregnant. Now, I must adjust my medications because not all medications are safe in pregnancy. Some women opt to not be on any medications in pregnancy, and quite frankly I wish I did not have to. But I knew I needed to continue taking something for my Vestibular Migraine. Although, there is a large list of medications not recommended in pregnancy, I was able to stay on my beta-blocker, which was one of two preventatives I had been taking.
It is said that some women get better in pregnancy, some worsen, and some stay the same when it comes to their migraine disorder. I was lucky enough that I felt way better in pregnancy, mostly in the second and third trimester.
The only issue for me with staying on the beta-blocker was that I already had normal to low blood pressure prior to using that medication for Vestibular Migraine. For some reason, my blood pressure continued to drop lower and lower the further I got into my pregnancy. By the time I was in the middle of my third trimester, I was down to the lowest dosage possible. Luckily, I did not see an increase in my vestibular symptoms. Beta-blockers can be used in pregnancy for women who have high blood pressure. For me, it was the opposite effect.
Now, please know that I’m not telling anyone who is pregnant or looking to get pregnant who has Vestibular Migraine to go get on a beta-blocker for your symptoms. Always evaluate medications with your doctor before making that decision.
Vestibular Migraine and Postpartum
The day my son was born, the hospital nurses decided to stop my propranolol. My blood pressure became incredibly low, I was dizzy and blacking out upon standing, and I nearly passed out a few times. This was not a vestibular migraine symptom for me. I would occasionally be dizzy upon sitting up in bed with Vestibular Migraine, but I had never felt like this. So, I knew this was a postpartum symptom related to the blood pressure medication I had been taking.
Upon returning home, I began having visual vertigo, headaches, and dizziness daily and nightly. Those overnight feedings and early wakings had me on minimal sleep, and lack of sleep is my biggest migraine trigger. It also made my PPPD symptoms flare up. I knew it was not a postpartum symptom as I had not experienced daily headache symptoms or dizziness in postpartum after my first pregnancy.
I also began feeling a bit of anxiety with managing two kids and my increase in vestibular symptoms. I had previously suffered from anxiety with my PPPD diagnosis, so rather than postpartum depression, I knew it was my anxiety from PPPD. So, I decided to get back on the SSRI I had taken pre-pregnancy.
Although pregnancy, postpartum, and Vestibular Migraine symptoms can be similar, there are also some differences. Knowing your body and how you feel during those migraine attacks helps distinguish between these.
Maintaining symptoms postpartum
Here I was, a few weeks into postpartum and my symptoms were flaring. I had to ask myself if I wanted to get back on medications or not. Taking care of a baby has its challenges, but taking care of a baby and a toddler, is even more challenging with Vestibular Migraine. Therefore, my decision was easy. I decided to get back on my other preventative I took pre-pregnancy and began using my Cefaly device again. Within a few months, I was feeling better, but I found that trying to stay active (when possible, with a newborn) and going back to some Heal Your Headache (HYH) safe foods helped my symptoms improve as well. Also, squeezing those naps in during the day! As they say, “sleep when baby sleeps.”
Written by: Tiffany Kopp, VeDA Ambassador, Instagram: @tiffy_be_dizzy