Trying to change what seems to be the unchangeable.
One early morning, I woke up from sleeping with a weird feeling. As my head lay on the pillow, I felt like I was spinning. I didn’t understand why. I’m lying down, I thought I’d had a good night’s sleep. I sat up, and it felt like I was on a carnival ride. The world was spinning. I had never felt like this before.
I woke my wife and tried to explain what was happening to her. I was in a panic. She researched videos of vertigo. I tried the Epley maneuver and other maneuvers we found online. It didn’t help at all.
At this point, we were off to the hospital because it had not stopped. On our way to the hospital, I got nauseous. By now, it had been going on for about 30 minutes. My wife ran to tell someone as I was throwing up outside.
They got me into the room and gave me medication to take away the nauseous feeling. The spinning started slowing but lingered lightly. They put me on an IV. With no explanation for why this happened, the doctor decided to do an MRI on my head. Results: inconclusive evidence of anything wrong. Everything seemed fine, but I was not.
The next day, I was on a floating boat, and I never got off. I was on the quest to find out what was wrong. Well over 5 years later, here I am, and I still don’t have any answers. I have seen EVERYONE. Two ear, nose, and throat doctors and a chiropractor. They put me in spinning chairs in a dark room for 90 seconds, with cold air in my ears. test after test. Nothing. I have been to doctor after doctor, blood tests, eye tests. I went to a rehab place, and it helped at first by having me do eye exercises. I even went to Barrow Neurological Institute. Yep, it took me 5 months to get into that place. And you can guess what they found. Nothing.
I have documented what helps and what doesn’t. So if this sounds like you, I will share my thoughts, and hopefully you have some to share with me.
Grocery stores (nightmare). I don’t know if it’s Walmart’s natural lighting, fake or tall shelves, or what, but horrible. Anyway, I have found that Sudafed 30mg 2 times a day helps. Not sure why. I tried all allergy medications at this point, and that’s the best I can find. If I don’t get a good night’s sleep, the next day is miserable. Caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol are now things of the past. Caffeine and nicotine work right away to make it miserable, but alcohol is a different dizzy; it doesn’t bother me until the next day. The next day is brutal dizzy if I didn’t drink a ton of water with it the night before. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, you’re drinking alcohol? Are you crazy? But like I said, it doesn’t make it worse in the present (and I’m only drinking a few beers), but the next day is the extra dizzy time. So I stay away as much as I can. My primary doctor has me on citalopram. This was keeping me from panicking that it would happen again, and it reduced stress. I have stayed on it this long because it does help my stress levels.
Let me know if this is your story, too.