Vertigo

[butchd]

3 weeks ago at about 3 A.M. I began a seige of "positional vertigo". My doc gave me an antihistamine and after two weeks of going on a cane everywhere things are back to normal. I am 68. I'm diabetic controled with insulin. I thought at first that my sugar had bottomed out but my blood was fine. I am in recovery from bladder cancer since 2006. Don't smoke nor drink. All of the markers that the Dr. checked looked in my favor. The web says that vertigo can result from several causes. It was the most debilitating experience that I ever had. It could have been a lot worse should my big *** had hit the floor. I don't spring back from falls like I did a few years ago. Hopefully it never comes back. Do any of ya'll have any experience along these lines?

 

[Engineer1911]

December 23, 2012 from 6:07 AM until 1:35 PM was the longest money in my life and longest stay at the emergency room. Total charge with ambulance ride, ER doc, test evaluation, and hospital charges was $17,000. With Medicare and supplement insurance my cost was $0.00 . With a serious case of vertigo you can experience dripping wet sweat, vomiting, and diareha all at the same time.

I'm now on a low salt diet.

 

[williamlayton]

My daughter has had it for a number of years. It comes and goes--when it is here iststays about 3 months.
there are a number of kinds of vertigo---with different causes.
Blessings

 

[mstuhr]

Comes and goes

Howdy,
Mine comes and goes. It popped up one morning out of the blue. I got up, ran/fell sideways, hit a wall and collapsed on the floor and took to vomiting.
I have to be careful driving in hilly or mountainous areas. The last drop of soda in a can can put you down or send you on a sideways run too.
Claritin helps me when the pollen is bad as pollen can help get it going.
Mine is much better than it used to be.
I hope it never gets as bad as it was.
If a person has never had it but ever experienced the drunken "Spins" they are very similar with the exception a fellow normally deserves the spins.
Thanks
Mike

 

[bob in texas]

Had it a couple times I talked my doctor about it, she told me to try an over the counter travel sickness med, she said it should have 25mg of meclizine. don't know if this would help you but it did the trick for me. As always you may want to check with your doctor first.

 

[arjay]

Mine comes and goes.I think it's an after affect from a bout of meningitis.My Dr. doesn't know what causes it.Staggering like a drunk,out of the blue, can be a little embarrassing.

 

[JonF]

Yup

just as "Bob in Texas" I take meclizine if it lasts more than a few minutes.

If wake up with it, I try the following as suggested by several of my doctors (unofficially of course).

Sit on the edge of your bed. Fall over to the right. Sit back up. Fall over to the left. Sit back up. Fall backward and well by now you should be figuring it out. Be sure to FALL not just lean/lay over. Repeat as necessary.
This exercise seems to help realign the little hairlike sensors in your inner ear.

As simple as it sounds it really works !

 

[rwsmith]

My Dad has...

My Dad has had Meniere's disease for decades. Horrible. Thank goodness I don't have anything chronic like that but if I climb or get turned around in the dark (like the movie Vertigo) it hits. It's scary because I've taken some bad falls.

 

[Cdog]

Oh yea, I've been there! I went through about 6 months of misery 30 years ago.

I was literally walking into walls. I went through a battery of doctors and test at Emory in Atlanta. I was diagnosed with some disease of the nerve between the inner ear and the brain. No real treatment for it.

I found the most relief from a local E N T. He treated me for allergies.

My equilibrium just ain't never gonna be what it once was. I'm not miserable now, but motion sickness is a daily threat.

 

[KeithC]

Well, since I have had Meniere's since 2000, I can tell you it's no fun not being able to get up to get to the bathroom when the nausea hits.
My first bout began in the winter of 2000 in both ears, would go almost totally deaf when it hit, enough so that I couldn't hear the air horns above my head in the truck I was driving at the time.

Luckily, after many tests and going on a rather substantial daily dose of diuretic ( 37.5mg a day), it cleared up in my left ear but as yet not in the right. The ringing in that ear is 24/7 and at times so loud that others can hear it, since it is usually so loud I can barely hear on the right.

Low salt diet, moderate caffeine intake, cut back on the smoking and it's almost tolerable....

 

[Cyrano]

I was having mild vertigo, mostly in bed when I'd turn over and the world would go round for a few seconds. Doc disgnosed it as 'benign positional vertigo'. It's when some foreign matter, msotly calcium, gets into the fluid in the inner ear. He had me do the 'epley maneover', which after a couple of weeks cured it.

The Epley maneuver goes like this: you lie on your back on the bed with your head hanging over. Twist your head to the left side as far as possible and hold it for 30 seconds. Do the same thing on the right side, and with yur head upright. Eventually the foreign matter will work its way out of your ear.

 

[Oldiron]

I get it but it is from my right ear. Went to the quack and he gave me some Antivert. Ran out of that stuff on the second bout and found that over the counter motion sickness pills worked just as well if I took two of them. Paid close attention to my right ear and found that it would have a little soreness in the cartilage the day before. What I started doing was dropping a few drops of alcohol in that ear at bedtime if it was sore and I would be fine the next morning. Larry

 

[LVSteve]

These inner ear afflictions are just such a bear to move. I suffer from allergies leading to gunky ears/Eustachian tubes from time to time. I often wish for a valve on each side of my head so the doc could just flush the works with saline or something.

 

[litenlarry]

Flying in a commerical airliner can be a real "trip"..Particularly sitting in the back of the plane and flying at night or in the clouds..If in the back, it seems as if the plane is going round and round...It helps me to sit in a window weat, near the front or at least from over the wing to the front, look out the window and focus on objects on the ground..Doesn't help when cloudy or at night..

 

[JohnK]

I've had periodic episodes, since 1967. Initially blamed on Meniere's disease.

Not a proper diagnosis, as mine has not progresses to deafness, although I am hearing impaired, since birth.

This stuff is NOT "dizzy", it'll put you down right NOW. Amazed I didn't hurt myself falling.

I was a bit lucky, as I had a early "prodromal" symptom, of buzzing, that allows me to (sometimes) get down quickly, before the devastating vertigo occurred.

Periodic relapses, over the years, less now than earlier.

I have not found any meds, to prevent it.

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

.With a serious case of vertigo you can experience dripping wet sweat, vomiting, and diareha all at the same time.

A serious cheap wine hangover will do that to you as well.

 

[snake803]

Had a friend that was treated for vertigo for several years...No help.. no cure... finally diagnosed with MS...He's on meds now and doing as well as can be expected...He was about late 30's when this happened...
JIM...............................

 

[butchd]

Meclezine is what helped me after two weeks of drunk walking and nausea. The position changes will be the first thing I try should I get another spell.

 

[DCW]

Man, we've got a crowd of knowledgeable souls in here. I'm proud to be associated with you all.

Nearly two decades ago my doc prescribed 25 mg of meclizine twice daily but it tended to put me into a fog and that was a condition I just flat out couldn't have.

She then put me on Claritin-D (mentioned above), a behind-the-counter antihistamine that also has a dose of pseudoephedrine and makes a criminal suspect of everyone who buys it (with which I have a Constitutional problem despite my professional past). To defeat the asinine maximum 3.6 grams of pseudoephedrine at the time of purchase, my longstanding doctor wrote me an Rx for it and I once monthly get enough Claritin-D to last the following month.

I have not once since cooked any meth; given or sold it to anyone who cooks meth; nor, sold or given it to any other party, period (Excuse me, but I had a need to rant a little)(Thank you.)(Oh, I feel so much better!)

Oddly, methinks, each March (give or take) I get anything from a touch to a knock-me-down-into-the-dirt-full-tilt-boogie vertigo that, frankly, I would just love to give to my worst enemy.

The malady is what led me to my now permanent vacation after I one-day said, "Okay, guys, let's go get 'em" and then promptly ran from the briefing room's front to its back, when all I had wanted to do was simply exit stage left.

Oh, and for good measure, barfed on the sparkling clean shoes of a senior inspector who was aside of me after I hit the back wall.

Yessiree, that was impressive.

 

[rwsmith]

This was new to me

My wife was suffering from dizziness (not full vertigo) and the cause and cure were new to me. The cause is crystals forming in the fluid around the semi circular canals. I thought they were going to ultrasound her ear or something. The treatment consisted of holding her head in different positions. About once a week now she has to lie down and do her 'positions' when she starts getting dizzy. She says it works.