Vertigo

I have posted here before about fatigue and spondylolisthesis and this time it is vertigo.Four years ago I suffered my first lot of dizziness where the room to me was spinning.violently.I spent a few days in hospital,the doctors didn’t really know the cause.After being discharged I went to a vestibular audiologist who did tests and she said it was BPPV. I followed Joey Remenyi and Yoni Arthur.That settled down until this morning when I got out of bed.It wasn’t so severe as previously and I chose to go out to our bistro here in the retirement village for coffee.
I know Claire Weekes would say ‘the symptoms of stress no longer matter is the key not a sudden disappearance of the symptoms. Thoughts please?
I know this is TMS -and I am fearful of this dizziness and have trouble accepting it.I feel so out of control.

 

Hi Lojos! I hope you feel better really soon. Do you also have symptoms of headaches? I had terrible bouts of dizziness that were over and over, over many decades that were repeatedly diagnosed by many practitioners as being BPPV. Then I finally found successful migraine prevention here on the TMS wiki and not only did my headaches completely disappear, I was never dizzy again. Dr. Steinberg said that vertigo is a commonly missed symptom of migraine and called it vestibular migraine. I think she said that that's when the problem happens in the brain stem. Am sharing because maybe this is a way out for you, rather than the BPPV diagnose that they gave me before that led to treatments that did nothing for me. I even did years of PT, anything I could, with no improvement -- it always returned. Once I tackled my migraine, I have never felt off kilter again and am finally no longer in fear of it either. Feeling off balance was such a bad feeling!!! I hope you feel better very soon and it never returns!!!

 

Thanks JaneSandyjane

As the day wore on I felt better.I have never had a headache in all my Almost 80 years. I panicked this morning because I thought it was back and because I was cautious about it returning when I went for cancer treatment and many times I had to lay down to have ultra sounds drainage on my wound etc but thankfully it didn’t return until today.I know I am fearful of it .I guess I need more practice at accepting it without fear.

 

I have been through bouts of vertigo, and now I occasionally get them but it lasts for mere minutes. Don’t be afraid of them, but if they continue, simply get it checked out. Not everything is TMS but you also can’t discount it. The key is to deal with your anxiety over it, and Claire is your guide for anxiety just as Dr. Sarno is the guide for TMS.
I think you are doing great trying to just live your life and being around people.

 

I have a history of TMS going back to childhood (though I did not realize that and gain control over it until I was age 51). Any time I get a recurring symptom, I start out with a strong presumption that it is TMS. That includes dizziness that I started having last year. At the end of November 2023, the dizziness was so debilitating that I had to be taken by ambulance to a hospital emergency department. I was diagnosed with BPPV and sent away with a medicine that did not help one bit.

The reason I am writing about this is that I am only a few years older than you Lojos. It so happens that I had prostate surgery scheduled for the day after Christmas last year. Given my advanced age, the surgeon sent me for an electrocardiogram to see if my heart was strong enough to handle the surgery. The cardiologist said my electrocardiogram did not reveal any reason not to go ahead with the surgery. But there was something about it that bothered her, so she had me wear a heart monitor 24 hours a day for a week or so. It showed my heart would frequently stop beating for one and a half to three seconds. I had a pacemaker installed on December 18 last year. That solved my dizziness problem. Your heart is probably fine, but I wonder if you have been checked for a heart arrhythmia.

 

I'm so glad you're feeling better!!!

 

Thanks Duggit
Thank you for your reply.I have been tested by a doctor and a vestibular audiologist ,the latter who gave me glasses with a camera on and recorded the nystagmus onto her computer.After the fall I had 4months ago they did all kinds of tests a MRI ,a BPPV test ,blood tests looking for a stroke but concluded it was a balance problem.I hope next year when the wound from the ‘washout ‘ has been completely healed I will have a PT come in to help me with exercises for balance.

 

Thanks Cactusflower,
Yes ,I know I have to accept the vertigo without fear but am finding it so difficult. I have had 33visits this year to the hospital for treatments for the 4th lot of cancer and never experienced vertigo although I did have problems with balance so used my walker.I just felt so defeated yesterday morning but today just feeling ,as usual, a little unbalanced.

 

Thanks JaneSandyJane