Vertigo, Anyone Experience It?

[MIGrandma]

If you've had it, please tell me about it.

A week or so ago I woke up during the night, opened my eyes and the room was spinning. Shut my eyes for a few seconds, opened them and it was still spinning. Then it went away. Kind of freaked me out.

Fast forward to last night, same thing happened. Sleeping, wake up and the room is spinning. This time it lasted longer, and I needed to get up to go to the bathroom and had to sit up in stages. I couldn't go from lying down to sitting in one motion without it getting worse. Carefully made my way to the bathroom, came back to bed and the spinning started again as I laid down. Plus I was very nauseous. I had a hard time getting back to sleep because of the nausea, and being freaked out.

So this morning I wake up and still feel a little nauseous but no more spinning. So I googled the symptoms and it sounds like it could be Vertigo so I'd just like to hear about others' experiences if they've had it.

I have a doctor's appointment the 29th, so will discuss it with him then (or sooner if it gets worse).

 

[DisneyBug1995]

Yep sounds like the same symptoms I had, except I could still feel the room spinning when I closed my eyes and I had it off and on throughout the day. My doctor told me to take sudafed but I couldn't keep anything down because of the nausea. So I had to get a prescription medication that also had something for nausea. I was also 3 months pregant, so I not sure if that made a difference in what he prescribed.

 

[Snoozan]

I think people take Bonine(meclazine)when this happens - that's the non-drowsy form of Dramamine. It helps with the nauseous feeling. My DH and his DSis have had episodes with this.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Oh, my goodness, yes. Just had it Friday night into all day Saturday. I found my meclazine and took one of those which did help. I also had a terrible headache yesterday, so took some Bayer which helped. Today I'm feeling better and able to drive.

 

[clh2]

Sorry - the one time I experienced this - there was absolutely NO WAY I could have waited 3 weeks to go see the doctor. There was no way I was well enough to drive either.

I would escalate this up to be seen earlier - our clinic has a walk-in clinc on weekends and an urgent care clinic during the week. Plus - each doc leaves open a couple appts per day for more urgent needs.

Good Luck - hope you are feeling better soon.

 

[SpecialK]

Bonine (meclazine) is a life-saver.

 

[GDUL]

My wife has had several episodes of vertigo in the past. She went to the Vestibular Clinic at the University of Michigan where they performed the Eply maneuvers. It's pretty amazing how fast that can work! Unfortunately, she had a couple more episodes and was diagnosed with Meniere's Disease - again, a problem with the inner ear. Here's a website discussing this:

http://www.entnet.org/healthinfo/balance/meniere.cfm

I hope that it all works all well for you!

 

[4nana]

Know how scary those dizzy spells can be MIGrandma . Another idea to consider: Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). My Mom and others I know have had dizzy spells requiring care and were diagnosed with BPPV. Apparently there are inner ear crystals (her dr refers to them as ear rocks ) that can become dislodged in ear- ocassionally by something as simple as a sneeze. Unfortunatley there are many sufferers and sometimes it can be misdiagnosed even after much testing. The dr taught us the Epley maneuver, as suggested in post above by GDUL. Good luck, hope you get it resolved soon.

 

[Poohforyou]

I've had vertigo for almost a year now but in my case I have the feeling that my head is constantly moving rather than the room. As a result my balance is really off. I've had a lot of other health issues this past year that were more significant than the vertigo. The other things have pretty much been resolved so the focus now is on my balance. I'll be starting vestibular physical therapy which I hope will help. In my case all of this has been caused by a virus and I'm suffering from post viral syndrome.

If yours continues I'd suggest seeing an ENT for a workup. Hope you feel better soon.

 

[flyingelvis]

In 2005 I was having severe vertigo attacks. I was diagnosed with Meniere's disease and treated but never really improved. This past summer I was experiencing the vertigo and was also having palpitations. My Primary Care Physician ran a western blot test to check for lyme disease. It came back negative but I still had a feeling that I had it after researching the disease. I ended up going to a lyme literate doctor in NYC that tested me again. The difference is that the labs were sent to Igenex lab in California. My western blot came back positive. I was diagnosed with chronic lyme disease. I have had it for years and never knew I had it. The doctor treats lyme with antibiotics. I urge anyone that has vertigo to be tested for lyme disease. But please make sure the labs are sent to the Igenex lab otherwise you may get a false negative. Vertigo can be caused by other things as well but doctors should be looking at lyme disease as a possible cause.

 

[Amy]

Wow - this thread is just in time for me! Mine started Friday - if I move my head too fast, the room will "bounce" for a while before settling down. Sometimes even moving just my eyes will cause my head to not feel right. I went to MedExpress yesterday thinking it was an ear infection, and the dr said I have labyrinthitis - inflammation of the inner ear, and he told me to take Bonine, as a pp recommended. So far, it hasn't helped. I'll give it a few more days and see what happens.

I told the dr that I usually get sinus pain when the weather changes. We've had crazy weather this past week, but my sinuses didn't bother me at all. he said sometimes barometric pressure can set it off, too. I'm thinking that maybe instead of sinus issues, this time it moved into my inner ear?

 

[stm61]

I've had it for years, mild at first, then progressively getting worse. Started with an ENT, sent to neurologist, who sent me back to the ENT. They could never find a diagnosis, so they used Meniere's, while saying I didn't fit the usual patterns. Finally, this year, the ENT repeated a test that involved wearing computer goggles while air is puffed into my ear. I'd had it done 6 or 8 yrs ago, before they invented the goggles and they used water instead of air. THis time it came out positive. Finally, something they could point at! Now I'm waiting for a neurological consult, because the computer picked up that my eyes constantly jump or jerk, without my even being aware of it, and one is much worse then the other. I was never so happy to have a test come out positive! I might not like the final diagnosis, but at least I know there is a medical reason for the vertigo, that I'm not just losing my mind lol.

 

[DebbieB]

Know how scary those dizzy spells can be MIGrandma . Another idea to consider: Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). My Mom and others I know have had dizzy spells requiring care and were diagnosed with BPPV. Apparently there are inner ear crystals (her dr refers to them as ear rocks ) that can become dislodged in ear- ocassionally by something as simple as a sneeze. Unfortunatley there are many sufferers and sometimes it can be misdiagnosed even after much testing. The dr taught us the Epley maneuver, as suggested in post above by GDUL. Good luck, hope you get it resolved soon.

I've had this on and off for the past couple years. I do the "exercises" and eventually it goes way.

If they give you a prescription for Meclazine or Antivert, check with your insurance before getting it filled. Mine would not pay for it, I later found out because it's available over the counter. I didn't know that and paid $19 for the prescription and could have got Bonine for under $5.

 

[MIGrandma]

Thanks, everyone, for the responses. I'm going to do some more research on it, and if it happens again I'm going to call my doctor's office and ask them about it, see if they can get me in before the 29th or have me wait until then. I take several medications, so I'm kind of leary about adding another like Bonine, but I will ask them about it if it happens again. I'm kind of nervous about going to sleep tonight, worrying it's going to happen again. It's an icky feeling, and especially with the nausea.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

I have had this since Wed. night. I have had to prop myself up in bed with pillows and a bedrest borrowed from my ds. I cant tiun to the L or R.

I am going to the ENT tomm. anyway. He is rechecking my lymph node that was infected.

Hopefully the ear specialist will be there so maybe he can take a look at me. I will see about that med. I hope I can take it with all the other meds I am taking for my thy cancer.

Thurs. night I almost fell into the refrigerator. My one ds had to help me sit in a kitchen chair.

Hopefully this will end soon just like it started.

 

[daannzzz]

I have had benign positional vertigo off on on for some years now. The worst was about 5 years ago when i turned over in bed and it felt like someone hit me in the head with a bat. Doctor said they couldn't do much and to try bonine. It sort of worked a bit. I read up on it and one guy wrote a little booklet about all the remedies. One was that some people had success when they took drugs for anxiety or depression. I had anxiety a year later and the doctor put me on celexa. It worked for the anxiety and the dizzyiess. I have been of the celexa for a couple years now and only have had very minor dizzyness once in a while.

 

[crazyme5kids]

My sister-in-law has bouts of severe vertigo. the first time she had it, she wound up in bed for almost three months before her symptoms subsided.

I will caution anyone though to see a Dr. immediatly if you experience it. My mother had symptoms of vertigo, and it turned out she was having a stroke. She had a CAT scan, but due to the area of the brain her bleed was in it didn't show on the scan. When her symptoms did not subside after a few hours on medication for the vertigo (at that point she was in the hospital) a nuerologist ordered an MRI, which showed that she had a stroke.

See a Dr., better safe than sorry.

 

[Amy]

I have had benign positional vertigo off on on for some years now. The worst was about 5 years ago when i turned over in bed and it felt like someone hit me in the head with a bat. Doctor said they couldn't do much and to try bonine. It sort of worked a bit. I read up on it and one guy wrote a little booklet about all the remedies. One was that some people had success when they took drugs for anxiety or depression. I had anxiety a year later and the doctor put me on celexa. It worked for the anxiety and the dizzyiess. I have been of the celexa for a couple years now and only have had very minor dizzyness once in a while.

This is very interesting to me. My gyne put me on Effexor (an anti-depressant) about a year ago to help with menopausal hot flashes and mood swings. I ended up gaining 16 pounds in just the one year, so I talked to him and decided to go off the Effexor. I'd been tapering off, and took my last Effexor last Monday, and my vertigo/labyrntitis started Friday when I got out of bed. I told the dr at MedExpress that I'd gone off Effexor recently - I was worried my symptoms might be withdrawal - but he assured me it wasn't.

 

[disfan07]

I have it occassionally but I don't take anything for it. I am already on 10 different meds so I don't add anymore unless 100000% necessary. But we also know exactly what is causing mine. My current vertigo is probably a result of brain surgery last year. I am going back in a few weeks to see if I need more surgery to correct this.

Originally, when I started experiencing it, my neurologist thought it was migraines. It turned out, that it was a cyst that was causing pressure issues which would make me nauseaus and dizzy.That was the surgery that I had last june, but the problem seems to have returned.

This is something that, if it happens more than once I would definitley advise to get checked out because you just never know

 

[Sadie22]

I suffered from vertigo right before the diagnosis of Type II diabetes was made. I have occasional bouts of benign positional paroxymal vertigo. I also had frequent episodes after I had been taking fish oil capsules for a while. When a blood pressure medication was lowered, the vertigo symptoms resolved. I also get dizzy if I tilt my head back and look up. There can be many causes. Good luck in finding a cause and treatment.