My first case of vertigo ever

[Dennis S]

I’ve never had that pressure in an airplane problem before if that means anything.

[RgrF]

This is not the best of venues to get diagnosed for something that could prove life threatening.

Easy for me to say since both of us have full coverage but disturbing that we (as a country) brag about the expertise of our health while not providing that care to many of our own.

[bazookaman]

graylocks wrote:
[quote=Dennis S]
[quote=graylocks]
are your ears feeling clogged at all? like that pressure feeling we get with the change in altitude as a plane ascends?

No.
great. rules out Menieres Disease.
Haha. Thats not necessarily true. I haven't had a single doctor give me a concrete list of the symptoms or non-symptoms of Menieres. I WISH they would. My ENT says I have it. Even though he was puzzled that I had one thing but not another. He just chalked it up to everyone being different. But when I had really bad attacks, I would take motion sickness medicine like Meclizine. That plus the fact that the dizziness wore me the fuck out, I would quickly fall asleep and wake up hours later usually feeling a tad better. But it took me weeks to get back to 100%. Meniere's sucks.

[Dennis S]

The first time it happened was immediately after a big sneeze. I don’t know if it was a coincidence or not. I’m seeing my nurse practitioner niece Tuesday.

RgrF, what is life threatening about it?

[Will Collier]

Dennis S wrote:
I’ve been nearly falling aces months, but my reflexes have been good enough to catch myself. The last two nights I have had the classic spinning in the head. It’s really a weird feeling. I anticipate little help from doctors; that’s been the MO for the quite awhile.

Check in with an ENT doc. I had a couple of vertigo spells a while back that turned out to be symptoms of a garden-variety sinus infection. Cleared right up with a round of mild antibiotics.

[JoeM]

I have had it off and on since I was rear ended back in 94. Currently having it again. After months of tests, rehab, physical manipulation by dentists and prodding exams I had diagnoses of TMJ, damage to my ear, dislocated jaw and a number of cervical injuries and issues. But never any treatment that resolved anything. I began having ear clogging a number of years ago as well as the dizziness and slight nausea. Exams by an ENT and XRays of my sinuses showed nothing wrong.

Diana mentioned the Epley maneuver and that has helped me along with head trauma rehab. YouTube has videos showing how to perform the Epley maneuver and it is really easy to try. I would also have your neck checked out. I believe my problems now are coming from crystals in the ear, which the Epley maneuver can help, and the worsening of my cervical issues.

Hope you get some relief.

[graylocks]

bazookaman wrote:

Haha. Thats not necessarily true. I haven't had a single doctor give me a concrete list of the symptoms or non-symptoms of Menieres. I WISH they would... Meniere's sucks.

Meniere's is diagnosed by exclusion. They rule out everything else that could be causing the symptoms of vertigo, pressure in the ear, tinnitus, and loss of hearing and if none of those causes pan out it's oh, you have Menieres. They can diagnose by autopsy but that's a bit extreme.

glad meclizine works for you. nothing would stop my vertigo attacks except letting it exhaust itself. could last anywhere from two minutes to 10 hours. i'm pretty much in remission though i avoid any situation that could trigger me like amusement park rides or even glancing at the movement of some of my son's video games. haven't had a vertigo attack in 18 years. recently got a hearing aid for my left ear.

yeah, Menieres sucks.

[NewtonMP2100]

[mrbigstuff]

I get it every once in a while and like you all I also ran the gamut of tests 25 years ago. I attribute it to neck and back problems a few years before that first episode. When I travel in an elevator, I can get a rather bad occurrence by just letting the elevator do its normal thing. I have to stand on my toes in an elevator.

[bazookaman]

graylocks wrote:
[quote=bazookaman]

Haha. Thats not necessarily true. I haven't had a single doctor give me a concrete list of the symptoms or non-symptoms of Menieres. I WISH they would... Meniere's sucks.

Meniere's is diagnosed by exclusion. They rule out everything else that could be causing the symptoms of vertigo, pressure in the ear, tinnitus, and loss of hearing and if none of those causes pan out it's oh, you have Menieres. They can diagnose by autopsy but that's a bit extreme.

glad meclizine works for you. nothing would stop my vertigo attacks except letting it exhaust itself. could last anywhere from two minutes to 10 hours. i'm pretty much in remission though i avoid any situation that could trigger me like amusement park rides or even glancing at the movement of some of my son's video games. haven't had a vertigo attack in 18 years. recently got a hearing aid for my left ear.

yeah, Menieres sucks.
Ah. That was what I was trying to think of. Diagnosis of exclusion. He still seemed puzzled that I had vertigo but not tinnitus. Or that I didn't have hearing loss. So he kind of just threw up his hands and said I had Menieres. I don't have a trigger unfortunately (that I know of). I eat a low salt diet. I'm on high blood pressure medicine now too. I just wake up some days and boom, there it is.

The problem was I only JUST discovered Meclizine worked. I went through years of it just laying me out for several hours. I would just lie in bed hoping to fall asleep as the room spinned around me and I felt like throwing up. Thankfully they were few and far between. I guess the good thing is that I don't have THOSE kinds of attacks anymore. The doc says it's b/c the nerves were probably destroyed in my ear. Ha! Good news indeed.