Who Has Vertigo?

Three years ago I had 2 brain aneurysms clamped. I began suffering from silent migraines just before that. When a migraine is coming on, I get the vertigo, see shadows move, see water, and become nauseaous. This is 2 to 3 times a week. Sigh.
 
I thought I had it, but reading your description I'm thinking I don't.

I have a problem with being in 'high' places and getting dizzy. Like when I'm walking across a bridge I have to block my vision so I can't see the ground below or if I'm standing on a bridge or rooftop I can't look down. Otherwise, I get very dizzy. I can't do ladders either.

ETA: I guess what I 'have' is called 'height vertigo'.
 
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I have had veritgo for probably 10 years. The worst part is other people not understanding. We were in Boston the other day, staying on the 8th floor of a hotel. My hub jumps into the elevator car that I am in and I had to tell him that unless he wanted to see me hit the deck, don't do that. And where I work, I have to use the elevator alot. Someday I know I am going to fall because of the verigo and it will be hard to explain to people that I am okay, just a little dizzy. I did mention to my Dr that I thought I had Meniere's disease but she poo-poo'd me. I am thankful for this thread!!
 
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I didn't hear about Meniere's disease until reading posts here on this thread. I have been researching it and I'm learning more and more.

So sorry to hear about everyone's battle with Vertigo. Like you said, people don't understand about Vertigo.
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ok, so as requested, here's my observations and the details on managing the dizzy symptoms. this is long, sorry... I want to give you enough background and detail to make this useful. I usually teach this in person, and it takes 45 minutes or so to cover the material and exercises.

I've taught this technique to hundreds of dancers for manging spins and turns, including spinning while rolling your head in a separately timed circle, or looking alternately up at the ceiling or down at the floor... which are as dizzy-making as it gets. I've taught this to a variety of folks with mild vertigo and two people with debilitating vertigo, so I know it works. but it does take a bit of practice to get good at.

note that ... PRACTICE... is required - you have to build new perception and mental habbits for this to become effective. however I DO know this works. if you have severe vertigo, some of these exercises may sound undoable. start really really small if you need to. the idea is to build your perception and focus, and that can be done a little at a time, don't push the exercise to where you get nauseaus or too dizzy to continue. sneak up on it, a few minutes at a time. you can get as much benefit by doing these exercises for 2 minutes 10 times a day as from doing them 20 minutes straight. work on this a bit every day... it takes time to build these skills and make them natural. of course, the more you practice, the sooner you'll master them. if you don't have acitve vertigo right now, practice anyway, build your skills so you'll have them when you have an attack.

my student with the worst chronic vertigo says it took her most of a year to master these techniques, and that while she still has a backround sense of dizzy, it no longer bothers her, and she no longer tips over, falls down, or is home-bound because she can't navigate.

One important thing to know: your brain is built to filter out some info and pay attention to other info. otherwise the sheer overload of sensory input would overwhelm us all the time. it's like when I lived near a train track - at first, the hourly trains rattling the dishes and sounding their whistles was very demanding, distracting and bothersome. I didn't sleep a full night for the first week I lived there. but within a couple of weeks I stopped noticing the train altogether. visitors would say, "doesn't that train drive you nuts?" and I'd say "... train? oh, I didn't notice" because I'd learned to tune it out altogether.

we have the power to filter out signals that aren't important or we don't want to recieve. that includes internal signals like a disrupted inner ear.

one more thought before I get to exercises. dizzy doesn't have to be unpleasant, and it doesn't have to cause nausea. I remember when I was a kid and i used to spin and spin until I was so dizzy I fell down in the grass and lay there watching the sky and the clouds shift untill the dizzy stopped. then I'd get up and do it again. it was fun. it was a game. it didn't make me green or feel sick. so the nausea and the dizzy are not irrevokably joined. I think (although I can't prove) that we get nausea when we get dizzy because *some* poisons can cause dizziness, so throwing up what we ate that poisoned us would be a good idea... I think there's a built in survival wiring that can cause the nausea and that dizzy-sick connection is stronger in some people than in others. anyway, if you remember spinning to dizzy for fun as a kid, or even if you don't, know that dizzy and sick do NOT have to be tied together.

ok, on to the details.

first you need to understand how your vertical leveling systems work. we have 3 major methods that we use: inner ear, eyes, kinesthetic. inner ear is the predominant method, the one that tends to override the other two. in vertigo, it's usually the inner ear signal that is causing the incorrect sensation of being off-vertical, spinning or dizzy.

your inner ear has a area that is half-filled with fluid, and that area is lined with hairs. when you tip your head from side to side, the fluid shifts position and different hairs are stimulated by the fluid as it shifts. the signal from the nerves attached to the hairs is interpreted by your brain so you know what position your head, and to a degree your body, is in. when you tip your head in one direction, both ears report the same change, so no problem. however when you spin, it causes the fluid to move outward from the center or be generally disturbed, and each ear reports a different thing - your brain interprets that as "dizzy". I think in many cases of vertigo the signals from the inner ear are disrupted in some way so they either report incorrectly (I'm leaning left when that's not true) or disagree with each other (as when you're spinning).

However, you have two other leveling systems you can use - they are what we use when we spin so we don't fall down. normally, inner ear overrides the other systems, but that can be altered with practice. the trick is to learn to use and pay greater attention to the the other leveling systems and "turn down" the volume on the inner ear signal.

so. system number 2 is your eyes. when you look straight ahead, you're able to see the horizontal and vertical shapes in front of you and use that to determine if your head (and your body to a degree) is vertical or not. we can use this to overcome things like seasickness... someone having trouble on a boat is often advised to go up on deck and look hard at the horizon where the sea meets the sky. by focusing their vision and attention on a horizontal line that is stable and not moving it helps to override the inner ear disruption and sensation of motion on the boat. putting your attention and focus on the stable horizon helps convice your brain that you're not moving, and that calms the sensation of dizzy and nausea.

system number 3 is your kinesthetic sensation. this is the pressure and tension on your muscles and joints. when you stand vertically, the pressure is even on your feet, the tension in your muscles is evenly balanced left and right, forward and back, the position and pressure in your joints is consistant with being upright, vertical, centered and balanced. same when you are seated - you muscle and joint feedback to your brain tells it that your body is positioned vertically in your chair. this system allows us to know if we're upright or lying down, leaning or centered, even if we can't see, or have an ear infection. it allows us to lean against a wall, close our eyes and tip our ear to our sholder without flailing and falling down. as dancers, when we spin while rolling our heads, this is the system we have to use, because both our ear and eye systems are disrupted.

with practice, it's possible to use any of these three systems and ignore the others. middle eastern dancers often spin for 20 or 30 turns, some dances require spinning for many consecutive minutes. dervish work involves spinning for 20 to 60 minutes at a time, eyes mostly closed, head tilted to the side... it's all about kinesthetic vertical.

to understand how to access each of the 3 systems as a priority and override the other systems, you need to do some exercises to develop your ability to focus on one system and exclude the others.

a word of caution for those with active current vertigo - do these exercises safely, standing if you can, or brace yourself by putting a hand on a wall or on the back of a substancial chair or a dresser, or while seated if you need to. the trick is to do the exercise and get the perception working, while not falling over... so you may have to experiment a bit if your vertigo is active and severe. some of these exercises may make you *feel* dizzy so brace yourself if you need to. the idea is to work on focusing on the other input available to you and letting the dizzy sensation recede behind that focus.

first exercise: vision. stand (braced or where you can grab on to something if you need to) and center your body, a little space between your feet, head centered and upright, as vertical as you can make yourself. look straight ahead, try to have strong vertical or horizontal objects in your field of view (a door, a table or shelving). notice the vertical and horizontal lines and how they look in your field of view. tip/tilt your head to one side - your inner ear is now going to report you're tilted. look at your reference objects and slowly tilt your head from one side to the other, noticing the change in view and thinking about "tilted to the right, near vertical, vertical, a little left, tilted left a lot". what you're doing is building your conscious awareness of using your vision to detect vertical. speak LOUDLY in your head about your position, or out loud if it helps you to attend to what you're *looking* at. the COMMENTING on position is important because it helps you build focus, and that's a large part of this skill. do NOT pay attention to any dizziness, FOCUS on what you SEE.

same exercise tipping your head forward and back. work on these until you can maintain vertical position without bracing while you do them.

the point here is FOCUS on what you SEE. drive your attention to the vision experience, pay STRONG attention and focus to that. we want to turn up the volume on the visual observation of position.

next exercise: kinesthetic. stand (braced or where you can grab on to something if you need to), centered and upright, feet a little apart. tip your head to one side. now close your eyes. brace if you need to. now pay attention to how your body feels. the pressure on your feet, is it more in the balls or the heels? more on the left or the right? even? the way your knees feel - locked or bent? the way your thigh muscles feel, which ones are working, front or back or both? what do you feel in your hips, your butt, your back, your abs? is your chest positioned over your hips or a little forward or back? are your shoulders forward or backward or centered on your ribcage? is your chin forward over your chest or pulled back into your neck? do a full inventory, keeping your eyes closed. you are now using your kinesthetic leveling system, because both your eyes and ears are not in a position to tell you anything about vertical.

do as you did with the eye exercise - shift your head from side to side, forward and back and NOTICE and talk LOUDLY to yourself or out loud about what you FEEL as you change position. Notice how the weight shifts on your feet, how the muscle tension shifts as you move.

Shift your weight from one foot to the other, or twist your body, or lean slightly forward, slow movements, small if you need to, but all the while NOICING and talking LOUDLY to yourself about what you FEEL. do NOT pay attention to any dizziness, FOCUS on how your muscles and joints FEEL.

again, work on these exercises until you can close your eyes and tip your head, then shift your head position without losing your balance.

next exercise: kinestetic override. start by leaning sideways with your right shoulder against a wall. have a chair or something sturdy handy if you need it to help you balance or for security. eyes open and head in vertical position, shift your weight to the left until you are not leaning against the wall but standing centered over your feet. NOTICE how your muscles/joints feel as you do this. now do the same thing with your eyes closed, using the brace for balance if you need to. do NOT pay attention to any dizziness, FOCUS on how your muscles and joints FEEL. do the same exercise again, this time with your eyes closed and your head tilted slightly to the right (towards the wall). do NOT pay attention to any dizziness, FOCUS on how your muscles/joints FEEL.

do the same exercise with your left shoulder against a wall. then with the back of your shoulders against the wall. then with your forehead against the wall.

the goal here is to be able to go from leaning on the wall to standing vertical using only your kinesthetic system, not your ears or eyes.

next exercise: turning. in a clear safe space with a wall to brace against if needed, turn around once to your right. pay ATTENTION to your musccles as you do, not your ears or eyes. work up to being able to turn half a dozen or a dozen times (this may take a while) but don't do too much at once. don't push untill you get dizzy and nauseaus, stop turning before you get green. this can take weeks to build up to, just depends on your body. same thing with turning left, work up to half a dozen or a dozen turns.

once you're able to get a sequence of turns, go on to this exercise. turn one rotation to the right, eyes closed. get yourself sorted out and on vertical, then open your eyes. brace on the wall if you need to. work on getting 2 or 3 turns each way without needing to brace.

once you're able to do that, go on to this exercise. turn one rotation to the right with your eyes closed and your chin on your chest or your head tilted to one side. brace if you need to. work up to 2 or 3 turns each way without needing to brace.

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so that's the program. if you've got questions or have difficulty with the specific exercises, or something here isn't clear, let me know and I'll be happy to try and help.
 
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One thing that may help is to sleep with an extra pillow, or put a book under the legs at the head of the bed. Meclizine makes me intensely sleepy and spin twice as bad that I was before taking eat. Think about the time you drank waaaay to much and you are spinning and all you want to do is close your eyes. UUGGHHH!!
 
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One thing that may help is to sleep with an extra pillow, or put a book under the legs at the head of the bed. Meclizine makes me intensely sleepy and spin twice as bad that I was before taking eat. Think about the time you drank waaaay to much and you are spinning and all you want to do is close your eyes. UUGGHHH!!

Will try this and see what happens. Thank you.
 
Also inline with what ZZGypsy has posted are these exercises. The Epley and Semont maneuvers and Brandt-Daroff exercises. [/b]NOTE: do not do anyof these with out consulting your Dr. first. Do not start doing the Brandt-Daroff exercises immediately or 2 days after the Epley or Semont maneuver, unless specifically instructed otherwise by your health provider.
 
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I had vertigo type symptoms during June and July. I'm not sure what caused it, but for those 2 months it would come and go as it pleased. I could be just sitting and the room would start to spin. When I was laying down or if I turned over, it would spin. Even if my eyes were shut, the sensation was there. It would happen every now and then when I walked around as well. I would be fine and then just stop and have to hold the wall or onto someone to stay standing. My balance was way off and I was constantly tipping to one side. I was nauseated on and off and had a constant ringing in my ear. I was afraid to take baths because I would lay back and it would happen. It went on to effect my driving, too. Sometimes the spin would happen, but mostly while I was driving the road just became a bit distorted I suppose you could say and I would freak out because I had the sensation that I was driving way too fast around curves even though I wasn't. Everything was just off. Right as I had gotten to a point that I decided to see someone, it stopped. It hasn't happened since and the only thing that I still have is bad balance, occasional tipping, and the ringing ear.
 

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