Vertigo

Last week, I got sick for a couple of days. A little sniffly, not too bad. Primarily just felt crappy.

On Thursday, I woke up feeling better. Started doing some yoga. Quickly realized that inverting was dangerous. As in, okay, I need to get out of this position, sit on the floor for a while, and try not to throw up.

I had a massage on Thursday afternoon, and I felt better after that. By Friday, I was just feeling lightheaded with occasional bouts of vertigo.

The problem was that I continued to have bouts of vertigo. Not good. Happened primarily when I changed positions, from sitting to standing or standing to sitting, as well as occasionally when I moved around.

We got new insurance this year. I had to establish a new PCP.

Side note: somehow, I got lucky. I stumbled across a good doctor. I’m still kind of in shock about that.

She asked a few questions about the vertigo, then did a procedure. She turned my head to the side and helped me lay down. On the right side, I had a little vertigo. On the left side, whoa. Room spinning.

She told me I have Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV), and pulled up a diagram of inner ear. Turns out, there are little calcium crystals called canaliths that roll around in small tubes and help your body figure out if you’re sitting, lying down, etc.

Sometimes, those little crystals fall out of the tubes they’re supposed to roll around in and end up in another part of the inner. Then they start sending incorrect signals to your brain about your position, which can result in vertigo. Chances are, this is primarily in my left ear.

Fortunately, there are things I can do to help with the vertigo, starting with an Epley Maneuver. I’ll have to do these three times a day until the vertigo passes.

I just did my first one of those. Yeah, that made me really dizzy. Some sites say that’s a good sign, others say that just one maneuver should start elevating  my symptoms. We’ll see how the rest of the day goes.

I hope your day is going well! As I’m not going to be doing as many essays at this point, I’m trying to do a few more blog posts instead.

So tell me what’s going on in your life, what you’re currently working on.