Again, vertigo

In the past few days, I've noticed that I've suffered from dizziness much more than normal. I should qualify that statement: normally I don't suffer from dizziness at all, but if I am sitting down and get up quickly, I feel a bit light-headed. This is normal! As I had a doctor's appointment yesterday for something else (an odd pain in my foot), I thought that I would mention the dizziness.

The doctor asked me to sit on the examining bed; he took my head in his hands and said that he wanted me to quickly lower my head until it rested on the bed. I did so and suffered immediately from a severe attack of dizziness. "Aha", the doctor said (or would have, had he been British): this is a clear case of vertigo.

I told him about my previous encounter with vertigo and the tests that I underwent. He said that there was no need for the ENG test again; instead he would prescribe a medication (that apparently is not very effective), but that the best way of curing the vertigo was by performing the Epley manoeuver. He asked for my phone then searched for this term in YouTube, finding a couple of videos that explain what to do.

The home Epley maneuver is a type of exercise that helps to treat the symptoms of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). You can do this exercise at home. BPPV is caused by a problem in your inner ear. Your semicircular canals are found inside your ear. They detect motion and send this information to your brain. The utricle is a nearby part of the ear. It contains calcium crystals (canaliths) that help it detect movement. Sometimes these crystals detach from the utricle and end up inside the semicircular canals. When these crystals move inside the canals, they may send incorrect signals to your brain about your position. This can make you feel like the world is spinning. This is called vertigo. Dr. John Epley designed a series of movements to dislodge the crystals from the semicircular canals. These movements bring the crystals back to the utricle, where they belong. This treats the symptoms of vertigo. [whoever wrote this has apparently never heard of the semicolon; this is very simple English]

So yesterday evening I laid down on my bed, trying to approximate the position shown in the video. I was turned to the right, but had no vertigo when lying down. I then turned 90° to my left; this gave me intense vertigo, and shows that the 'active' ear is my left ear (rereading my blog from seven years ago, I see that there also I noted that the left ear was more sensitive than the right; I also hear better in the left ear). I waited until the dizziness went, then turned back to the original position; more dizziness. I waited again until this passed and then assumed the third position, lying on my stomach with my head turned. I don't recall now, but I think that this wasn't so bad as the two previous turns. After waiting a bit, I got up and carried on as usual, although I was feeling a bit nauseous and fragile - normal responses to the manoever. 

This morning I repeated the manouever but felt no dizziness as I turned: this is good! I did feel a bit unsettled afterwards, but this feeling went fairly quickly. Later on my wife went to the pharmacy and bought the prescribed betahistine; I took one immediately when she returned, and to be honest, it made me feel a bit unsettled again. I will repeat the manouever at least twice a day until all dizziness has ceased.

Obligatory Peter Hammill quote: Cathedrals spiral skywards, I think I'm getting vertigo ("German overalls").

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
32	20/04/2006	Printer ate my fours	Programming
472	20/04/2012	Levon Helm, RIP	Obituary, The Band, RIP
574	20/04/2013	Emerging from the morning mist	Dog
700	20/04/2014	700 blogs	Meta-blogging
701	20/04/2014	Musical progress	MIDI, Song writing
945	20/04/2016	Programmers at work (2)	Kindle
1386	20/04/2021	Yet another new song ("There she goes")	Song writing, Home recording
1495	20/04/2022	Still positive	Health, Covid-19