Friday, December 20, 2013

Just Call Me Dizzy

*ring ring ring ring ring ring*

Hello?

Terese. You know how we were supposed to have lunch today?

Yes......what's up?

Well, I've been trying to get out of bed for two hours now and it's not working. I don't think I will be able to do lunch.

WHAT?

I....I'm so dizzy that I can't hardly even turn my head to the side much less get out of bed.

Let me drop something off at work and I will be right over.

Are you in the car?

Yep. Almost there. I'll text you when I get to the house.

*click*

This is how my day began yesterday.

Seriously.

I had gone to bed the night before feeling fine. I got up once during the night and was able to motor around without issues, but on awakening tried to roll over in bed and felt as though the world's axis had shifted. Whoa, Nellie! I did not know that the universe could spin in all different directions at once.

Is that just bizarre, or what? Turns out it's likely that I have this weirdo inner ear thing: benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. Here's all the nauseatingly accurate details of this condition from the Mayo Clinic website:

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is one of the most common causes of vertigo — the sudden sensation that you're spinning or that the inside of your head is spinning. 
Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo is characterized by brief episodes of mild to intense dizziness. Symptoms of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo are triggered by specific changes in the position of your head, such as tipping your head up or down, and by lying down, turning over or sitting up in bed. You may also feel out of balance when standing or walking.
Yep. That's it in a nutshell, all right. I had my suspicions that I was experiencing this and a call to the advice nurse at my clinic confirmed them. I blabbed away to the nurse with Terese perched on the edge of the bed, who had arrived in an amazingly quick period of time.

I have to commend Terese for not laughing at my predicament.

Well, not too much anyway. She would have had plenty to laugh at because I was not kidding: I had been trying to get upright for two hours and it wasn't pretty. Bed head. Jammies. I'll spare y'all the rest of the details.

Actually she was incredibly sympathetic since she knows firsthand how this all feels. Right, T? Remember the time on the plane and....oh, wait. Even thinking about it makes me feel barfy....

Lulu found the whole thing upsetting. She could sense that I wasn't acting normally and tried to get as close to me as she possibly could. She didn't want to let Terese come upstairs, either, and jumped off the bed to plant herself at the bottom of the stairs while barking madly.

Just like Gandalf

She's still keeping an eye on me. 
The timing on this escapade is not good, what with the holidays fast approaching, but there's not much I can do about it all except lay low, take my meclizine, and follow up with my doctor as advised.

D#2 has had this diagnosis for a couple of years now, poor baby. Girlfriend -- I felt badly for you when you went through it all but, dang. You were right when you said this stuff wasn't fun. 

7 comments:

Betsi said...

Oh, Julia, I feel for you! I've had a few bouts with this, and it's horrid. Do a Google search for the Epley maneuver, it's not the most pleasant thing but it can be very helpful. It's possible you can be feeling "steady" again before Christmas. Good luck!

Betsi said...

Correction, the Epley maneuver is done by a doctor, it's the Brandt-Daroff Exercises you can do yourself at home.

annie said...

Poor Julia,

I've been suffering from this same bppv for a few years now and it's a very unpleasant thing to go through.It just comes on very suddenly and unexpectedly, it could be a wrong or sudden turn of the head and then you can't move for hours or days. I was told that sjogren's could be part of the problem, even if I also have an inner ear problem. Take care.

Shara from Seattle said...

I have experienced this so much, when I lay down at night I feel like the bed is shorter on my side and if I'm not careful, I'll roll out. Its the traveling auto immune roulette. One day month it's carpal tunnel, one month it's bursitis somewhere and then it moves on to that inner ear thing. Now I guess we know how a fish feels flopping around on the ground. Just take your gabapentin. I'd have paid money to watch that. Ho! Ho! Ho!

ShEiLa said...

My hubby has been having neurological issues for over a year... Severe symptoms for 6 months. 2 neurologists and 1 neuro surgeon later... They are sending him to the Cleveland Clinic. Dizzy is awful no matter what causes it.
I hope it doesn't last too long.

cargillwitch said...

so sorry- I've had this on and off for a few years. With the added treat of nausea.It seems to come at times when my parotid glands are swollen more than normal.

Melody said...

The day after Christmas I was shopping with my daughters when a man stumbled and nearly bumped into me. We got into quite a conversation about how we both were having random spells of dizziness called positional something vertigo. Then when I checked my e-mail I read your post about the very same thing. Shara said, "Its the traveling auto immune roulette." Is that really part of this autoimmune ride? I know that it seems like I develop new "things" all the time and the allergies that used to bother me don't so much any more, they're replaced by other weird things. What's coming up next?
Mine at least isn't so bad that I can't get out of bed, I just have random dizziness from picking something up off the floor or when I'm doing yoga and tilt my head a different way - things like that.
The things you learn from this blog! Thank you Julia!

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