calculon000
01-13-2006, 02:18 AM
I am a 19 year old male living in Canada, this is my story with chronic vertigo.
My birthday is in September, 1986.
1997: It is the third day of summer break, I am 10 years old, life is good with the start of summer break.
I had a habit of blowing my nose HARD into Kleenex throughout elementary school. That's something I regret to this day. :( This day I blew my nose hard into Kleenex, as usual, and my right ear popped. The world started spinning. Spinning in a way as if the axis of rotation were straight ahead where I look forward. It was weird at first for a couple minutes. I went into the bathroom, it didn’t stop, I went upstairs, it didn’t stop, I tried to lay in my bed, it didn’t stop. I start screaming "make it stop, make it stop!", as I was 10 at the time and this was incredibly scary and to be honest, torturous. My parent's bed was a waterbed, so I laid in there, and the movement that the waves in the waterbed that I could make seemed to "distract" me from the spinning somewhat. This was the first day of the worst week of my life. My parents brought the TV into their room and they slept in my bed, as it was queen sized. Every day I would wake up and the world would spin for no reason. I wanted it to stop so badly, but it wouldn't. I took antibiotics, as it turned out to be an ear infection. After about a week, it got a little better, my dad moved the TV out of their bedroom, and I was able to finally leave the room and walk around the house without feeling so horrible. I would still feel dizzy some of the time, but never as bad as that week of hell. I think I lost 10-15 pounds from not eating during that week. I took Gravol sometimes to help me with the dizziness, but it never seemed to fully go away ever.
The summer of 1997:
I visited the place of an old family friend and their son for about a week, and had several dizzy spells there, and wondered if I was ever going to be able to experience life again without feeling dizzy.
My dad took me to a theme park, which helped me with not fearing the feeling of nausea or anything that would induce it. I went on a few rides that induce nausea, such as the roller coaster or that wheel that spins while you are strapped in standing up and look toward the center while it spins. I noticed that after a few rides I would get this funny feeling like I was drowsy and any more rides made me more nauseous. I decided not to ride the rides any more. That night, when I tried to go to sleep, all I could think about was the rides I went on and how it felt to spin, move, ect. I couldn't get to sleep for the longest time because it kept prompting me to open my eyes and look at the stillness of the room to make the sensation stop.
My worst fear became waking up one day and having the world spin fast and not being able to do anything about it. In a movie or TV show where all the characters experience their worst fear, that's what would happen to me. Just being dizzy and/or nauseous became a pretty big fear as well.
Over the years, I had spells of depression because of my dizziness and would sometimes contemplate suicide, as the prospect of ever living without dizziness became more and more hopeless. I would often think that the people on TV, and all around me, never had to experience this, I could never lead a normal life with this problem, and I felt like the only person in the world who had this incurable, tortuous condition that didn’t even offer death as an escape. I once nearly committed suicide once in a spell of dizziness and depression, but couldn't go through with it, and no one found out. Normal teen emotional angst may have played a lesser factor in the periods of depression as well.
A few years later:
I tried to look into doing something about the dizziness that was, quite frankly, controlling my life. I would do just about anything to make it stop. I was finally able to see an ear, nose, and throat doctor. He told me that he had the same condition as a child and it would pass eventually, he gave my some tips like staring at a distant point on the horizon if I felt a dizzy spell coming on. I gave up any hope of being free from this dizziness and tried to cope with it as best I could. I had been to a doctor now and told me nothing that gave me any prospect of being able to live without my spells of vertigo.
2000-2005:
My spells of dizziness became less pronounced, and while I wasn't 100% all the times, I was able to, for the first time, live my life and actually not have to think about being dizzy. It started to lose it's grip on my life. I had given up all hope of being cured of it long ago, and so I learned to cope with it and not let it control my life, even through I still had my fears of being uncontrollably dizzy. I think the worst thing for me about a dizzy spell is that I'm completely helpless to stop it, no matter what I do, it's always there. Every time I have a dizzy spell, I tense up, and become filled with fear that my worst fear is coming to pass or that it will never subside, even though it does every time.
In July 2004, I drank alcohol for the first time at age 17 with my friends. (The Age of Majority in Alberta is 18). I knew that being drunk included dizziness, and so was afraid that I would become dizzy. When I was drunk, however, I found that although I was dizzy, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and I didn’t care because I felt so good. I don’t like to drink very much to this day, and when I go to the pub with my friends, you will usually find me drinking coke because I just don’t feel like drinking alcohol. This is probably mostly due to the fact that I don’t like being dizzy and you get free refills for soda in bars.
December 20, 2005 - January 12, 2005:
I work at a fast food place, and they are very understaffed and it's rather stressful and tiring to work there. In the past 2 weeks, I've been having dizzy spells that were more frequent than normal and getting worse in intensity, which I attributed to stress, as I am more dizzy when stressed or tired. I was feeling especially sick on Christmas day, which was a bummer. I woke up on Jan 7 and as I rose from bed the world became all shifty. I was feeling sick and couldn’t do anything but try to cope with it all day, which fortunately, it was a day off. The next day I had to work, but was so sick they actually let me go home early at 6pm. My shift is always 3PM-11PM, and they had to call someone in to work from 6PM-11PM who had to work at 3AM the next day because they were so understaffed and couldn’t close early anymore because they had gotten in trouble with that before. I went to see the doctor the next day and he took one look in my right ear and knew I had an ear infection. The fact that this is the same ear that was infected when I was 10 leads me to believe that in addition to my brain coping to ignore signals from my right inner ear, that the damage didn’t completely screw it up as it was still receiving signals from it. I was put on antibiotics for a week and was too sick to work. For some reason, they gave me Jan 9 and 10 off in the schedule, and I missed Jan 11 and 12 at work. Jan 12th was the worst of the infection in terms of dizziness and I felt almost as bad as I did back in that week of hell when I was 10. I guess coping with dizziness for so long made me more tolerant of it somewhat. My emotional state was a lot better than it would have been since I knew that this dizziness was temporary, and not something I had to live with for more than a few days. Today I feel much better, only at the level of one of the dizzy spells I used to have when I was younger. Tomorrow I will return to work if I am feeling better.
While I had given up on ever finding a cure or treatment for my vertigo long ago, this infection prompted me to look it up on the internet out of desperation. (While I had the internet in my house when I was 10, I am a lot more internet savvy now. A picture of my room is below.*) I found out that other people suffer from chronic vertigo and that there is something that can be done about it. If I am still dizzy after my medication is finished, and I don’t see why I wouldn’t feel like I did before this recent infection, I will pursue getting diagnosed and treated for my dizziness. Knowing that there are other people that have suffered from chronic vertigo, and knowing there is actually a physical cause to it and something that can be done, has made me feel like I have the largest weight lifted from my mind and emotional state. Something I have suffered from for almost half of life can finally be dealt with. Before now, it was this problem that I had to live with, and was controlling my life. Now that I’ve discovered other people are going through the same thing I am, it’s given it so much perspective. As I type this, this is the best day of my life. If I can be cured, then that will officially be the best day of my life. Ever.
So I have been living with this problem since age 10, and for 8.5 years, as I am 19 years old. So if you lose hope with your vertigo, know that if I can live with it for so long and from such an early age, you can live through it too. I know how you feel when it seems hopeless and you just want to die to make it stop. :(
Don’t lose hope, it is the best tool to cope with it. :)
My birthday is in September, 1986.
1997: It is the third day of summer break, I am 10 years old, life is good with the start of summer break.
I had a habit of blowing my nose HARD into Kleenex throughout elementary school. That's something I regret to this day. :( This day I blew my nose hard into Kleenex, as usual, and my right ear popped. The world started spinning. Spinning in a way as if the axis of rotation were straight ahead where I look forward. It was weird at first for a couple minutes. I went into the bathroom, it didn’t stop, I went upstairs, it didn’t stop, I tried to lay in my bed, it didn’t stop. I start screaming "make it stop, make it stop!", as I was 10 at the time and this was incredibly scary and to be honest, torturous. My parent's bed was a waterbed, so I laid in there, and the movement that the waves in the waterbed that I could make seemed to "distract" me from the spinning somewhat. This was the first day of the worst week of my life. My parents brought the TV into their room and they slept in my bed, as it was queen sized. Every day I would wake up and the world would spin for no reason. I wanted it to stop so badly, but it wouldn't. I took antibiotics, as it turned out to be an ear infection. After about a week, it got a little better, my dad moved the TV out of their bedroom, and I was able to finally leave the room and walk around the house without feeling so horrible. I would still feel dizzy some of the time, but never as bad as that week of hell. I think I lost 10-15 pounds from not eating during that week. I took Gravol sometimes to help me with the dizziness, but it never seemed to fully go away ever.
The summer of 1997:
I visited the place of an old family friend and their son for about a week, and had several dizzy spells there, and wondered if I was ever going to be able to experience life again without feeling dizzy.
My dad took me to a theme park, which helped me with not fearing the feeling of nausea or anything that would induce it. I went on a few rides that induce nausea, such as the roller coaster or that wheel that spins while you are strapped in standing up and look toward the center while it spins. I noticed that after a few rides I would get this funny feeling like I was drowsy and any more rides made me more nauseous. I decided not to ride the rides any more. That night, when I tried to go to sleep, all I could think about was the rides I went on and how it felt to spin, move, ect. I couldn't get to sleep for the longest time because it kept prompting me to open my eyes and look at the stillness of the room to make the sensation stop.
My worst fear became waking up one day and having the world spin fast and not being able to do anything about it. In a movie or TV show where all the characters experience their worst fear, that's what would happen to me. Just being dizzy and/or nauseous became a pretty big fear as well.
Over the years, I had spells of depression because of my dizziness and would sometimes contemplate suicide, as the prospect of ever living without dizziness became more and more hopeless. I would often think that the people on TV, and all around me, never had to experience this, I could never lead a normal life with this problem, and I felt like the only person in the world who had this incurable, tortuous condition that didn’t even offer death as an escape. I once nearly committed suicide once in a spell of dizziness and depression, but couldn't go through with it, and no one found out. Normal teen emotional angst may have played a lesser factor in the periods of depression as well.
A few years later:
I tried to look into doing something about the dizziness that was, quite frankly, controlling my life. I would do just about anything to make it stop. I was finally able to see an ear, nose, and throat doctor. He told me that he had the same condition as a child and it would pass eventually, he gave my some tips like staring at a distant point on the horizon if I felt a dizzy spell coming on. I gave up any hope of being free from this dizziness and tried to cope with it as best I could. I had been to a doctor now and told me nothing that gave me any prospect of being able to live without my spells of vertigo.
2000-2005:
My spells of dizziness became less pronounced, and while I wasn't 100% all the times, I was able to, for the first time, live my life and actually not have to think about being dizzy. It started to lose it's grip on my life. I had given up all hope of being cured of it long ago, and so I learned to cope with it and not let it control my life, even through I still had my fears of being uncontrollably dizzy. I think the worst thing for me about a dizzy spell is that I'm completely helpless to stop it, no matter what I do, it's always there. Every time I have a dizzy spell, I tense up, and become filled with fear that my worst fear is coming to pass or that it will never subside, even though it does every time.
In July 2004, I drank alcohol for the first time at age 17 with my friends. (The Age of Majority in Alberta is 18). I knew that being drunk included dizziness, and so was afraid that I would become dizzy. When I was drunk, however, I found that although I was dizzy, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and I didn’t care because I felt so good. I don’t like to drink very much to this day, and when I go to the pub with my friends, you will usually find me drinking coke because I just don’t feel like drinking alcohol. This is probably mostly due to the fact that I don’t like being dizzy and you get free refills for soda in bars.
December 20, 2005 - January 12, 2005:
I work at a fast food place, and they are very understaffed and it's rather stressful and tiring to work there. In the past 2 weeks, I've been having dizzy spells that were more frequent than normal and getting worse in intensity, which I attributed to stress, as I am more dizzy when stressed or tired. I was feeling especially sick on Christmas day, which was a bummer. I woke up on Jan 7 and as I rose from bed the world became all shifty. I was feeling sick and couldn’t do anything but try to cope with it all day, which fortunately, it was a day off. The next day I had to work, but was so sick they actually let me go home early at 6pm. My shift is always 3PM-11PM, and they had to call someone in to work from 6PM-11PM who had to work at 3AM the next day because they were so understaffed and couldn’t close early anymore because they had gotten in trouble with that before. I went to see the doctor the next day and he took one look in my right ear and knew I had an ear infection. The fact that this is the same ear that was infected when I was 10 leads me to believe that in addition to my brain coping to ignore signals from my right inner ear, that the damage didn’t completely screw it up as it was still receiving signals from it. I was put on antibiotics for a week and was too sick to work. For some reason, they gave me Jan 9 and 10 off in the schedule, and I missed Jan 11 and 12 at work. Jan 12th was the worst of the infection in terms of dizziness and I felt almost as bad as I did back in that week of hell when I was 10. I guess coping with dizziness for so long made me more tolerant of it somewhat. My emotional state was a lot better than it would have been since I knew that this dizziness was temporary, and not something I had to live with for more than a few days. Today I feel much better, only at the level of one of the dizzy spells I used to have when I was younger. Tomorrow I will return to work if I am feeling better.
While I had given up on ever finding a cure or treatment for my vertigo long ago, this infection prompted me to look it up on the internet out of desperation. (While I had the internet in my house when I was 10, I am a lot more internet savvy now. A picture of my room is below.*) I found out that other people suffer from chronic vertigo and that there is something that can be done about it. If I am still dizzy after my medication is finished, and I don’t see why I wouldn’t feel like I did before this recent infection, I will pursue getting diagnosed and treated for my dizziness. Knowing that there are other people that have suffered from chronic vertigo, and knowing there is actually a physical cause to it and something that can be done, has made me feel like I have the largest weight lifted from my mind and emotional state. Something I have suffered from for almost half of life can finally be dealt with. Before now, it was this problem that I had to live with, and was controlling my life. Now that I’ve discovered other people are going through the same thing I am, it’s given it so much perspective. As I type this, this is the best day of my life. If I can be cured, then that will officially be the best day of my life. Ever.
So I have been living with this problem since age 10, and for 8.5 years, as I am 19 years old. So if you lose hope with your vertigo, know that if I can live with it for so long and from such an early age, you can live through it too. I know how you feel when it seems hopeless and you just want to die to make it stop. :(
Don’t lose hope, it is the best tool to cope with it. :)