A big hello and best wishes to all people in here, hope everyone eventually recover completely, and all the love and support, for all of you who share this silent fight, because you're not alone.

Well, I´ll try to be brief sharing my case, and some questions I have, hoping this will be useful for everyone.

About 13 to 15 months ago, in 2004, following a strong cold/sinus infection, and a stressfull week, I woke up and my head was spinning like crazy. Carefully I moved up, and Instantly I noticed that a change on my head's position triggered this strong vertigo. There was no tinnitus(except one that I have permanently from rock concerts), no apparent hear loss, nothing but the vertigo.I went to my general physician, wich gave me Diphenidol, wich had little effect on my condition, which persisted for hours, but eventually dissapeared.

Two days later, same time(up in the morning), vertigo got me again, same conditions, so I went to an Ear specialist, but I took THIETHYLPERAZINE, prescribed by my Phd, to cope with my sympthoms. By the account of facts, the specialist told me I´ve had a case of BPPV, but when he tested me(with that "falling back" manouver, I forgot the name), trying to figure out which ear was damaged, nothing happened, I wasn't dizzy at all.

He blamed the drug, and sent me home to some vestibular rehab, a treatment for my infection, with no furhter use of anti-vertigo drugs. So I started doing that, I felt better every time with no other severe attack, only two mild ones, where I tried MEP and it worked fine, but I've had lots of fear and some unsteadiness after that...

Six months later,with another infection/stress combination, I've had another strong episode(but kind of milder than before), and I came back to the specialst, this time with no antivert drugs on me, so once again the "fall back" test, and once again no results, so this time the told me this could be VN, so back with infection treatment and home rehab.

Well now, I've got taht wining combinationa again(stress/cold/infection), with a milder episode, not quite accute, but continiuous, with litlle spinning vertigo, combined with lightheadiness, and short episodes of a "pull down" sensation, like if I was going to fall(I´ve never falled, fortunately), some trigered by head or body movement, some of them just showed up alone.

I´m going for some tests soon, but I want some extra useful information for my physician, that´s why I'm botherin you and so Finally! Here are the questions:

1. What do you think about my case? BPPV or VN? Or, Could I have both?, or is it something else?

Background:

Previous to this I´ve never experienced an accute vertigo attack, a mild one once, but no more, and it lasted for 20 minutes one evening.
I've experienced accute Migraine, but years have passed since my last episode.
I was involved in a car crash like 8-9 years ago with a whiplash, with some dizziness after it, but no accute vertigo.
And sometimes before that, I've experienced the "falling down" sensation, and some "strobe" like vision, with extra motion sensitivity(but no vertigo), that I´m having again today.

Thanks a bunch!, and greetings from Mexico City to every one, love to all.

Hello,

Just wanted to welcome you to the board as I noticed you haven't got any replies yet. Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on what might be going on. The moving in to a certain position triggering vertigo does sound like BPPV, but then again the recurrence of symptoms after a cold is very typical of a stable peripheral deficit (vestibular neuritis/labyrinthitis.) Of course it is possible to experience both conditions simultaneously and for one to cause the other, so you may have both.

It sounds like you are scheduled in for an ENG test which should highlight whether you have damage to a vestibular nerve which should give you more information.

Another possibility is that this is related to your history of migraine. There is a condition called migraine associated vertigo which can manifest as positional vertigo as well as other types of dizziness and vertigo. As you do have a history of migraine it's worth bearing this condition in mind as it can sometimes be cured with a daily migraine preventative. The fact you haven't had a migraine for years is immaterial - you don't need to have the headaches anymore to get this diagnosis - your migraine pattern can reoccur and change and manifest as dizziness without any headache.

There is an excellent set of film clips accessible in the information archive at the top of this board which gives info on each condition including migraine associated dizziness. I would have a watch of those as they are very helpful.

Sorry I couldn't be more specific, hope this helps and sorry you are suffering with this horrible condition,

best,

Thanks a lot hbep, both for the welcome to the board, and of course for sharing your thoughts and knowledge on my case.

And yes, as most of the people around here know this is an awful condition, and sometimes is a day to day struggle with it.

There is great info in the board on almost every inner ear disorder there is, and the feedback from other users, like you, it's unvaluable really, specially because from I've read here and expereinced by myself, sometimes most of the doctors, mainly your average PHD, are really unaware, don't have enough information, or pay little attention to this terrible condition, and on top of that it's something quite hard to diagnose with 100% accuracy.

Going back to your answer for my post, I want to ask you, or anyone in the board that may know this, It's possible to have this peripheral deficit (vestibular neuritis/labyrinthitis), for years without an accute vertigo/dizziness attack?

I ask this because prior to the accute attack I've described, I've never experienced accute sympthoms. Nevertheless I can tell that some of my actual illness manifestations are not all that new to me, but I've always related them to stress, or my chronic cold condition. But, after reading so much about vestibuar disorders, both in medical references, and in a lot of the cases in here, made me think otherwise.

So here is a list of this recurrent sympthoms, just to check if they're familiar to you as vestibuar disorder ones, or not.

1. "popping ears"(both of them), sometimes with little pain, sometimes painless. I've read on ear pressure, but most of the time no one describes if this felt in one(the affected one) or both ears.
2. A being "pulled down" sensation, sometimes motion related, sometimes not, sometimes felt as if someone "pulled your plug", but I've never fainted.
3. Mild pressure or the feeling like wearing a helmet, specially on the top of the head.
4. "strobe" like adjusments on my sight, like a camera diafragm, specially on a dramatic change in light conditions.
5. "connected dizziness", like if this sensation could be felt clearly in the neck, and one or both ears.

I've never experienced hear loss or a specifically darkness related increase in my condition, I do have dizziness in the dark sometimes, but it doesn't feel all too connected to it, as I've read both in medical info and in posts, so that's why I'm a little confused.

Thanks again for the help, and best wishes to all.

Hello,

Nearly all of the things you describe could be connected to a vestibular disorder - the strobe like vision doesn't fit with VN or BPPV, that is only really consistent with migraine. As I said it is possible that all the things you're experiencing are atypical migraine - namely migraine without headache that only manifests as balance/ear symptoms and potentially in your case, some visual symptoms.

best,

Once again, Thanks a bunch hbep.

Every answer, helps me a lot in undesrtanding what's happening, and it also helps me to built a complete overview for my future evaluations.

So even if I may have to deal for some time with this, and I know how hard is it, at least with a more precise DX, chances of improvement are way better.

I hope my case helps someone else too, best wishes to all, thank hbep.