After weeks of suffering an upper respiratory infection which evolved to some bronchitis trouble, with relentless night coughing(even as I'm don't smoke), I finally went back to where I was... In my daily struggle with vertigo.

This past illness made me sure that there is some "emergency" brain mechanism which cancels out the dizziness, either in extreme situations, or in the presence of a stronger illness and/or symptom.

For whatever the reason even as I literally couldn't talk, I was, most of the time, no dizzy at all, and I can tell that because of three things(which are indications of my long lasting dizziness) that went away during this last horrible respiratory infection:

1. Visual symptoms: mainly oscillating or jumping visuals, sometimes alone sometimes with dizziness associated. Sometimes light sensitivity and dizziness from some colored leds, neon lights or busy visual environments

2, Mild to moderate unsteadiness and increased motion sensitivity/sickness: Not enough to put me into bed(knock on wood) and nothing that won't let me drive or work, but bothersome enough specially with poor light, some LCD screens, and with relative body(or head) movement, specially while sitting at the table or computer, and sometimes standing up or walking.
Curiously enough, it recedes while driving, but a sudden start and stop can give me a "quick hit", this is also true sometimes for walking/running, where I can be completely normal walking, and when I suddenly stop, or sit down, I feel ill.

3. Little spin or sick bursts: where I feel dizzy in seconds either from a quick(seconds) spinning sensation, or with a "rock the boat", much like motion sickness out of a Six Flags ride, sensation.

All of this mixed in a perennial state of nose and ear clogging, which feels like a constant flu, minus the flu itself, meaning I don't drool mucous or liquid from my nose, I rather feel constipated.

I cant tell the dizzies are back, even in my hip(sitting) or feet(standing), where I perceive false motion signals from those spots, mainly I feel that the floor or the chair moves, when they are really still.

I believe that stress awakened a MAV condition which de-compensated that old Nov 04 vestibular injury, which also gets bumped by this allergic flu like condition.

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to take Stresstabs, as a first, much general approach to stress, MAV, and flu prevention(with the C vitamin included), to see what happens.

I'm waiting for a referral to an allergies specialist, to get that other condition under control, and to start again, as soon as possible, a daily walking workout with some VRT exercises, to see if they help me to nail this thing once and for all.

I'll keep you posted for any improvement or noticeable change in my condition.

Cheers to all.

sorry to hear you are still dealing with this. i wish you all the best with your routine to get back to where you were. what MAV prevention will you be incorporating, if you don't mind my asking? is that what happened the first time around? it's crazy how it "cancelled" out the dizziness....very strange. hopefully your new routine will cancel it out for good without any cold!!!:) best of luck!

Hi Alexi.

Well I'm going to try with B-complex vitamins, where B-2 is known for helping on Migraine matters.

I choose to do this because I have a past history of migraine in my teens, and an "off" rather than "dizzy" episode which lasted months, where I blamed High blood pressure, for feeling foggy, brain like in cotton, mildly dizzy(no spins), visual symptoms like lack of focus and weird vision(no jumping or oscillating like now), and a little off balance.

My BP was in the 90-140 range, at most, so, just to be sure, and to lower down some occasional elevated heart rate(mostly due to anxiety), they prescribed me a beta-blocker(cousin of propanolol), a quarter of a pill, exercise and a normal life. After some time of this symptoms receded.

Obviously I was monitoring closely my pressure and I noticed that my symptoms didn't necessarily coincide with high or low BP, so after a while I deduced that BP wasn't really the cause and I was mole likely treated for anxiety...

Well the point is that even as Anxiety itself can cause this, Migraine can be triggered with stress, and as a matter of fact, without being aware of it, I actually got a Migraine prevention treatment, which in the end I think worked.

Now, by my own deduction I truly believe I have the MAV-VN combination, where my almost completely compensated vestibular injury of 2004, got tampered by a MAV episode, which most likely started on Jan 2006, and which with ups and downs is still present.

This, I believe, caused that some vestibular symptoms returned and some new appeared, like the oscillating visuals, added with all the beauties of migraine: off feeling, weird vision, light sensitivity, etc., just without the headaches(thank God).

Add my constant allergies, which can affect both "pure" vestibular issues, and also MAV, well thats my daily hell.

As my neurotologyst didn't put much weight on MAV, I decided to give it a shot with something mostly harmless(vitamins), because my past migraine issues were most related to stress than to food triggers.

I've been tested for all with only a right ear dysfunction detected, with no hearing loss associated, and as I actually feel, in a much overall sense, better than last year, I almost discarded a progressive disease like Meniere's, MS or similar.

I any case I should get my allergies, and hopefully the MIgraine factor under control to see, if that doesn't work, I might have something else, but since my Neurotologyst blamed my sinus condition for my failure to compensate, it would be useless to go now, because I'll get the same answer, and because here weeks or months can past between appointments(Social Security), I just have to give myself a hand in some other ways(like this), to see what happens.

Hi Stargrave

Sorry to hear that like me you are still battling with this weird thing.

What you have just written, I could have written myself. I have said in the past that your symptoms have been so similar to mine and you have had it for the same amount of time as me.

At present I have similar symptoms to you and this year have suffered from hayfever which I have never ever had before. This caused a relapse when I had to take two months off work. At the moment I think I am suffering from some type of allergy or maybe I have a slight cold but have had a return of symptoms over the last couple of weeks. Like you, I am still going about my daily business but when is this ever going to end?

I walk a lot, I eat good food but nothing seems to get rid of it completely. It is always there and I feel the same sensations that you do i.e. sitting on a chair and it feels like it moves and getting short 'attacks' where I feel like I am spinning and my balance completely goes for a few minutes. I also feel really ill when this happens and get very frightened. I also get short attacks when I am walking and turn a corner or when going from windy conditions to calm.

Also, your claim that a flu virus or something stronger cancels out the dizzies is very interesting. I totally agree with you. I have said this on many occassions! I have asthma and when suffering from asthma attacks my dizziness and balance are brilliant. I always say I never suffer everything at once. Strange but true!

Be interesting to know how you get on.

Mac2

Yeah Mac is a bummer...

And now that you mentioned, adding to similarities, coupled with the dizzy ride, my actual, almost perennial state is that of a flu like one, without the flu... I feel constipated, sore, mildly ill, but no real fever, infection or actual flu, so I blame allergies for this.

I know this because I did get flu, because of some local epidemic, and it got me even to bronchitis, where, as you mentioned too, for some unknown reason(thank God), the horrible coughing and symptoms pretty much "cancelled" dizziness, where as I did feel like hell, my feet, my stance, and my sitting were, beautiful normal. As I've said to a friend, I know I'm not dizzy the moment I forget off my feet(and my hip while sitting).

The point is that it could take weeks to get my next neurotologyst appointment, and If i get there with my actual allergic state, they will blame it all on it, like they did last time, and maybe it's true so I do have to get that under control.

And on the side of MAV, as a migraneur which has always been motion sensitive, I know how Migraine feels, because I've felt this way before, and due to the results of that "Involuntary" MAV prevention treatment which helped me with that old "off" feeling, before, and I think this is messing with whatever vestibular injury I got on 2004, giving me all of our present shared symptoms. So I don't think it hurts giving it a try on B vitamins to see what happens.

As a matter of fact I reached this board in 2004, but since my ENT told me BPPV, and the general VRT worked fine then, I didn't relate what I've read on people having 24/7 dizziness, because that was not my case, I only got some periodical positional spinning relapses which weren't even 5 during 2005. So that's why I didn't sign up back then.

Not until Jan 2006 I did started with this hellish daily and long lasting ride of symptoms, with all the visual, unsteadiness, and the rest of our familiar daily demons, came to life.

Hi Stargrave

Just a point, I too started this is in Nov 2004 which is why I always relate to your case! Of course it took me a while to sign up to the board, just stayed in the wings plucking up courage!

I have never been a migraneur but I know what you mean about always feeling ill, not really really ill but something that is niggling away all the time, always feeling lethargic.

At the moment I feel weird sensations inside my head. I have episodes of dizziness and loss of balance and I feel like I am going to die. But, it passes after a couple of hours. In between these episodes I sometimes get a weird feeling in my head, mostly on top of my scalp, not a headache just a weird feeling. I can also feel crackling in the back of my head, not all of the time but it is worrying.

Three years of this junk and still battling on. I must say though that I have had lots of really good periods but I can feel myself getting worse again and sometimes you just want to give up.

It just really gets me down at times.

Mac2

Hi Alexi.

Well I'm going to try with B-complex vitamins, where B-2 is known for helping on Migraine matters.

I choose to do this because I have a past history of migraine in my teens, and an "off" rather than "dizzy" episode which lasted months, where I blamed High blood pressure, for feeling foggy, brain like in cotton, mildly dizzy(no spins), visual symptoms like lack of focus and weird vision(no jumping or oscillating like now), and a little off balance.

My BP was in the 90-140 range, at most, so, just to be sure, and to lower down some occasional elevated heart rate(mostly due to anxiety), they prescribed me a beta-blocker(cousin of propanolol), a quarter of a pill, exercise and a normal life. After some time of this symptoms receded.

Obviously I was monitoring closely my pressure and I noticed that my symptoms didn't necessarily coincide with high or low BP, so after a while I deduced that BP wasn't really the cause and I was mole likely treated for anxiety...

Well the point is that even as Anxiety itself can cause this, Migraine can be triggered with stress, and as a matter of fact, without being aware of it, I actually got a Migraine prevention treatment, which in the end I think worked.

Now, by my own deduction I truly believe I have the MAV-VN combination, where my almost completely compensated vestibular injury of 2004, got tampered by a MAV episode, which most likely started on Jan 2006, and which with ups and downs is still present.

This, I believe, caused that some vestibular symptoms returned and some new appeared, like the oscillating visuals, added with all the beauties of migraine: off feeling, weird vision, light sensitivity, etc., just without the headaches(thank God).

Add my constant allergies, which can affect both "pure" vestibular issues, and also MAV, well thats my daily hell.

As my neurotologyst didn't put much weight on MAV, I decided to give it a shot with something mostly harmless(vitamins), because my past migraine issues were most related to stress than to food triggers.

I've been tested for all with only a right ear dysfunction detected, with no hearing loss associated, and as I actually feel, in a much overall sense, better than last year, I almost discarded a progressive disease like Meniere's, MS or similar.

I any case I should get my allergies, and hopefully the MIgraine factor under control to see, if that doesn't work, I might have something else, but since my Neurotologyst blamed my sinus condition for my failure to compensate, it would be useless to go now, because I'll get the same answer, and because here weeks or months can past between appointments(Social Security), I just have to give myself a hand in some other ways(like this), to see what happens.

thanks for answering stargrave! i am so sorry you are having to deal with this junk again! do you feel like if you went back on the beta-blockers now that it wouldn't help you again? i'm just curious because my doc yesterday talked about giving me those for my suggested MAV. i agree though...in my case..i dont think it's foods at all that cause any of this--or so i haven't noticed---but rather stress. all this junk started for me at a very stressful time---and things have just spun out of control since then. i also have some allergy issues right now, and was just diagnosed with some asthma related symptoms. i hate that it will take you that long to see a doc again...i feel your pain...i basically had to kill someone to get my appt moved up :rolleyes:

anyway....do you know if MAV can cause the oscillating vision?? i asked the doc yesterday and he said yes. it just blows my mind that this could stay like this from something triggering it in your head...ya know? i also think i do have some form of VN or labs...but won't have the testing done until they call me back to schedule them...so we'll go from there.

i will definitely in the mean time be picking up some b-2... do you know how much to take per day?? did you like the beta-blockers or were there bad side effects?
thanks again---wishing you well and a great week

Mac:

Yes it's been a tough ride, specially because there is no one who can give you a straight point. My neurotologyst, which I saw on February 2006, told me that, because of my degree of compensation, this episode should resolve in 3 months more less, with some VRT, and now more than a year later I'm still with this...

Adding to our similarities, that weird feeling in your head, like if the dizziness is connected with something like a plate on jelly inside, I've experienced it too.

Even as you're not a migraneur, most of the actual symptoms of this junk are "neurological", because the extra work of the brain trying to compensate for the new false signals, dealing with them, can cause all sort of weird symptoms, as it's readjusting all calculations from what your body learned as a child to the new set of signals. Add the stress, and anxiety that could tamper this process, and welcome to hell.

And I'm also with you, as many people here, in the sometimes devastating down feeling of this junk, specially after some good days, when you got a new decomp, even as it might be milder than a year after, it feels ten time worse. But we have nothing more to keep on going trying to reach the light at the end of the Tunnel.

Alexi:

I don't know if I get to beta-blockers will help me out, it might, but those kind of drugs aren't something that you just go on and take without medical supervision, not just because all the probable side effects, but just to take the exact amount of it for your personal needs.

What I'm suggesting is that my "High BP treatment" might have helped in what I believe was more a case of MAV than of High Blood pressure, the thing is that back then I've never imagined that something like MAV even existed.

So if MAV turns out to be the problem I don't loose anything trying a more risk free approach with B vitamins which also can help to my daily stress. Unfortunately as I wouldn't know the amount of a beta-blocker needed for MAV treatment in my specific case, I don't know how much B-2 is needed or recommended, so I decided to start with the most general approach(a multi-b supplement) that is taken once a day, and see what happens with that.

All this until I get my allergies specialist appointment, and return to a daily walking workout and some VRT to see if all that helps me somehow.

On MAV causing oscillating vision, I think we should ask hbep, but I'd think not, as I believe this was a symptomatic proof of my uncompensated vestibular injury, triggered by MAV, rather than a MAV manifestation by itself, but I'm not 100% sure after what yur doc told you.


Hope we can get some answers