It does sounds like benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. BPPV is caused by debris collected in the inner ear. They're called otoconia and usually made up of calcium carbonate (a.k.a “ear rocks”
). When we move are heads, the ear rocks rattle around in there sending fake movement signals to the brain. You can have otoconia in one ear and not the other, hence the one-sided symptoms.
I forget I have it till I get another attack of it and the spinning starts; turning over in bed, throwing my head back to laugh, even looking down while reading will set it off. Sometimes it's not spinning but a wave of dizziness that seems to come from nowhere.
I also see things "moving" out the corner of my eye. I thought it had something to do with floaters (even though what I saw moving was often a real object) but my ENT doc said it was the BPPV. The movement I see is the sensation of
me moving, not the object.
If the vertigo doesn't go away by itself (it often does after a few weeks) you might want to see an ear, nose and throat doctor - there are real treatments available (not just anti-nausea pills
) like the canalith repositioning procedure or vestibular physical therapy. There's many different, sometimes subtle, causes of BPPV and treatment depends on a precise diagnosis. Finding a doc who specializes in inner ear disorders would be a good idea.
[url]http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/dizzinessandvertigo.html[/url]
