tartantoenails

Hello and greetings from sunny Scotland<br>
I've been reading this board for a while - it's so useful - and I'm hoping that someone out there might be able to shed any light on what has happened to me. It doesn't seem to be half as serious as some of the things that are being talked about, but it's really scaring me and I want everything to be back to normal!

What happened to me:

About 2 and a half years ago I went on a drinking session with my brother. I don't drink much (honest), although sometimes I do have an adverse reaction to drink, even if I only have a little bit. On this occasion I had several glasses of wine on an empty stomach, and the next day I was retching and throwing up really violently for most of the day. I was probably sick 30 times. I tried to drink water to keep myself hydrated but it just came back up. The last time I was sick I brought my head back up and the whole room suddenly started spinning really violently - it was TERRIFYING. This happened a couple of times - whenever I moved my head, and there was a 'fizzy' or numb feeling in my head which is difficult to describe. I assumed it was all part of the reaction to the drink. Then I got up and about the next day and things slowly seemed to get back to normal. But a few days later the spinning started again, when I turned in bed. The crippling dizziness stayed for about a week and I had to stay lying down. My husband is a saint and looked after me brilliantly and helped me to walk to the toilet etc. The dizziness wore off to unsteadiness - I could go to work, but now had this terribly distant and detatched feeling where I kept finding myself staring in to space and it was a real effort to drag myself back in to reality. There was also some tinnitus in both ears and a headache. The docs said it was probably labyrinthitis and would go eventually...which it did. 8 months or so later I was feeling almost 100% again thinking thank God that's over!

Then about 4 months later I went on holiday and a week in to the holiday it all started again! I couldn't believe it! I really thought that something that scary could only be a one-off! The severe diziness started about 6am when I turned in bed but didn't last quite as long as before (couple of hours) but then there was that distant washed out feeling again - like I'd been hit with a massive sledgehammer, or had a huge hangover. We looked at the holiday snaps afterwards and I really look like death warmed up - like I'm 'behind myself' somehow. I racked my brains to think what might have caused this to happen again: drink? I only had 1 small drink the night before with a meal, so I ruled that out. I had been diving into the sea, but couldn't think of anything else. About 4 months later I felt back to normal again. I hadn't missed any work this time because it had happened on holiday, but when I did return to work the 'sledgehammer' feeling affected my confidence and concentration?


Since then I've had 3 more attacks which are less severe in terms of the spinning, but are getting closer together. Sometimes the dizziness wakes me up when I turn over in bed, but when I open my eyes everything is still - as if I have to see things to let my brain know where my head is, and I don't count these as 'attacks' as I seem to be OK the next day. The feeling of being removed from reality is still with me on and off, I also feel like I am on tenterhooks waiting for the next episode of diziness. My work has been very good to me in terms of sick leave, but it takes ages to see a specialist here (7 months) and the one ENT guy I paid to see privately gave me a hearing test which he said was fine, and has referred me to a neurologist and a vestibular guy. He rules out BPPV because of the length of the episodes and the sledgehammer feeling, and says it's probably not Menieres because my hearing is ok.


Does anyone else have any ideas? I thought it might be some kind of ototoxicity but I can't imagine what from? Sorry this has been such a long post...and thanks for listening!