What Does Your Dizziness Feel Like?

[jenniferelizab]

Struggling with on and off dizziness for 6 months now. Sometimes it goes away and sometimes it's really intense and varies in what it is like:

-The floor feels uneven
-My head feels uneven
-A pang of nausea
-I feel like I am on a boat / swimming
-Everything I am holding + my whole body feels extremely light

Does anyone struggle with this long term with all these variations of it? It never feels like the room is "spinning" though.

Thanks ahead of time,
Jennifer

[gailveronica]

For me, it feels as if my head is full and if I just put a pin in the front of my forehead and let out the pressure, I would feel better. I also get waves of nausea, full ears, overheated, shaky, and my legs feel weak. When it's extreme, the room actually spins (this usually happens upon waking in the middle of the night) and I have to hold onto the bed until the feeling passes, as I cannot walk when an attack like that comes on. Even though I know it's nothing sinister, I still have crazy anxiety that it's going to happen again and again - dizziness/vertigo is no joke; it's debilitating and anyone who manages to function day in and day out, good job, you! :)

[jenniferelizab]

Agh that sounds awful. I don't deal with it to the degree of having to sit down though it makes me want to just lay down when it's happening really bad. I am sorry you're going through that.

How often do you go through bouts?

[jray23]

Mine is an off balance, disequilibrium feeling. Eyes seem slow to react or focus or something. When it's really rough I also get the head/ear pressure (not pain) feeling and a touch of nausea. Ultimately some brain fog on the worst days. Anxiety. No spinning. No actual falling.

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[gailveronica]

Agh that sounds awful. I don't deal with it to the degree of having to sit down though it makes me want to just lay down when it's happening really bad. I am sorry you're going through that.

How often do you go through bouts?

I've learned to live with it - the really bad bouts only happen perhaps 1-2x a year, and very usually precede a bad migraine, so I'm sure it's something to do with that (like my doctors have said!). But mostly it's a daily occurrence, feeling pressure in the head, sensitivity to heat, tingling/trembling, and weakness. I've done vestibular therapy to help as well as taking meclizine when the going gets tough. :)

[Js2019]

Your post describes my life! For the past month I’ve been having vertigo issues as well. I was prescribed meclizine and it didn’t help much. My feelings are like I am rocking on a boat, the floor is moving. Being in place with a lot of people and bright lights make it worse.

[Orias]

I've had pretty much 24/7 dizziness for about 2 years now, it's a bit of a nightmare.

I had a very bad vertigo attack back in Feb 2017, which was a horrible experience! It seems that the experience was so bad, that I developed anxiety because of it and, of course, by FAR the worst (maybe the only) symptom I have now is constant dizziness!

I'm generally ok when I am sitting down, but if I have to get up and walk across the office, it takes all of my concentration to keep in a straight line. And then every once in a while I will have a couple of seconds where everything just seems to "drop" from under my feet, and I get a sudden cold flush. That usually wipes me out for the day, as I get nervous that it's going to happen again! I wish I could find a simple solution for it ... but I think it just takes time and patience (I hope!).

I've been taking 10mg of Escitalopram for about a year, but after the dizziness recently got worse, I've been upgraded to 20mg of Seroxat. I've only been taking that for about 3 days, and actually the dizziness has been worse ... but apparently that's to be expected at the start. I also have Valium on standby for very bad days, but I've only used it about 3 times in a year.

I don't have headaches, migranes, ear-aches, or anything else though .. so I guess I should be thankful for that!

But I feel your pain, it's a debilitating symptom, and it's taking over my life at the moment!

Cheers! Ori

[jray23]

Ori - have you tried Vestibular Rehab Therapy (VRT)? Judging by your story of an initial attack and then having your balance system out of whack, besides sounding similar to my experience, sounds like VRT can help your system compensate and also desensitize yourself to the anxiety a bit too. And anything you can do to calm the anxiety down will have a huge impact, I promise.

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[Orias]

Hey Jray,

Thanks for your reply!

I did forget to mention in my reply that yes, I have had Vestibular Rehab. I went in for a checkup and they found slightly reduced equilibrium in both ears. I was very happy with this as I thought it would finally explain all of my issues!

I did a week of rehab, for an hour every day on the balance machine thing! After the week they told me that my equilibrium was back to normal ... but unfortunately it didn't really do much to fix the dizziness.

I've never been an anxious person, and everyone always comments on how they have never seen me angry or stressed out ... but I guess that something in there is causing this, and probably the fact that I never "let it all out" is making it worse!

Cheers!

[jray23]

My personality is just like yours too Orias, with the exception of I always had health anxieties. But no one ever knew it. I'm currently researching something called TMS (mind body syndrome) that another thread on here mentioned a few months ago. There's an app called Curable that takes me through it. I just started though. Dr. Sarno is the name of the guy who came up with it, that can lead to some google results. In short the theory is that our mind can cause chronic physical illness (where have we as anxiety people heard that before?!) and more importantly...that changing the habits of our mind can reverse the effects. No idea if this will work or not of course.

As for VRT, I don't think a week is enough to do anything unfortunately. I had two sessions a week for 6 weeks in the facility, and even then, I was told I have to do the exercises they recommended for me at home every day... basically forever unless this goes completely away for good. I still do it now a year later at home (and went back for a few in-facility sessions once) and I can tell the difference if I skip a couple days. My vestibular therapist was extremely experienced and well taught in vestibular issues. She knew more about it than most ENTs. But the exercises, duration, etc would depend on what the problem actually is of course. What I am doing isn't necessarily the right routine for someone else.

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[GingerFish]

I am waiting to see the ENT consultant for suspected Meinere's Disease so my dizziness might be different to everyone elses but I either get long lasting vertigo which feels like I am drunk almost. When I stand, sit or lie down the room spins, I feel sick and it gives me diarrhea. Almost feels like I am walking on a bouncy castle or something too. I get the 'belly drop' feeling that you get on a rollercoaster with my dizziness. Then I get drop attacks where I will be sitting or standing up feeling fine and then out of nowhere it is like the hulk has grabbed me and pushed me down onto the floor and the room is spinning at a 100mph too. Only last a few secs and then I feel fine after it but its horrible.

[Orias]

Thanks Jray, that actually sounds pretty interesting. I feel as if maybe the new Seroxat is starting to make some impact, as today I've felt a slight drop in the dizziness .. I really hope it's a trend that will keep happening, but you're right, I don't want to rely on pills to fix this. My next possible step is to go to a Psychologist for some CBT based work too. I tried it once before, but I really didn't get on with the guy ... he was just ... well ... weird! :roflmao:I've found someone new now!

GingerFish .. yep, this is almost exactly what I feel. Like I'm walking on a cloud, with the occasional episode where it feels like the floor has just disappeared from under my feet! That one only lasts a few seconds, but the after-effects last all day for me. Those episodes send me into a cold chill, and I'm terrified that it will happen again. I basically have to go home and lie down for a few hours to try and get over it all. It's horrible!

My Dad had Meinere's Disease many years ago (when he was in his 20's), back when it couldn't really be treated, and they ended up just removing everything inside his ear, so he's been deaf on one side ever since. Luckily these days it can be managed with much less drastic measures. But because of that, I was also checked for it, but it was fine. I think with Meinere's you get a lot of tinitus and things like that, which I've never really had! I hope it all goes well.

Cheers,
Ori