Dizzy/Vertigo And Nauseous 24/7?!

[Frosty97]

Hello all,

This past week I have been plagued with a lot of motion dizziness, like a drunk feeling, something sloshing around in my head and it gets worse upon movement. I also have a strange nauseous feeling in my stomach constantly even though I can eat it has thrown off my appetite. Normally when I eat I feel better but even when I've eaten I still feel the same.

I have been to the doctors and he said it isn't BPPV as there is no nystagmus in my eyes upon movement. He felt my glands and said they were a little bit tender so said I may have a viral infection. This past week has been absolute hell as I try and figure out what the hell is going on with me. I don't have vertigo by the sounds of things but it feels like it. I've tried a few maneuvers for vertigo and also tried other things but nothing helps.

This is absolutely living hell feeling like something is wrong with my brain like a tumour or a nerve is damaged in my spine or something.

Does anyone know what could be going on with me? I feel like I'm going to be like this forever and I can't live or function like this. Whenever I wake up I feel like I'm dying. My head is constantly throwing me off. I can't explain how debilitating this is for me.

[jray23]

Well first and foremost, anxiety is a very common cause of all types of dizziness and nausea. It's very reasonable to think that's the cause here, especially given that you have experience health anxiety before.

However, I also think that this could be from vestibular neuritis. I'm thinking it from my own personal bias while reading your description of symptoms and resulting anxious thoughts (I have VN, recovering, and I could have easily written your exact post in February) and the fact that your doc suggested you may have a viral infection (believed to cause VN). Might be something to ask the doctor for an ENT referral about if he/she remains unsure of what's going on. And also nothing to fear, if it is that, the worst part is the beginning and it is not at all life threatening (although it is debilitating for a bit as you said, and not pleasant, but most people recover from it way faster than me!).

Do your symptoms go away when lying down in bed? And then get worse again once you start standing/walking around? Did this all start seemingly out of nowhere one day? Can you describe if you had true vertigo at any point since it started (room spinning around) or if it's more of an off balance feeling?

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[swajj]

Search the board and you will find hundreds of posts like your own. You have anxiety. The symptoms will only disappear when your nervous system returned to normal. OR when you start focusing on a different disease.

[Frosty97]

Well first and foremost, anxiety is a very common cause of all types of dizziness and nausea. It's very reasonable to think that's the cause here, especially given that you have experience health anxiety before.

However, I also think that this could be from vestibular neuritis. I'm thinking it from my own personal bias while reading your description of symptoms and resulting anxious thoughts (I have VN, recovering, and I could have easily written your exact post in February) and the fact that your doc suggested you may have a viral infection (believed to cause VN). Might be something to ask the doctor for an ENT referral about if he/she remains unsure of what's going on. And also nothing to fear, if it is that, the worst part is the beginning and it is not at all life threatening (although it is debilitating for a bit as you said, and not pleasant, but most people recover from it way faster than me!).

Do your symptoms go away when lying down in bed? And then get worse again once you start standing/walking around? Did this all start seemingly out of nowhere one day? Can you describe if you had true vertigo at any point since it started (room spinning around) or if it's more of an off balance feeling?

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Hello mate,

Symptoms are less intense when laying down yes. Walking and standing around does seem to increase the symptoms. Started last Monday out of nowhere after getting into a friend's car, had a very bad spinning attack and has been pretty much constant since then. The feeling is more of a drunk moving feeling which is very uncomfortable and feel like it's at back of my head like a wavey motion sometimes feeling of jolts too which are terrifying and make me drop to the floor. The room doesn't feel like it's moving but my head feels like it is, I can't look straight for too long or I get a whooshing feeling in my head. It just won't go away

[jray23]

I'm so sorry that you're feeling these things, Frosty! Everything you wrote is similar to my experience except that for me, lying down would almost completely make the symptoms vanish, and that I never actually dropped to the floor. It sounds like your symptoms are more intense than mine perhaps.

I want to be clear that I am not a doctor, and please do not take this as a diagnosis as that is impossible for me to do, but I do recommend you ask about vestibular neuritis (sometimes called vestibular neuronitis). Basically it is inflammation of a nerve in the inner ear (probably caused by a virus) that throws our balance system out of whack. You may need to ask an ENT as many general doctors don't know much or anything about it. If you get an official diagnosis of this, let me know and I would be happy to offer any help I can in that regard.

For now let's stick to the topic of anxiety, since that's what this forum is all about but also because managing your anxiety is the single best thing you can do to lessen your symptoms even if you actually do have VN. It's certainly possible you don't and that this is only being solely caused by anxiety. Anything I say below can apply regardless of if it's"just anxiety" or VN.

- VN causes anxiety (and depression sometimes). Period. It is extremely common even in people who don't usually get anxiety to develop it, let alone people like me that already have anxiety. Don't feel bad about being anxious or depressed from this, it's not of your choosing. Likewise anxiety causes dizziness! A cycle!

- This is extremely unlikely to be something serious like a tumor. VN is not serious. The worst part of VN is at the beginning so don't fret that things won't improve either. Nothing to panic about even though it feels scary as hell.

- That said, recovery is often measured in weeks, not days. Most people recover from VN in 3 weeks or so, but some, like me, take several months. Either way, my advice, similar to any health anxiety issue, is to try to avoid "checking your symptoms" all the time. Asking yourself "is it doing it?" or "is it any better than yesterday?" will just make you think about your symptoms more and increase them, further increasing the anxiety, etc. Gradually it will improve, but it also isn't linear improvement. There will be better days and worse days mixed around.

- You will (or probably already do) feel fatigued and some kind of brain fog. This is normal. It takes incredible effort for the brain to balance when one of the signals are out of whack but it slowly learns how to.

- Try to eat well. Eat foods that reduce inflammation, not increase it. Drink lots of water. Get good sleep. It's probably too difficult for you to do much exercise at this point, but once you feel up to it, try to do light exercise.

I really hope you start feeling better soon! Keep me posted!

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