Labyrinthitis... Please help!

Hi guys,

I am 22 years old and I have been experiencing symptoms of labyrinthitis for about 6 weeks now. After the first few days of feeling constantly dizzy and imbalanced I decided to go to the doctor who said I had viral labyrinthitis and was told to just rest and have plenty of fluids and was told this is something temporary. However when I went on the internet to research about it I didn't realise how serious it is and how it can take from months to even years to recover. 

I remember before I started to feel like this I was always tired and exhausted but that was due to my lack of sleep and being constantly busy with work. I was confused as to how it was viral labyrinthitis because I didn't have a cold or flu prior to it, but I remember around two weeks before I did have diarrhoea (sorry tmi) but I recovered within a few days. I did go abroad for two days after and I remember as I was going to get on the metro I suddenly felt imbalanced and faint and had to quickly hold onto something but I just thought I was tired. After a good nights sleep I felt like my normal self again.

Fast forward to 2 weeks later, again I was extremely tired but thought I could just power through the day at work but all of a sudden I just felt like I couldn't keep my balance and needed to keep leaning on something. I also felt very hot and nauseated- I thought I was having a benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) episode as I've experienced this twice in the past year (and these are the only times I've experienced it in my life) but when I got home and had a nap, I woke up with everything spinning, feeling heavily nauseated and just generally felt rubbish. My eyes and ears were completely sensitive, every sound I heard even if it was someone grabbing their keys just made my body shrivel like I've heard scratching on a board. After a few days of feeling constantly dizzy and wobbly, and also experiencing fullness and aches in my ears particularly my left ear, I realised something wasn't right which is when I saw the doctor and diagnosed me with viral labyrinthitis. I had been prescribed with stemetil but decided not to take the tablets because my doctor stressed that I fight this with fluids and rest instead. 

After a few days the vertigo had stopped but my head has just been in complete agony ever since. It will go from feeling tight, to feeling like there's so much pressure, to feeling completely airy and light and to feeling like someone is seriously squeezing the hell out of my brain. The sensitivity of my eyes and ears have calmed down a bit but still here and there my ear will get a sharp ache for a second or some sounds really hurt my ears and my eyes will feel extremely tired. There was actually a moment after 4 weeks of feeling like this that I thought I had completely recovered because I didn't feel any symptoms anymore but two days later my head started to hurt and I felt a little wobbly again. Sometimes I can even feel the movement of my feet in my head like I am stomping but I am literally walking as normal. I am constantly feeling pressure or a tight feeling in my head. Sometimes I feel pressure in my head and the front of my nose, however I've been feeling this for years but have noticed it more than usual ever since I got labs.

I don't feel as bad as I did in the first two weeks I admit, but I feel as though I am not progressing and just stuck with feeling like my head is always in pain. Just today I had a spinning sensation that lasted for a minute and that freaked me out because after 6 weeks I thought the dizziness/spinning/vertigo has stopped. Despite me feeling slightly better, I still wake up every morning knowing that it's still there and I will have to struggle through the day to feel and act like I am completely fine. 

I honestly don't feel like myself anymore, I feel like I am looking through a lens or like I am dreaming whilst the whole world is getting on with their normal lives. I did have some hope that I will get better but feeling like this for a while has seriously knocked my confidence. I get really nervous going for a day out especially if it requires a lot of walking or talking or even if there is a big group. Like going to a restaurant, or waiting for a train or waiting for anything just makes me feel really agitated like I just want it over and done with. Even if I've had considerable amount of sleep I will wake up feeling completely shattered. I'm afraid to walk fast/run or walk at my normal pace because I start to feel weird which is so frustrating because I hate walking slow. I just feel really anxious all the time and I am really starting to feel like there's no hope. It just sucks even more because I literally started a new job a week after experiencing symptoms and my mood is just all over the place, so I'm not properly enjoying my new role that I wanted so badly. I even sometimes look at the people around me and just think I really don't remember what it was like before this happened to me  

I am due to see a ENT specialist in two weeks but after reading a lot of threads I'm expecting it to be a useless visit based on everyone else's experience. Do you think I should request or ask anything specific when I see them?

I apologise for the long post but just wanted to know if anyone could give me some advice or if anyone has gone through anything similar. I know this may seem really silly to ask but will I honestly ever recover? will I always feel like my head is in so much pain and have to live the rest of my life like this with the spinning sensation coming and going whenever it wants to? If that's the case, how can I come to a point of acceptance? I know that people with labs are prone to getting it back again but has anyone come to a point where they don't feel anything anymore and back to their usual self?

I will really appreciate anyone who takes the time to go through this long post. Will look forward to your replies!

Thanks!

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