Off and on Vertigo for 1.5 years, unsure what is causing it.

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In April 2016, I decided to go on a 24 day challenge diet. It included, a cleanse period for 2 weeks, and a max phase of another 2 weeks. The cleanse was fine, but it wasn't until I started the max phase which included taking a lot of vitamins plus other supplements that I was an idiot to research before hand, caffeine pills. On the first day of being on these pills, I fell ill to my stomach, at first because I took them out of order, so I kept taking them. On the third day, after finishing a gym session I could not be rid of my adrenaline rush and had an anxiety attack and went to the hospital. 2 weeks after that, I had another anxiety attack and basically fell into a really bad place where for 3 months I could not drive, work, sleep, eat. I just wanted to stay home. But I got out of it slowly, with therapy, religion , and some temporary anxiety medications. I finally started working around July/August, but still used 2.5mg of buspirone to get me through work. Sometime around October, out of nowhere I got the feeling of fullness in my left ear. I had stopped my buspirone medication sometime 1 or 2 months after I started in working, so sometime in September or August. I saw my doctor bout the fullness but she insisted it was allergies, but I did not use allergy medication because I didn't think anything of it. Sometime around January I had my first bout of vertigo. I was walking around school or my step daughters school and felt very dizzy. I was even driving at some point while very dizzy and I would just take dramamine and sleep it off. Doctor started subscribing me dramamine and allergy meds. I would take them but I would only feel relief from the pressure I felt on the left side of my face. I started doing some head exercises my aunt recommended from Mexico that I did twice a day for almost a year. Eventually, I started doing only dramamine and sinus meds almost everyday, and at some point the vertigo stopped. Vertigo was off and on, from once a week or twice a week. Sometimes it was bad where I would have it twice a week. This was all from January to maybe April 2017. My vertigo stopped and I believe the fullness also went away from April to September 2017. I started swimming in the summer so I don't know if that could have brought it up again. Fast forward to September 2017 to March 2018, I have seen an ENT he sent me to get an MRI, CAT Scan. MRI said I have an inflamed nerve behind the cochlear. CAT scan was normal. I get vertigo once or twice a week. On a very good ryun, I only get it once every 2 weeks. My left ear feels full, sometimes I feel as if I can feel liquid inside when I eat, drink, swallow, cry, etc. But nothing comes out. Some positions, make me feel dizzy, especially when I'm in bed. So I think I could also have BBPV, but then again why the ear fullness in the left ear only? Sometimes stress makes it worse or getting angry. After I graduated this past semester I went an entire month without vertigo. Now I have it very constant to every other 2 days. Please help. I'm leaving to Africa in a week and I'm stressing out about the flight with my ear pressure. I went to Lake Tahoe once and the ride up was fine, just on the way down, I had a hard time popping my left ear , but after chewing gum and a few minutes my ear popped. I'm just worried the pressure change will affect my vertigo and symptoms. I feel hopeless, lost, depressed, aggravated, etc. I'm hoping my trip out there will be fine. It's for an internship, and sometimes I will be on a boat so I don't know how that will go. If anyone can provide some tips before I leave or what i should do while over there, or what to do once I come back to the states in a month, so I can find an answer to my vertigo. After almost 7 months of vertigo ever so often, I am growing tired of living with this. I started seeing a Physical therapist to help me, but with medi-cal I only saw her once and the authorization is taking a long time. She recommended the Brandt-Daroff exercise, but the day I tried it on my own it only made me feel worse or it just didn't help so I stopped. Should I continue it? It three times a day. Also thinking of taking my sinus medication and flonase because that's what I did while I was in school this past semester and now, all I take is 25mg of Meclizine once a day depending on the severity to make the dizziness go away. 

Sorry for the long post, just need to include as much detail as possible.

Thank you.

 

0 likes, 3 replies

3 Replies

  • Posted

    Hi.  What are they doing about the inflamed nerve?  Also avoid all caffeine even decaf coffee or tea.  Herbal tea is the only one with 0 caffeine.  They didn't put you back on anxiety med?  Feel better.  

  • Posted

    Did they do any balance testing, rotary chair etc 
    • Posted

      Nothing for the inflammed nerve. ENT said it would go away on its own. And not balance, just hearing test with my ENT.

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