Saturday, March 17, 2012

Fink Thast!

So, yesterday morning, fasting...

I was up, and chipper; I'd enjoyed a nice cuppa old-fashioned Red Chinese "white tea" (warm water) and was making ready for the shower (a/k/a "how can I be outta washcloths?")when Tam stepped into my room to comment on something stupid she'd heard the TV say; I turned to reply and all of a sudden, the floor dropped three feet straight down!

Except it didn't; it only felt that way, which I realized from the lack of sound effects and Tam "catlike reflexes" K's total non-reaction. I said something like "oh, no!" as my knees gave way and I sat down on the bed like a dropped marionette. The room started lurching this way and that, worse when I tried to sit up, and I started laughing.

'Cos crying would not have helped; my inner ear(?) had come unmoored from gravity. Turning my head, leaning, any rapid motion resulted in a frantic reach for the nearest grabbable large object -- walls, doorframes, the floor. I did my best to ride it out and in about 20 minutes, I could move if I wasn't too quick about it. Managed to shower by bracing myself in a corner. Things stayed kind of drifty 'til noon, fading off into what Og described yesterday as "the inevitable headache."

Hard to blame that on fasting (and my blood work, along about 1:15, was quite good on the tiny tabletop analyzer, fasting gluclose just where it should be, cholesterol not bad (my "good" cholesterol runs high-ish). Even my blood pressure was decent, which is quite an accomplishment considering my fairly dire "white coat syndrome" (my blood pressure is good at home, on multiple whachasphygopsychytacometers, and borderline hypertensive in nearly any clinical setting.

It was a nice day, too; until I lost a half-hour or more to my sense of balance being out of whack, I was seriously considering commuting on my motor scooter. With gas prices what they are, there's a whole lot more scootering and bicycling in my plans for this spring and summer.

--At least, there is if I can maintain a sense of which way is up!

7 comments:

stuart said...

You have my sympathy Roberta I've had this and it feels like the end of the world, you can't even lie down, everything is just swimming around you.

DJ said...

I hope it's transient.

My sister-in-law has suffered horribly from vertigo over the years. She lost all the hearing in one ear about 19 years ago and most of it in the other just recently. Vertigo left her house-bound at times.

She finally found a doctor who, among other things, suggested a treatment that has really helped, and I'm passing it on to you "just in case".

She is on a VERY low sodium diet. It's ordinary food, both type and amount, but her sodium intake is extremely low (No, I don't know the actual daily amount, but it's barely above "survival level".) She's always been a non-salt-shaker-user, but this is extreme.

The result is that her vertigo episodes have STOPPED COMPLETELY, and they stopped immediately when she started the low sodium diet.

I hope you never need this information, but if you do, there it is.

Anonymous said...

Or it could be transitional vvertigo. Cells break loose from from "things" in the cochlea and float around sometimes landing on receptor cells which causes the falling feeling.

karrde said...

I can't remember if it was quite that way, but I've had some funny reactions to low-blood-sugar situations. (Skipping a meal or two was the usual ticket to that for me...)

Hope you get better.

Cincinnatus said...

Hope you feel much better and stay that way.

DaddyBear said...

Wow, I hope you feel better soon. Vertigo is not a fun way to spend a day.

Anonymous said...

I have to avoid orange, lemon and lime fruit and juice, or that happens to me, too.

ENT though it was sodium, caffiene and alcohol but I discovered an allergy to the aforementioned citrus demons.

The damage done has had lasting effects but after 15+ years of avoidance, I'm nearly all cured.

Jon