Wednesday, March 19, 2014

what is wrong with me? (other than my personality, sigh)

So!  I have been sick for over six months now, not with one thing, but with a series of things each following the other in lockstep.  Flus, colds, fevers, sinus infections, coughs, aches and pains...  The last few weeks have been marred by severe nausea, causing me to not work and to skip some social engagements I actually wanted to attend.

This week I developed a disturbing new symptom.  When I roll over at night in my sleep, I become so dizzy that the dizziness wakes me up and is painful.  During the worst episode of this, the room was spinning around me, exactly as if I'd gotten completely trashed and had what we called in college "the bedspins."  I had no alcohol in my system at all, though.  These episodes are completely miserable, and since my sleep is fragile due to severe insomnia, they are not easily overcome.

Meanwhile, my test results came back.  If you were to look at my blood alone, you would have to say, "Huh.  There is nothing wrong with this person."  No problems with the liver, thyroid, white blood cell levels, glycemic levels, cholesterol, etc..  My blood pressure is fine.  Evidently I have no ulcer, either.  Every hypothesis so far has been ruled out.

6 comments:

Silliyak said...

Kathy has had seasickness in bed complete with nausea. Inner ear fluid- take some benedryl ASAP.

Danna said...

I don't know about the other stuff. But I periodically get vertigo which is worse when I'm lying down. My ENT diagnosed it as BPPV. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benign_paroxysmal_positional_vertigo
A sure sign of it is if you get someone else to look at your eyes when you feel like the room is spinning. Your eyes will have a nystagmus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathologic_nystagmus

There is a specific set of movements you can do called the Epley maneuver(you're supposed to have a doctor do it) as soon as you notice the dizziness start. But I find that these episodes usually start in the middle of the night, and I can't wake my husband up and kick him out of bed to do this maneuver. The movements are supposed to move the crystal to an area of the ear that doesn't make you as dizzy.
Any way, if this is what you have, the bits of crystal usually dissolve (for me within a week). It does suck. Sometimes, for the first couple of days I can't drive because moving my head around quickly (like to check my mirrors) causes the spinning.

Caroline said...

You need to submit this to that series in the NY Times where people write in and play Web MD. Eventually, someone's always right, and it's usually some kind of rare foot fungus-slash-mitochondrial infection that only one in one million doctors has ever seen. On a more serious note, that sucks. Sigh.

NonymousGoatsePants said...

I have Menierre's, which also causes dizziness. Menierre's is diagnosed by ruling out everything else. It's an auto-immune disease, of unknown origin.

One of the tests I underwent was for positional vertigo, as Danna described. Your symptoms reminded me of this disease.

I'm pretty sure your symptoms can be solved pretty simply with daily doses of gravy, but you might want to see an ENT, as I'm not a doctor.

Good luck.

NonymousGoatsePants said...

After reading, my, comment, I seem to, have an, unexplained affinity, for, commas.

Carroll said...

Ditto what those other folks said, and also Google "temporal vestibular" stuff & see if anything leaps out at you. No fun, by any name & I hope you kick it soon!