Like a whirlpool, it never ends
I’m almost positive I’ve used this as a title before, but WordPress doesn’t remember it, so it must’ve been way back in the Xanga days.
Yes, I’m still dizzy. Six weeks now. I haven’t had a bad episode since last week (bad = with nausea), but spells of dizziness and pressure headaches come and go almost daily. In the past two or three weeks I’ve developed a sensation of fullness in my ears that wasn’t there earlier but is now my constant companion.
I went back to my physician’s assistant for a follow-up visit, and she put me on nasal spray and a decongestant. Um, right. I respect your years of medical training and all, but this system of throwing fistfuls* of pills at the problem and seeing if any stick just isn’t working for me**.
I called my ENT (who is also my surgeon, conveniently) the same day and set up an appointment for the next morning. I’m not a doctor, but from what I’ve read and how I feel, I really think the dizziness is in my ears, so the ear-doc is the guy for me.
Proving me right, he did some tests right away. A hearing test revealed that I have some hearing loss in my left ear at 6000 Hz, which is consistent with the fact that my left ear rings once or twice a week nowadays. The lie-down-real-fast test for benign paroxysmal positional vertigo didn’t make my eyes flick around, so he ruled out that common inner-ear-related cause of dizziness.
Coming up I have an MRI of my head to rule out brain tumors and get a better picture of my ears and a 2.5-hour test called an ENG***. It’s like an EKG, but instead of measuring the function of your heart, they attach electrodes to the skin around your eyes and watch what happens when they make you dizzy. The most reliable way to dizzify someone, apparently, is to put warm water in one ear and cold in the other. I’m not looking forward to that one, but if it helps somebody make a diagnosis, bring it on.
If the problem *is* my ears, then besides the aforementioned BPPV, we’re looking at (1) a viral infection or nerve lesion, either of which can cause labyrinthitis or neuronitis, depending on whether they also produce hearing loss or (2) Meniere’s disease, which is not well understood and somewhat unpredictable. Trying to differentiate between (1) and (2) based on my symptoms, I’ve found conflicting information on how long attacks generally last and how severe they are, so it’s hard to tell.
If I were a betting woman, I’d put my money on a mild case of Meniere’s, mostly because of the fullness in my ears. Such a diagnosis would be good news, in the sense that it has nothing to do with my brain (my hypochondriacal worst case, ever since a normal EKG ruled out imminent heart failure), and bad news. Sometimes Meniere’s subsides after months or years, but sometimes it worsens and/or causes permanent hearing loss. There’s no cure besides last-resort surgery to destroy the inner ear, and the usual treatment is to avoid potassium, salt, caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine, which would probably be good for my health in general, but where’s the fun in that?
But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. I’ve got two wonderfully information-rich tests coming up next week, and until then all I have to do is be patient and not think about brain tumors.
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* Fistsful? M-W.com says I was right the first time. Last night I finished a section in my bedtime-reading book on plurals of compounds. I think “fistful” is already too smushed together to take a -s in its middle. Plus if you were throwing a bunch of pills at something, you’d probably throw them one fist at a time. So it’s like fistful + fistful + fistful = fistfuls, not fist + fist + fist, all full = fistsful.
** To be fair, she did do a bunch of tests the first day, right after I’d been to the emergency room, but since then it’s been pills, pills, pills. I have ten different medications in my purse right now and four more on my bookshelf. I’m only taking three daily (including birth control, which obviously I’d take anyway), and one on an as-needed basis.
*** Tip: When you’re browing Wikipedia for medical information, do not click on unfamiliar links to Somebody-or-other’s Syndrome, as such diseases are likely to be rare but awful. Like this one.
P.S. Moron, that I am, I just clicked on “Traumatic Brain Injury” and read the whole thing. Reading about diseases and injuries makes me physically ill (think mini panic attack); why do I do this?
P.P.S. The brochure my doctor gave me on “Managing Dizziness” makes a clear effort to span races, genders, and body sizes in its sketches of patients visiting their doctors, lying down so they won’t faint, installing stools in their showers, etc. It does not span a significant range of ages, however; all of the twenty or so patients appear to be at least middle-aged, and all but one or two look over 60. Hey, you know what? Young people get dizzy too, okay? Should I march in protest, I wonder, or write an angry letter?
Tags: miscellany