Peripheral Vertigo. What an awful condition

I've had this since last Wednesday. I don't know if it was brought on by food poisoning, or if the vomiting was just a symptom of the vertigo.

Everything just spins and spins and never stops. Can't walk straight. Thankfully able to eat food again after 4 days of not being able to hold down even water.

Diagnosis was probable vestibular neuritis caused by viral infection so stuff like the epley maneuver will not work. Received some medication but was told it probably won't help much. Severe nystagmus on the left side. Been a week and not much improvement..Bleh

Anyone ever have this before, and how long did it take to recover? It's so disorienting it's hard to concentrate on anything. Walking outside feels lethal. Lots of falling down.

I might guess some sort of ear infection or an eyesight problem. Either way if you've had this for more than a few days then see a doctor IMO.

Yes, went to the dr yesterday but was told there's not much that can be done. We ruled out any major neurological problems like stroke etc. due to lack of symptoms that would appear if it were something more serious, so it's not life threatening. But it is very very uncomfortable.

OK, some good news there then, I assume he checked out your ears. I should see an optician maybe then, in case you've suddenly developed a misalignment in one eye that's causing visual dissonance?

edit
Actually you could try something beforehand - covering one eye for a period & seeing if that alleviates it.

Many years ago (20+) my wife had a similar episode and I had to rush her to the emergency department at the hospital. My memory is fuzzy about the diagnosis, but the one thing I remember is that her heart was in atrial fibrillation. I don't know if the one condition caused the other, or if they were unrelated and the afib was just a coincidence (which doesn't seem likely to me). Once they got her back to a normal rhythm and she had a bit of time to rest, she was fine and never had another occurrence. Get well soon.

Wizard

so I'm here a month later and while it has improved markedly, I still have some difficulty walking straight and walking any major distance like to the supermarket, a round trip of a little under two miles and something I used to do frequently is leaving me totally exhausted. any side to side head movement breaks my universe.

Going to go back to the doctor to see if there are any other recommended treatments. I have a feeling occupational therapy may be required to fix this.

really awful condition to live with. it's like spinning yourself around a dozen times then trying to do normal activities while the floor isn't working. and it's been like this for a month now. frustrating.

Glad you are doing some better. Hope your recovery continues, and perhaps even find a cause to combat.

I'm glad to hear you are doing better Longbow. Did the doctors ever determine what exactly caused this?

My mom had something similar years ago and the cause was these "stones" inside the vestibular labyrinth had somehow got moved away from where they're supposed to be and triggering all that. The cure was pretty amazing - they did the math and put her in one of those big gimbal things like astronauts trained in, put her into various orientations for various durations, and used GRAVITY to get those "stones" back into their proper place.

Yep, that would basically be the epley maneuver. That's for a condition called BPPV which is correctable with the treatment you've mentioned, or a few other simpler methods such as the epley which can be done alone on a bed.

In my case it seems to have been caused by a virus which infected something in the area, inflamed the nerve and caused some damage which is why it's taking so long to recover. No hard diagnosis on whether it's Labyrinthitis or a different but similar condition as in either case there's no treatment other than waiting for recovery and hoping that the damage isn't permanent.

I have been recovering slowly and have found that playing DCS with trackIR has been helping. It did cause severe nausea at the start but the constant eye movement required seems to be similar to exercises that would be done in a therapy session for people who have this condition. Still feel a bit spaced out when I walk outside but it's getting much, much better than it was at the beginning when I basically had to crawl on the floor to get to the washroom...!