Dizzy

Filed under: Life Updates
4 Comments

I'm dizzier than Miss Lizzie, dizzier than Dean, dizzier than Gillespie.

Woke up this morning, sat up in bed, and the room started spinning.

I thought I was probably just dehydrated, which was the cause of the last time I got seriously dizzy, some years ago. Tried drinking water, but had a hard time forcing myself to drink enough of it.

As long as I kept my head still in one position, I was fine. But as soon as I moved it, the spinning started again.

Later, Kam came over and checked my pulse and blood pressure and such, and called the advice nurse to find out whether I should go in to the Urgent Care center. The advice nurse basically said "if moving your head makes you dizzy, don't move your head. And if it gets worse, come see a doctor." (Okay, she was slightly more helpful than that, but not much.)

Kam's mother supplied a link to a PDF document about exercises to help treat "benign positional paroxysmal vertigo," the symptoms of which I seemed to more or less have. (Except that BPPV sounds like it's an ongoing thing, not a one-time occurrence.) Tried the exercise and things got significantly better, though not entirely better. Kam got me some food and went home—she had stuff she needed to do there.

I spent the rest of the day lying down, and occasionally dozing. The dizziness and occasional nausea have been coming and going.

Had intended to spend all day today doing magazine work, mostly coding stuff that I had hoped to have done before we reopen to subs in a couple hours, but I haven't been able to muster the necessary concentration, and sometimes haven't even been able to sit up.

Perhaps this is the Universe's way of telling me to slow down.

Anyway, I'm skipping tonight's party, though I'm sad not to get to see folks. (Almost certainly skipping tomorrow's party as well.)

Thanks again to Kam for coming over and providing help and reassurance. Also to various others who posted helpful comments on Facebook.

With luck, tomorrow will be not only another day, but a whole new year. Hoping it will be less dizzy.

4 Responses to “Dizzy”

  1. Farah

    You don’t say whether your blood pressure was ok. If it was low I reco
    reccomend either pedialyte or if u can’t stand the sweetness a mix of o d part juice to four parts water. You need to drink about four liters during the day.

    I get a lot of dizzyness. If there is no illness your basic reasons are either low blood sugar which tends to be brief, low blood pressure which makes your head hurt and can be a few days to a week, or inner war problems which can be long lasting. The first needs food, the second liquid, the third a doctor.

    Farah

    reply

    • Jed

      Thanks for the info!

      My blood pressure was fine, and eating oranges and drinking juice didn’t improve things so I don’t think it was a blood sugar issue. (And my usual response to low blood sugar is bad moods rather than dizziness.)

      No headache, no other symptoms other than occasional nausea after too much room-spinning.

      Seems likely that it’s either dehydration (I’ve been hydrating in small doses all day, but probably still not enough, and still having a hard time forcing myself to drink) or an inner-ear thing. I haven’t had any other signs or symptoms of ear problems, and I did once have dizziness from dehydration, so I was hoping that suitable application of sufficient water would solve the problem. That doesn’t seem to have happened.

      So I’ll keep drinking water for another hour or so, and try those reset-the-balance-system exercises again, and then get some sleep, and if I’m still dizzy in the morning then I’ll go have a doctor look in my ears.

      reply

  2. Kir

    Did you get checked for inner ear infection(s)? That can cause dizziness too.

    Good luck!

    reply

    • Jed

      Yeah, we figured that inner ear problems were the other possible cause. But having that diagnosed would’ve required going to a doctor, which I decided not to do unless the problem persisted. Which it didn’t, so all’s fine for now.

      reply

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