Vertigo going on for a couple of weeks? Please assist

My girlfriend has been having vertigo for a couple of weeks, in varying degrees, mostly non-stop. From what I’ve gathered, most people who have episodes are DIZZY for weeks or months at a time, but I’m unsure if their actual vertigo lasts so long. I’ve noticed 1 of her eyes get smaller/more closed when she has vertigo as well.

Any ideas what she can do? Is this normal for VM folks?


Some background; based on my personal research, I’m thinking she originally had Labyrinthitis or Vestibular Neuritis 5 months ago, but it’s transitioned into V-Migraines now for the last couple months.

Usually she’ll get migraines and vertigo once or twice a day. But the last 2 weeks she’s having vertigo mostly 24/7.

Hi.

When you say that one of her eyes gets smaller do you mean the pupil (the black circle) in her eye is a smaller size compared to the other one? This is what happens to me, and its much more noticeable in low light. Its called Anisocoria. I have read a few other people reporting this symptom on this forum as well, and medical literature says it can be permanent side effect of a middle ear virus, so if she had Vestibular Neuritis this is probably what has triggered the pupil issue.

I have felt varying degrees of dizziness/vertigo non stop for the last year when this beast first hit me. For the first 3 months I felt drunk non-stop. I think this period was the vestibular neuritis and then it morphed into migraine after 3-4 months and has been with me ever since.

What you are describing sounds text book to me - many people have 24/7 problems. What can she do? Well if I had a good answer for that I wouldn’t still be on this forum, but I would suggest trialling some medications. I am not going to recommend any specific ones as my trials of Amitriptyline, Propanolol, Cipralex and Mirtazapine have all failed miserably. The only relief I have ever gotten was through taking benzos e.g. Valium, Xanax, Clonazapam, but trying to convince doctors to write a script for these is getting harder as they are pretty addictive.

Best of luck.
Ant.

Sorry not to have a more positive response, but I have had vertigo/dizziness in varying degrees of intensity 24/7 now for 2 years 5 months. I take 300 mg Topamax, 50 mg Zoloft daily and 2 mg of Valium twice daily. The Topamax keeps the migraines at bay for the most part and as long as I keep my activity levels next to nothing my vertigo etc. stays at about a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Look for a good physical therapist in your area specializing in Vertigo. They can help retrain her/your vestibular system. In the end that didn’t really help me, but my therapist did some research and there are 2 muscles that run down the back of your neck that contribute to both migraine and vertigo. Since she has been working these muscles which she said were all bunched up, my third treatment and I have now been 2 days with no vertigo or migraine. Please give it a try