Hi there mvertigo community 
New to this forum but would love to get some views on my ongoing symptoms. I’ll do my best to not make this a super long read.
Dec 2024 - had BPPV during the early hours whilst away for work, in a hotel room on my own. Ended up self-guiding the epley manoeuvre which stopped the spinning vertigo.
The day after this I noticed I had “residual dizziness” and a very tight neck/occipital region on my left side. I thought this would just pass and I’d recover. 1 month later, the residual dizziness and occipital tension had become much worse.
Christmas 2024: after 1 month of symptoms, I quickly hit rock bottom and honestly felt suicidal. I was convinced not being here any more was the only way out. I had talked myself into thinking something sinister was going on (tumor/ms etc). I had been to a&e for CT scan which was all clear and was discharged with amitriptyline. I didn’t take this.
Feb 2025: started amitriptyline and took for about 6 weeks before tapering off, made almost no difference to symptoms.
Month 1-6: the occipital sensations travelled upwards and dominated most of the back of my head, a strange and very uncomfortable crawling/tingling/pricking feeling. It drove me insane.
Month 3: noticed tinnitus, very strong, could hear the ringing even in louder environments.
Month 6-9: by this point I had tried physio for cervicogenic headache (little relief), chiropractor (pointless), talking therapy (ok but hard to gauge impact), CBT (via the NHS, felt like a complete waste of time). I’d also done several months of neck mobility work. Some symptoms had improved e.g. the occipital sensations had calmed a little bit, the dizziness had shifted from big swaying/unbalanced to moderate and less frequent.
Month 9-12: took SSRI (Sertraline) which didn’t really make any difference to the physical symptoms and just made me feel numb. I decided to taper off them as I was soon to become a father and wanted to experience my emotions as naturally as possible.
Month 12-20: I still have daily occipital tension on the left side, literally every day there’s tension and sensations in back of head. I also still have daily dizziness/floaty/brain fog. Been seeing a vestibular physio last few months who has focused on my jaw as well as acupuncture (occipitals and hands) which I feel had made some positive difference.
Note: I’ve had 2 balance assessments, MRI of head and neck, multiple blood tests and nothing had flagged, everything is normal.
Like many of us, we’re left to explore options ourself as vestibular problems are not really understood by the NHS or GPs. I’ve landed on the fact that my brain is in a constant loop of not trusting my balance/visual/spatial signals which is causing neck muscles to tighten. My brain needs to relearn pathways, is this correct?.. After trying so many routes I’m now thinking a SNRI is the best option. However I’m nervous about this, given how the SSRI made me feel. My little boy is 6 months old and I don’t want to be emotionally numb but maybe the tradeoff is needed.
Any thoughts/advice/insight would be hugely appreciated. Glad to have found this community, if anything I don’t feel like I’m fighting this alone anymore.
Thank you!
Everyone here is really friendly and eager to help, so you’ve come to the right place. Don’t forget to read the Welcome Topic if you haven’t yet — it’s a great starting point: