Feel Worse at Morning Time

Specific Illnesses & Conditions VM/MAV
1

Does anyone else feel at their worst in the morning? I feel like no matter how much I sleep, if I’m up in the morning I feel awful. Sick and dizziness at it’s worst. It gets better as the day goes on. I’m probably at my best by afternoon. I didn’t have this feeling growing up until I was about 16.

I was having a discussion with someone (my bf), and he thinks it’s just whatever time I get up. The body has to adapt. I really feel like it’s morning times though.

Does anyone know if that could be true of vestibular disorders and why?

Thanks,
Stace.

1 Like
2

Hi Stace
I too feel worse in the mornings but if I can get going and distract myself, things nearly always improve within a couple of hours. I try not to waver from my regimented routine of bed at 10pm and rise at 6/7am and my GP said it’s just another indicator of how individual we and our bodies are. My neuro physio said it could be because we’ve been horizontal for a number of hours and it takes a while to readjust to being vertical!There is also the possibility that blood sugar levels can drop overnight whilst asleep so the migraine process may be triggered but Scott would know far more about this.
Sian

3

I can usually gauge my day at wake up time. I wake up dizzy and sick and my day will be a short one with naps and meds. There are times when I do work through it and have a good day in spite of waking up dizzy. I always do a bit of exercise shortly after getting up and that seems to help. Not to be one way there are times I wake up feeling good that the day turns out horrible. I have tried for years to figure out why and it remains a mystery. Food triggers, stress, medications, weather and other factors in consideration fail to have a discernible pattern in my case but I am not giving up. One of the things I have learned is that medications have half times and some of the medications I have used have short half times and if not taken on schedule wore off during the night leaving me dizzy and disoriented in the morning. The medication I am on now, topamax, has a long half time and if you miss and hour or so does cause a problem. I think this is true, Scott may know more on this.

4

Hi there
I’ve often thought some sort of poltergeist sneaks into my brain while I’m asleep at night lol. I can go to bed feeling almost normal, wake up the next day and within 20 mins of getting out of bed it’s back with a vengeance. Occasionally it comes on worse as the day progresses but usually it’s the other way round.

I’m in midst of a 5- week bout. Thought I was feeling better yesterday but today I am bedridden with the spinning. This is unusual for me to be bedridden. Kind of scared it’s gone up a severity level.

I’m interested in the brain taking time to adjust to being vertical theory!

Dizzy Izzy

5

great post. I feel worse a little while after geting up too whether it’s for work at 445am or if i sleep in a bit on days off i wake up with head pressure and dizzy and shaky. i notice the shakiness a lot lately. i think it’s anxiety. that’s why i’'m going to have to break down this weekend i think and get brave and try the celexa and maybe it’ll help although there are always side effects i’m hoping they aren’t bad at all since i’m starting on 5 mg.

i know some other people that have Mav that are worse in the morning also. wonder what causes this.

I am in menopause so i blame a lot of my worsening conditions on that like the anxiety. i sometimes worry it’s because it took valium the day before and now my body wants more - i sure hope not!!

sorry you are all suffering :frowning:

chris

6

Hi,
mornings are awful for me. I go to bed feeling good and within an hour of getting up I feel lighheaded and dizzy. This has become worse since I started the Nortriptyline. I am at my best in the afternoon and evening. I used to be so productive in the morning but not anymore - Lisa

7

Hi,
I usually wake up with an inner trembling. It is not noticeable to anyone but me…totally inside my body. It has gone away for short periods of time with the help of meds, but lately it has been back. My neuro said it was anxiety. I had a theory it had to do with cortisol, which is highest in the mornings. Maybe there’s some connection to higher levels of cortisol affecting the brain chemistry? I will ask my doctor when I see him next. It’s a mystery!
Kelley

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i was thinking mine was from valium esp since i don’t take too much and not the same amount every night so i was blaming the tremors on that but who knows it could be pure ole anxiety.

chris

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Chris,
Valium has a long half life, so it’s probably not that. YOu can check it by taking some before ou go to bed and see if it changes anything. After 8 hours or so, it would still be in full force.
Kelley

10

Hi Stace,

Yes…mornings are almost always worse for me too. When i first initially wake up…most of the time i seem to be ok for about a half-hour to an hour and… then the motion begins to increase and tension in my head begins to become more noticeable. Then i take my medication and it helps to decrease the symptoms so i can get on with my day. But there have been many times when even after taking my medication in the morning…for some reason it takes a couple more hours before i begin to feel better. I think it might have to do with going to work and if it’s a more stressful day that can get in the way of the medication helping me feel better quicker.

Joe

11

Stace – mornings are by far the worst time of day for me. Today, for example, was a shocker. Much better now at 5 PM. S

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Kelley,

I think there is a cortisol connection and blood sugar. I did the 4 a day saliva test on cortisol 3 times over a period of 3 years and then again with a different lab. My cortisol dropped to below range by lunchtime, although it started OK first thing, it was all used up.

I have reactive hypoglycemia so eat breakfast and within an hour my blood sugar level drops below base level and I have to eat some protein, my blood sugar is far more stable in the afternoon.

I always eat something just before bed and have cheese and an oatcake at the side of the bed, so when I wake at 4 or so in the morning I eat.

The sleep pattern has a lot to do with the heads I get too. If I dont get to sleep till 4 in the morning then sleep flat out for 4 hrs I wake with the back of the head migraine.

I had a bad dizzy head starting up today, ate some left over mince and half a jacket potato and it went on its own.

Scott, the fact that we sleep on our back with the pillow in our neck pushing the head forward doesnt help, but there is no solution to this one as I get vertigo if I lay on my side. I get less headache when I sleep less! but then feel dizzy through lack of sleep.

Christine

13

yeah i’ve been shaking off and on for years usually during bad allergy seasons. it may not be the valium although that is a side effect of it but i just looked up menopause/perimenopause and the list is a mile long as all you women know but one of the symptoms is tremors/shaking.

I pretty much have every single one of the menopausal symptoms so no wonder i’m sick - maybe i have that in addition to MaV or just menopause - maybe the celexa will help - maybe i should be hopeful that it might help both things. maybe i need hormones but i would really rather not take them.

i was blaming my memory problems on valium but maybe it’s not that at all.

chris

14

Yes, I’m always at my worst in the morning… I also wake up with very bad anxiety every day that dissipates as the day goes on.

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Gosh Adir you sound like me - do you have hormonal issues too? I am menopausal - post really but that’s when all my anxiety got far worse.

chris

16

Varies widely for me.

Last night I was feeling ungrounded, sore, but sleep healed the ravages to some extent. Other days, I want to roll over and avoid the getting up. Lately, to enforce getting to sleep at a reasonable hour I’ve been eating some Ambien; not magic, but has helped me regularize the mount of sleep, and that in turn has helped me feel less godawful on getting up.

17

Hi Stace,
yep!
and when I was a teenager 15, my migraines with (head pain) would always start when I woke u,p am.
it’s common! with migraine.
now with Mav , it starts about an hour or so after waking.
I can also start waking with flashing strobe like aura.
Before my new med, I would go to bed, lay my head down for only a few minutes and without fail! just drifting off would give me aura.

jen
xx

18

wow i’ve been noticing lately when i wake up in the night sometimes and my eyes are still closed i see light like someone is shining a flashlight on me and it freaks me out because for many years i’ve had dreams of someone breaking in and trying to kill me - too many scary movies i guess :slight_smile: I wonder if that is some kind of aurua. I’m still not totally sure i have MaV but i bet there is a good chance of it. I have never had the heaedaches but i’ve had the auras a couple of times in my life. they sure are strange.

I tend to get sick off and on all day long sometimes but mornings have usually been bad but i usually blamed it on allergies which still could be but they are my trigger probably. today wasn’t too bad until this afternoon going outside into the wind and i know we have pollution right now i got dizzy. i know several people suffering from allergies still - we need rain or snow.

it’s so interesting reading everyone’s posts.

chris

19

Hey guys! Sorry such a late response. Holy cow it’s been a while. I’m also a full time student, so when school is in full swing and I work and I have a support group on facebook, it sometimes takes a while to get over here. I really love this site though and the people. It’s such a great community! Visiting this site, and originally healthboards.com in 2008 when the dizziness really came on the strongest, really helped me get by and understand a lot more about myself.

Sian,
From what I’ve read having the same sleep cycle daily is suppose to be what’s best for us. I agree, if I change anything at all I feel like shit the whole day. I like the theory your doctor gave you about being horizontal for a number of hours. That would seem to make sense. Our equilibrium is off to begin with and quite sensitive.

Kenny,
I totally agree about our disorders not making sense! I can do everything wrong – eat the wrong things, sleep wrong, and have a somewhat decent day — or do everything right to the tee and have a terrible day. It just really doesn’t make sense sometimes. Wow, that’s crazy that Topamax worked for you. I had a terrible time with it and supposedly it doesn’t work for a lot of people. You are very lucky! Good for you.

Dizzyizzy,
I’m really sorry that you were having such a terrible day. It seems that our bodies have different reactions to all this stuff, and we just have to learn our bodies. Although like previously said, we can do everything that seems to be right, and it can still go wrong.

Iwant,
If you haven’t started the Celexa, as this is a bit old – try it!!! Oh my gosh, I love it. It only helps with anxiety for me, but I absolutely love it and it has pretty much no side effects after your body gets use to it.

Lisa,
I totally agree. I can’t do shit in the morning because of how awful I feel.

Kelley,
Man, like all the doctors say anxiety. If only they had to deal with this shit for one day.

Okay — I’m mentally fatigued. I’ll have to read the rest later. I think this was a great discussion though!

20

Stace,

Mornings have also always been the worst for me as wekk…no doubt about it! After about an hour or so that i’m up i take a small amount of medication and i get on with my day.

Joe