Motion Intolerance or Sensitivity

Hello everyone,

I have been asked by several people in the past what I mean when I say motion intolerance or sensitivity, and I thought that I would start up a thread discussing this instead of having my descriptions burried away in unrelated topics.

For me, motion intolerance or sensitivity can be described a few different ways. Sometimes I “over feel” the motion. This means that a simple push can feel like I am being thrown across the room. For example, if someone bumps my chair, and I may only move a couple of inches, it may feel like several feet.

Other times I barely feel the motion at all, or it is delayed, and I don’t react to it correctly. For example, the last time I rode an elevator going down, I didn’t feel it stop and ended up in a pile on the floor. :oops: I have also been blown over by the wind countless times becuase I just can’t feel the force it is putting against my body and I can’t correct properly.

When walking I don’t feel my body turning properly. Sometimes I overfeel the turn and end up leaning into it, enough that I hit the corner I am going around with my shoulder. Other times I underfeel the turn and over steer to correct for what I am not feeling and walk right into the corner. I have busted my toes four times now due to this. By the way, breaking a toe doesn’t hurt nearly as the healing process does, nor does it hurt as much as other broken bones.

Then there is one other symptom that I had forgotten about until a little while ago: visual motion. I can feel motion that I see, even though I am planted firmly in my chair. This is more typical in LARGE screen theaters or crowds. This is one symptom that has gone away since I started on the meds, but does rear it’s ugly head on the worse of my bad days. I don’t have to deal with it now, because I know on those days that I am not going to be able to do anything and resign myself to the couch, and limit what I watch to stuff without a lot of motion.

Anyone else want to throw their two cents in?

I don’t have any of these. What I refer to as motion sensitivity is simply that I get nauseated (motion sick) from all and any self-motion - rocking chairs, even if it’s millimeters, walking, cars (shudders haven’t been in one for 1.5 years or so) etc.

Despite of them causing the exact same symptoms, I differ between this (self-motion) and the “visual sensitivity”: nausea/motion sickness from seeing moving things. Can be anything from blowing leaves to glass in a water, TV, scrolling text, flashing ads or simply editing large amounts of text. (Thankfully I’m great at touch typing and can pretty much type equally fast with my eyes closed, if needed.)

What I experience is that I constantly have what I call a wave like sensation in my head, Sometimes it is worse than others. Does this make any sense to anyone?

When I am in the car and it stops it feels like I am still moving. Elevators are not my friends at all, although I can ride them it is an uneasy feeling more so after I get off than while I am on them.

Bright lights, fast action movies and any type scrolling across the screen is a no no.

I also experience this with loud sounds. Gunshots, sudden noises that are loud.

— Begin quote from “Timeless”

What I experience is that I constantly have what I call a wave like sensation in my head, Sometimes it is worse than others. Does this make any sense to anyone?

When I am in the car and it stops it feels like I am still moving. Elevators are not my friends at all, although I can ride them it is an uneasy feeling more so after I get off than while I am on them.

Bright lights, fast action movies and any type scrolling across the screen is a no no.

I also experience this with loud sounds. Gunshots, sudden noises that are loud.

— End quote

You have some of my symptoms and I do not think it’s from MAV.
Yeah,I know that wave-like crap in the head and sometimes I feel like someone is jumping up and down on a trampoline in my skull. :shock:
I did have that “when the car stops” symptom back in February, but it went away after several months.
Elevators? :shock: I left my home in Chicago to get out of the building because of the elevator. It was screwing up my ears (eustachian tubes?) and flipping me out when I got off them. It was geting worse and worse and worse, having to ride up and down 44 floors every day. I had to keep grabbing my nose and blowing out my ears but the floor under my feet was getting horrible when I would get off. Yuck! I have problems with sounds too. I had hyperacussis for many months and am thrilled that stuff went away! I couldn’t even listen to silverware being thrown around, or someone moving newspaper or putting down a cup on a table. It was insane! (And driving me over the edge).

Out of curiosity, are you in your mid 40’s?

Heather

— Begin quote from “Heather”

— Begin quote from “Timeless”

What I experience is that I constantly have what I call a wave like sensation in my head, Sometimes it is worse than others. Does this make any sense to anyone?

When I am in the car and it stops it feels like I am still moving. Elevators are not my friends at all, although I can ride them it is an uneasy feeling more so after I get off than while I am on them.

Bright lights, fast action movies and any type scrolling across the screen is a no no.

I also experience this with loud sounds. Gunshots, sudden noises that are loud.

— End quote

You have some of my symptoms and I do not think it’s from MAV.
Yeah,I know that wave-like crap in the head and sometimes I feel like someone is jumping up and down on a trampoline in my skull. :shock:
I did have that “when the car stops” symptom back in February, but it went away after several months.
Elevators? :shock: I left my home in Chicago to get out of the building because of the elevator. It was screwing up my ears (eustachian tubes?) and flipping me out when I got off them. It was geting worse and worse and worse, having to ride up and down 44 floors every day. I had to keep grabbing my nose and blowing out my ears but the floor under my feet was getting horrible when I would get off. Yuck! I have problems with sounds too. I had hyperacussis for many months and am thrilled that stuff went away! I couldn’t even listen to silverware being thrown around, or someone moving newspaper or putting down a cup on a table. It was insane! (And driving me over the edge).

Out of curiosity, are you in your mid 40’s?

Heather

— End quote

I am 47 and the noise seems to have gotten worse in the last 4 months , like you said silver ware, dishes being put away all the little things that have never bothered me started driving me nuts.

My husband has learned to be very quite around me. We were remolding out home a couple of months back when this started and I thought I was going to go crazy.

What do you attribute these issue too?

Well I asked because I am 47.
Mid 40’s is when major hormonal roller coasters start in females. I am no exception.
My life was literally turned upside down when my hormones “crashed”.
Usually a woman declines slowly, but mine was a serious crash and burn.
Shocked my body, and affected everything from neurological to cardiological.
Inner ear, sinus, joint, muscle. It was as if the body I knew just poof-- evaporated.
I’ve never been the same since. The crash happened last year. :frowning:

I try and supplement here and there with E-gel, transdermal estrogen, but it revs up my nervous system a little too much.
It’s only when my body produces progesterone each month (if I ovulate!) that it balances the estrogen. Takes the edge off.

Heather

RE motion stuff … mine’s mostly visual leading to nausea. Riding elevators is very unpleasant, but like Timeless says, I can do it when necessary. Those really fast elevators are really yucko for me. I think they should all be equipped with safety bars.

Can’t sit in a rocking chair or rocking recliner, even if I’m not purposely rocking it. Feels too unstable. Absolutely can’t watch traffic whiz past me at a stoplight or watch the train at a railroad track crossing … makes me extremely dizzy & nauseous if I do that.

Have always had lousy night vision and it’s almost impossible for me to judge distance or speed when I drive after dark. (Lucky you guys don’t live around me!)

I always have to watch my feet when I walk so that I can stay in a semi-straight line. I used to think walking with my head down was a ‘shy’ thing, that I was just being timid, but now I realize it’s become almost instinctive … because if I don’t, I’ll start veering off to one side or the other.

We have become pretty weird critters, huh? :mrgreen:

Joy,

I remember being that sensitive. I guess I have been luckier than others with the meds giving me relief as I can watch traffic going by. I too have had problems with judging the distance of other cars in the dark, the glare I get from headlights just distorts distance perception for me, and it has gotten worse with the meds I take. Minor vision problems is a known side effect. I also have to have my kids sit on different furniture than me if I am having a bad day as they can’t sit still, and their bouncing around on the couch can make me feel like I am about to be bounced right out.

— Begin quote from “joy”

We have become pretty weird critters, huh? :mrgreen:

— End quote

Joy, i’m not going to bore you with the blow by blow of my everyday experience. I’m sure you’re sick of hearing it, but i couldn’t resist your last comment:

FREAKS, I tell you! My family was right - FREAKS! :mrgreen:

ONLY KIDDING !!!

Great question. I’d have to say my motion insensitivity matches Tranquility’s description most closely. Any movement, even millimeters can make me feel so sick. My chair at work is a rolly one and very unstable. Every movement I make causes the chair to move a mere millimeter and that sets me off. I constantly feel car sick all day long because of this.

I cannot be a passenger in a car, ugh!! and lately I’m not doing too well as a driver either. I don’t get in rocking chairs and I can’t watch others nor can I watch them on swings. Moving things on web sites do terrible things to me. One site I had to go on for work today had things scrolling and jumping all over the place - about 6 different things at once and it made me feel terrible. I have talked to people who for some reason have to rock back and forth while they are talking. I don’t know why they have to do this, but it makes me very sick. I can not watch someone’s computer screen while they are controlling the mouse. Elevators are completely out.

Watching traffic is bad, trains are bad, sunlight flickering through trees is bad, sunlight in general is bad, sunlight reflecting off of snow is downright brutal.

Smells such as candles and perfume are very bad but some smells don’t bother me at all such as shampoo and most soaps.

All of this gives me a carsick feeling/headache. Interesing though, is that it doesn’t make me feel sick to my stomach. It may make me feel like I am going to vomit, but I’m not necessarily nauseaus. The feeling like I am going to vomit feels as if it is coming from inside my head not my stomach. During one of my worst vertigo attacks I was lying in the ER trying to explain to the doctor how yes, I feel like I am going to vomit, but it’s not coming from my stomach, in fact my stomach feels hungry. Does this make any sense?

I tried to explain to one ENT how extremely sensitive I am to any motion at all and his response was that I am just sensitive to motion, nothing else, there was no significance to it.

I meant to add above that any kind of flickering light will produce the same kind of motion intolerance/sesitivity/carsick feeling in me. One little flicker is all it takes and I am hit with such a carsick headache. This disease is the pits!

I haven’t been on here much lately as I’ve been waiting to start the Migraine Program. But when I read this thread, particularly Bookworm’s description, I couldn’t believe some of the similarities we all really do share. i have had horrible motion sickness since childhood. When this all first hit, i started getting motion sick when I would drive at night. All the lights and reflections would kill me. I thought it was my lasik’s gone wrong. Now, the thing that is the worst for me is sunlight glare. When it comes through the trees and I’m driving through panels of light and shadows, i feel like I’m in a room with a strobe light.

My husband is wanting me to come with him to his office party in LA and all the transportation issues that I would have to deal with gives me great pause to except the invitation. I would rather die than throw up on a plane or in someone’s car. Argggg!

Molly

— Begin quote from “Timeless”

What I experience is that I constantly have what I call a wave like sensation in my head, Sometimes it is worse than others. Does this make any sense to anyone?

When I am in the car and it stops it feels like I am still moving. Elevators are not my friends at all, although I can ride them it is an uneasy feeling more so after I get off than while I am on them.

Bright lights, fast action movies and any type scrolling across the screen is a no no.

I also experience this with loud sounds. Gunshots, sudden noises that are loud.

— End quote

Try Dr.Tusa at Emory University and ask for a specialized CT scan for semicicurcular canal dehiscence. Your symptoms point in that direction.
Sal

— Begin quote from “Sally”

— Begin quote from “Timeless”

What I experience is that I constantly have what I call a wave like sensation in my head, Sometimes it is worse than others. Does this make any sense to anyone?

When I am in the car and it stops it feels like I am still moving. Elevators are not my friends at all, although I can ride them it is an uneasy feeling more so after I get off than while I am on them.

Bright lights, fast action movies and any type scrolling across the screen is a no no.

I also experience this with loud sounds. Gunshots, sudden noises that are loud.

— End quote

Try Dr.Tusa at Emory University and ask for a specialized CT scan for semicicurcular canal dehiscence. Your symptoms point in that direction.
Sal

— End quote

Good point - I was going to say that it could just as well be MAV, until I read the last line.
If noise literally makes you dizzy at ONCE (within a second), that is known as Tullio’s phenomenon. It is very common in two dizzy-disorders: Perilympf Fistula (PLF) and Semicicurcular Canal Dehiscence (SCD, SCDS, SCCD, …). I can’t see how that could happen because of MAV alone, actually.

/Tran