Hey guys, I wanted to share with you something that has helped me for a while. I purchased one of those neck braces, normally given to people with whiplash or neck pain. I wear it often around the house, when washing the dishes or needing to sit up at the computer for a while. It really helps me to get through some of those daily tasks. Particulary good when dizzy sensations are not severe but bothersome and for the pressure and strain you feel on your neck. Would recommend.
1 Like
That sounds like a great idea for those occasions when your head feels too heavy for your neck to hold up. Nice one.
2 Likes
I did find some relief from using a ‘Chinese remedy plaster’ on the back of my neck shortly before my remission. Not the medicated ‘Transact’ (in South Africa) ones, but a herbal one with menthol etc. Interesting!!?
I would be afraid that using a neck brace a lot would just limit neck movement further and do more damage in the long run. By holding my neck so stiff I cannot move mine very much now without pain and A LOT of dizziness. I can’t move it to look to cross the street or let alone drive.
I do have a menthol pain cream that helps my neck A LOT. I get these twitches when the visual vertigo gets bad (and maybe related to neck pain too) and using the menthol on my neck can reduce the number of twitches.
A moist heating pad/wrap also helps my neck a lot, but of course not used at the same time as menthol. Occasionally I notice I get a tad dizzier with heat, but I’m assuming that’s just the muscles relaxing.
Hi,
Have you ruled out Thoracic Outlet syndrome or an elongated C7 transverse process by a simple cervical x-ray? Neck brace helped me to and currently I am diagnosed with bilateral thoracic outlet syndrome and have an elongated C7 transverse process. They had missed it years ago. If you go to my Facebook page "Gracy Kalath " you will be able to access more information on Vertigo / dizziness / disequillibrium. Good luck!
I have scheuermann’s disease (a wedged spine) so my neck/shoulders/back always hurts but I found I can ignore it unlike the dizziness, which is constant and tends to worsen when I move my head. I agree with Jess09 that I’m afraid a neck brace may limit the neck further and make me less able to tolerate moving my neck without dizziness. I’ve also seen vestibular therapist and multiple physical therapists and neurologists and none have mentioned a brace. Thoughts anyone?
All I can say to further support my opinion is that most of the exercises in vestibular rehabilitation therapy (which I’ve done near the beginning of my symptoms and progressed as far as the therapist could get me, before my relapse that is…) involve a lot of neck movement. So neck movement is clearly important to recovery. The dizzier I got after my relapse 2 and a half years ago the less and less I moved my neck (subconsciously to try not to trigger dizziness) the worse I got, and eventually was unable to drive due to driving requiring too much neck movement which triggered too much dizziness in the car. I also had a weird tilt sensation while in the car, like the car and road were tilted, which could also have possibly been related to stiff neck muscles.
Now, having said that, I have had a good number of episodes where I get so dizzy that I can’t walk straight or feel constant spinning so I do try to lay or sit still and not move my neck for a few hours, and I notice that helps for the short term. However my guess is probably not in the long term.
Try not doing anything at all with your arms for 2 days and see the frequency of your symptoms is decreased. If so please let me know and I’ll give you more information
agreed, and VRT is important for recovery, however when it comes to MAV there are beliefs that VRT can just keep aggrivating your symptoms and delaying recovery if you are not ready for this. This is where it becomes confusing. I try to get an amount of stimulation but when I feel half dead and still want to be able to function, i.e. wash the dishes and go on the computer without severe discomfort, it has helped tremendously. I went into remission for 3 years without the use of drugs and was wearing the neck brace just before.
FWIW exactly my experience … VRT just aggravated my condition and gave me migraines … I am also not a fan of the highly repetitive movements and concerned this could lead to some form of RSI (but sure, its not for long being twice a day max?). I’d recommend instead of VRT you look at pushing yourself to get out the house and be as active & sociable as possible as natural activity and normal exposure to stimuli will help your brain navigate the challenge … (this is a good case for not drowning yourself in meds either, so minimise your doses as much as possible as you don’t want the brain too sleepy - topic for your neurologist).
Just my 10 cents, and may work well for some.
Yeah I honestly don’t know how I feel about VRT. When I did it before I was still working and driving and functioning fairly normally, only having to leave work early on occasion, call out for the day, or miss a few events from time to time. I felt worse every time I did the VRT exercises, but also couldn’t do them as often as they wanted me to practice at home because they made me feel worse (so it wasn’t like I was going to do them before my 8 hour work day on the computer when my boss wasn’t letting me always leave work when I felt horrible). And then it got to a point where the PT said he did as much as he could with me and thought something else was wrong. At that point I was referred to a new primary care doctor but every other possible thing they could think to test for got ruled out.
However, now, there’s no way I could do some of those exercises from VRT without falling over. On my daily walks (done when I can, not so much daily anymore, unfortunately) I would occasionally see something out of the corner of my eye and turn my head to the side and get very wobbly and almost lose my balance, but I would be holding on to my husband. I would love to be able to walk and move my head around again now…
In 2013 I basically stayed in bed for more than two days and only used my arms to change the TV or go make toast and that didn’t seem to reduce my dizziness through using my arms that little amount
Sorry,
I’m not sure if you have visited my Facebook page albums and posts. I have been posting a lot of medical information on Vertigo. It may be helpful to peruse through it. Here is the link:
https://m.facebook.com/gracy.kalath/photos?lst=100001983376674%3A100001983376674%3A1516109746