Helen you are right. I push myself to exhaustion. I feel like an invalid when my friends and family want to go go out dancing and hiking. I go sometimes and suffer terribly with the all the motion and noise. If I would just say no I would improve quicker. This is definitely major lifestyle changes in order for this condition to improve. I have always been sensitive with allergies both environmental, foods and chemicals. I changed over to all green cleaning products in the house because the cleaners with bleach and other chemical were making me sick and dizzy. Thatâs another trigger to be aware of too. I have to think of my health and say no to my friends and family when I am feeling off. Thanks for making me realized this.
Iâd go one step farther and say. For a while you need to make sure you donât push your balance too far, period. Even if you are feeling OK. VRT therapists hv all these formula. If you do the exercises and they make you more than X% more dizzy for more than Y minutes, youâve pushed yr balance too far and done more harm than good. (That said it wouldnât cause permanent damage, just damages recovery time) so itâs be totally selfish time, and, just for a while til you get a grip on MAV, think only of YOU. Helen
Do most people with MAV do the VRT exercises? Is there a link for the exercises or should people see a physical therapist? I like what you said. âThink of You.â I have to put myself first with this condition or I will never get better.
Noooo! 
VRT was totally useless for me, just made me feel worse and precipitated attacks. (and to top it all upset the insurer) Just go for a lovely walk every day.
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Gosh, Iâve scored a bullseye! Itâs so hard for most plp to realise this. Most plp are so busy trying to fit in with others, and not be nuisance. It becomes second nature. Habit hard to break. Also, and not wishing to scare you, you donât sound the scared type, it pays to realise its balance and the brain weâre dealing with here. Not some very minor finger ache and it can take a bit of sorting.
VRT Exercises on an unstable case of MAV can make you ten times worse. Many specialists donât recommend it. It can prove too much. Helen
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Tai Chi is also good btw. Sorry to plug, but there are loads of Tai Chi videos linked in the member recommended products section.
Thereâs even a link to a DVD by Dr. Hain, but its a bit expensive and better to use the streaming service.
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| Tai Chi Streaming videos | US accounts | UK accounts |
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Lots of videos | Several videos |
Other DVDs (be careful of region)
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I think VRT exercises are good to try periodically to see if they help, specifically easy ones like closing your eyes for a few seconds at a time with a narrow feet stance with some head turns and maybe single leg stands if you can manage. I donât see them that different than Tai Chi honestly if you are gentle with it. I do benefit from doing them a couple times a week. In addition, gaze stabilization exercises can also be very helpful.
As long as you are gentle with VRT and donât overdo it they can help a little from day to day compensation. If you feel motion sick for more than 15min after you do them, you are overdoing it. VRT is just another tool in the toolkit of things that can help and I would recommend trying it. Itâs not a silver bullet, nothing with MAV really is.
Well Erik we most certainly went to different VRT therapists together! And different Tai Chi classes too. Tai Chi is gentle. An integrated structured VRT programme is far more gruelling and demanding.
I see great differences between VRT and Tai Chi. When I was chronic, neither was a viable option, even gentle Tai Chi which I had done virtually daily for more than three years pre-chronic MAV. Iâd get my VRT trying to walk around my house!
Yes, but what if youâre already 24/7 dizzy anyway. What if you have already felt sick, all day every day for a year. Can anybody quantify sickness by percentage. I couldnât.
VRT is designed to reprogramme the brain. VRT therapist (who was supposedly top of her tree and who had been trained in US which is why I paid her so much money, US being streaks ahead of UK with VRT) told me the brain only listens to persistent repetitive movements to this effect performed in multiples of five. Anything less, it just assumes to be normal bodily movements. I carried out VRT exercises for 50 minutes a day, five separate 10 minutes sessions, every day, for nearly six months. This was built up over time but I once calculated eventually meant doing these various exercises (and not including gaze stabilisation exercises) I was turning my neck left to right right to left some 400+ times per day. Nearly all MAVers experience problems with that particular movement. I found it doubly difficult, having, like many other MAVers, a permanent stiff neck before I ever started VRT. I have since discovered that performing these exercises against a stiff neck actually means you are âreprogrammingâ the brain incorrectly which I well believe as, although when I first started VRT, I could turn my head left/right, right/left and still walk a straight line, Iâve never been able to do so since and still, and itâs three years since I stopped VRT, cannot.
Tai Chi - obviously the âno contactâ non-martial arts type - is gentle, based on walking albeit a somewhat different walking experience than most Westerners are accustomed to. Itâs far more natural. Itâs relaxing, meditative, not gruelling. Helen
I donât due well with any kind of exercise that moves the head. I have a neck problem from two whiplash injuries and I find that I have to leave my neck and head in a neutral position for now or I can get dizzy. Until I got a diagnosis of MAV I was running to all kinds of alternative doctors for answers. and treatment. I tried acupuncture. The times of my appointment I would arrive with no dizziness and I would leave feeling lightheaded. I tried it two more times and the same thing happened. The next time they changed the needles to a smaller needle and when I got up I was so relieved that I felt pretty good with no lightheadedness. I walked slowly to my car, got in and went to bend over to get my phone in my purse that was on the floor and when I got up the whole car and myself did a 360 degree turn. I said what the heck was that. I was so scared as I never experienced that weird feeling. I called them back and explained what happened and they said this is good the chi is moving, I never went back. The treatment was stimulating my brain instead of calming it down making me feel worse than ever. It just wasnât the right treatment for me.
Yeah, I hear you, many times the exercises were not helpful. I also have an extremely tight neck that was hard to do the head turns, which my VRT therapist caught and helped me work on.
Maybe not an exact percentage, surely you know when one hour is worse than another, right? VRT will always make you feel a little worse if you do it right, but the point is not to overdo it. If I over did it I could feel it the rest of the day.
Wow! That is an intensive program. No, my therapist said no more than 15min per day. Yeah I would have felt awful doing 50 minutes a day of exercises! Dear god.
Neck turns donât have to be large, my therapist always suggested starting small and only make bigger ones if possible. Never did she said to strain the neck or push through being sick. Sounds like you had a real drill sergeant as a VRT therapist!
Chen style Tai Chi is gentle and good for combat! Most of the training is standing meditation and silk reeling. Even practicing push hands with a partner can be gentle.
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Yeah my VRT was less than 15 minutes morning and evening.
But it was still useless.
Yeah, all this really shows the wide variations of MAV affliction and VRT treatment. Youâre young and otherwise fit and I very much doubt youâve ever been confined to bed by MAV for weeks on end unable to stand unaided, ie without any balance, like middle-aged me?
Certainly, not at that stage, with unstable MAV and Iâm not alone there. Alot of specialists donât recommend it either.
So it might seem now. And she had the gentlest quietly spoken manner, you could hardly hear her speak with just the two of us in an otherwise silent room. She inflicted her torture with the loveliest bedside manner youâd ever find!
I was told on Day One she could get me back to 100% in six months but it would be six months unstinting hard work on a daily basis. I believed her. I kept my side of the bargain unfortunately the VRT eventually made me ten times worse. I collapsed.
Never had a partner to practise with. My husbandâs supportive attitude only goes so far! Helen
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Ah! I can almost hear @turnitaround leaping to his keyboard, Now that could be the root cause of your MAV. It seems often to stem from some previous trauma.
Quite an experience with acupuncture that was Iâd say. My brother had severe vertigo in his twenties caused by lifting extremely heavy tyres single-handed, incapacitated for more than a year, and, eventually cured by acupuncture. Two sessions I believe.
In that case youâd better steer clear of Tai Chi too! Personally Iâd say er ⌠âRubbish!â ⌠for the sake of politeness. Sounds like true rotary vertigo to me. I did Tai Chi for years pre-MAV, and was never aware of the chi at all. I understand you need to be really in tune with Tai Chi to feel it, it takes many years of practice I thought. Helen
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What works for me is just âquietnessâ and avoidance of all the triggers. If I have a busy day at work under all the bright lights you can bet I am no good the next day. I am learning what I can tolerate. I had to cut down my hours at work for awhile until I get this under control. My supervisor was very understanding.
What did she say after it didnât work for you? Hopefully she didnât start blaming the patient, which happens so often with these chronic conditions. I find it so hard to fully trust doctors anymore that have strong beliefs about what to do and how to recover as if they were psychic or something and know exactly how to treat you.
First she said âwhat do you mean. You canât stand up. Youâve âlost your balanceâ. I donât understand.â. Then, when I said Iâd developed new symptoms so I was waiting to hear back from my doctor, she said âWell, be sure to tell him itâs not my fault. It was nothing to do with me. Tell him I helped youâ. Then she hung up!
The doctor wouldnât have known I was doing VRT. We donât have an integrated system. A consultant had told me to try it, as only option, because I was complaining about balance issues and he couldnât find anything wrong with me. Actually, and Iâd forgotten this til now, when I started VRT she did say if I didnât improve to her satsfaction sheâd like me to see a consultant she worked with in due course but she never mentioned that again after our first meeting. I was very surprised with it all. She was very experienced highly qualified audiologist in her own right as well as having trained in VRT in US. I thought she really knew her stuff. Helen
Indeed:
https://www.mvertigo.org/t/olympic-sufferer/13149?u=turnitaround
Similar issue to mine. Same MAV treatment.
Yes, indeed. Yours and Gregâs were similar. Treatment indeed the same. Just sometimes reassuring/interesting to have some idea of possible origin I thought cos there is bound to be a root cause there somewhere, Helen
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Finally got these, super cheap on amazon and I love them. @turnitaround maybe link to our recommended products page for those on a tight budget?
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That is a great price. Thanks for letting me know. I was about to buy the Thera specs
and they are 99.00.