Ok guys can I really need some calming advice here. today was a hectic day and i am kinda have my stress level is thru the roof. I got up this a.m. to get my daughter ready for her last day of preschool. then put makeup on and got my son ready to go to my daughters preschool for their last day of the year picnic…a tiny room with a lot of kids and flourescent lighting it was hard and i felt horrible but i made it through. I came home put the kids down for a nap and went to hang out on porch and rest well smelt something funny and went to investigate and my p.o.s. dryer was on FIRE…i got kids out on porch and tried to put the fire out and it wouldnt go out so called 911 and fire fighters came and took dryer out…no fire damage to house everyone is safe took a dose of valium at 2:15…then took kids outside to play and then had to go to a parents night at the kindergarten and after about 20 mins i started to feel terrible like i was going to pass out i went into the bathroom and splashed water on my face and did it but was hard to sit through the rest of the hour…my anxiety feels sky high and i am panicking cause i havent felt like i ws going to pass out for a looooong time…why is this happening?? even if i dont get a diagnosis those tht have been dizzy does it improve after a while…i feel i will never be able to enter the community if i cant handle an hour long parents night…my poor kids i always envisioned myself being part of their growing up but i cant be and it is killing me?? is there something seriously wrong with me? why did i feel that way today and god tell me it is going to get better…i am going to take another dose at 8 but WTH!!
"*Why is this happening? * "
I would have been in a panic over the fire alone, let alone everything else you’ve had to go through today.
The flo lights alone would have done me in. The small room with kids would have done me in.
But I do have a diagnosis and I am still pretty disabled. But to judge yourself based on your response to a day like this that you call “hectic” is not at all fair. This day was way beyond hectic. Does anybody here disagree?
I forget, you have no diagnosis and you’re only taking Valium?
Jesus,
I envy you that you got that much accomplished!
I spent most of the day in bed. Again.
When the phone rings and you throw your food off your plate into the air,
then you’ll know you’re in trouble. 
Hang tough. Do you, or any of us, have a choice?
Heather
they said vn first then meineires and migraines so who knows i am on valium as needed and nortriptyline…so you guys think my panic and pass out feeling was just from the schedule today adn that it should calm down soon and tomorrow i will be back the way i ws before today??
I don’t know how long it will take for you to calm down. I know others have had reactions to stress that have set them back and it’s taken them varying lengths of time to recover. Everybody is different. The main thing is, don’t get down on yourself. That was quite a day.
So you are on a preventative - is it helping at all?
i started the bnortiptyline in the first week of may and am still at 10mg (i am super med sensitive and had WAY TOO much going on in June to be feeling crappy for a week or two with upping it) I dont know my symptoms have changed slightly i guess i am less dizzy a tiny bit but with that comes freaking out every time i do get dizzy…today though OMG i just hate this and still havent calmed down…the valium should have kicked ina few mins ago and the nortriptyline should kick in in another 5 mins or so (i always stay up like 1/2hour later than it kicks in to make sure it “settles” all right before i go right to bed. i also have a headache above my right eye and my eyes feel overtired like they just dont want to stay open… a good portion of the time if i had a bad symptom or anxiety day once i wake up in the morning it is usually a clean slate so hoping that is true tomorrow cause i have to get up early adn get my daughter ready for her “step up day” at kindergarten from 8-9:30…I really just hope i feel so crappy cause of all the stress i mean i thought my house was going down in FLAMES for goodness sake!!
that was one horrible day and would have set anybody into a tizzy. i had a fire in my house last summer - i was frantic the entire day, but back to my usual badness the following. I think you’re doing what you need to - do your usual routine, which seems to work well enough, and hopefully you will have calmed down enough tomorrow to get through the day.
Good luck,
Julie
Desperately Dizzy-
I remember in the beginning of all this, the absolute fear of not knowing what the He** was wrong with me and if I would ever get better. All of my symptoms were fed by the fear. It was a horrible cycle. The worst part was, I was a single parent of a (then) 5 year old girl just starting kindergarten. I had to quit my job (I couldn’t walk from the bedroom to the kitchen without holding onto the walls.) Quitting my job was the worst. It was total fear, and the panic consumed me. I had a daughter to take care of, and I couldn’t even take care of myself. My Dad came all the way from Florida out to Phoenix, and helped move me and my daughter back . Those were some bleak and scary days.
I don’t really know how I made it through all that. I felt like I had lost control over everything, it was horrible. Moving closer to my parents took a huge weight off my shoulders, and slowly the panic subsided. Little by little, I got my life back (for the most part…most days… LOL). I was able to overcome the fear, panic and depression, and was then able to concentrate on the migraine crap.
Anyway, I don’t mean to ramble, but you mentioned your kids, and it made me think how stressful it is to be sick,and how much more stress is put on you when you have a little one (or little ones) that depend on you.
It might feel like you’re at the end of your rope, but you’ll get there. I’d say step one, do anything you can to lighten your load, and go easy on yourself. Pretty soon you’ll be having more good days than bad.
Anyway, sorry for this long rambling post. 
Kim
Hi Kim,
Thanks for posting your thoughts. I am now, where you were then. It’s true, the panic and fear consume you.
I never thought it could be so bad that your whole body trembled and your hands shake. This is sheer madness to me.
To double the fear and panic, picture having screwed up vision, and yet wearing glasses frequently *ucks you up more
by making the ground wave, inside your head wave, or the bed wave. It’s like being tortured through your eyes.
You’re terrified to leave your house to go see another eye doctor or optometrist, and you don’t know if another pair
will make you worse or better. It’s like being deprived of what you once knew to be real. All you know is terror and you
just wish you were dead. That’s where I am. As you can tell, I’m having a bad day. 
The problem is the idiots treat you like everyone else when testing your eyes, not realizing they are writing prescription eyeglasses
that make the problem 10X worse. If you didn’t have a vestibular problem before, hell, just being given the wrong eyeglasses can give you one!
I’m sick of living life on a trampoline, balance beam, or suspension bridge.
Heather
well yesterday i took valium at 2pm after the fire adn then another at 8pm after the meeting…i woke up with anxiety still and took another dose at 7 am. this afternoon i got dizzy and offbalance to the point where i have been laying around i havent been this dizzy in at least a few months and not very dizzy at all lately so obviously the nortriptyline is helping alittle but i am miserable right now and i hope it is just for the evening and i dont want to have to take another valium dose as that will be 4 doses in 2 days and in the past 24 hours i had 4 1/2 mg (1.5mg per dose)…do you think this will last or go away?
Jesus you sound like me. In the last two days my anxiety is through the roof. It’s like someone all of a sudden hooked me up to an electric outlet and upped my neck pain x10.
I can’t tell you what to do regarding meds (that’s your personal decision) but I won’t lie, I’m jamming the Benzos to try and calm myself and relax my neck.
Do what it takes to feel better.
There is no way of predicting how long this will last for you.
Heather
Hi DD
Of course, one of the biggest trigger factors of MAV is anxiety/depression and whilst in my previous life I never suffered from it, it now appears that my anxiety threshold has been lowered so much that choosing what kinda cereal I’m going to eat in the morning can raise my anxiety levels too, what a joke! What you’ve been through in the past couple of days is way over the scale for anyone even without MAV, but not surprising that you’ve suffered from this ordeal for a couple of days and not surprising for it to last even longer (just quoting from my own experience). In my own case, these situations have generally settled down so I wouldn’t be concerned about taking a dose of valium or two because YOU NEED IT! I asked my neuro last week “am I becoming some kinda drug addict with all these meds?” and he said of course not…you need them to treat a medical condition.
I’m taking 1mg of Klonopin every day, which I think my board members said the equivalent to that in Valium is 20mg (is that right guys??? I’m a bit ‘med-challenged’!) and I’m also taking a tricylic antidepressant called Dothep 75mg per day and will be upping to 100mg over the next few weeks. I take them daily and feel the benefit because it’s a ‘constant’ in my system. It’s what I need now, but hopefully down the track reduction will become possible. Anyway where I’m leading to here, is that I’ve really improved from meds and time, but I do have times when one of those migraine triggers goes over my threshold and I relapse. I always bounce back albeit sometimes slowly, so hang in there and I’m sure the same will be for you. Don’t burden yourself with the med debate, they’re a necessary evil (or I chose to think blessing).
— Begin quote from “AZdizzy”
Desperately Dizzy-
It might feel like you’re at the end of your rope, but you’ll get there. I’d say step one, do anything you can to lighten your load, and go easy on yourself. Pretty soon you’ll be having more good days than bad.
Kim
— End quote
Can’t quote any better than Kim, it’s still early days but we’ve all found that the good times will come too. Much good health to you and ‘chin up’.
regards
Judy
— Begin quote from “Dizzyblonde”
— Begin quote from “AZdizzy”
Desperately Dizzy-
It might feel like you’re at the end of your rope, but you’ll get there. I’d say step one, do anything you can to lighten your load, and go easy on yourself. Pretty soon you’ll be having more good days than bad.
Kim
— End quote
Can’t quote any better than Kim, it’s still early days but we’ve all found that the good times will come too. Much good health to you and ‘chin up’.
regards
Judy
— End quote
I agree completely and that may be the most important thing you do - lighten your load.
I sure do hate to give advice regarding benzos, because, if you need to withdraw, it’s your withdrawal, not mine, but here goes:
I agree with Judy - except in Heather’s world 
1.5 mg of Valium is an incredibly baby dose. I did withdraw from 10 mg of V a day and it was hard, but it was after 7 years of daily dosing and it was 10 mg.
You sound very cautious, so to increase the dosage by a small amount during this time to try to get yourself stable again sounds reasonable to me (spoken as a lay person and if I were in your shoes). After two weeks, if it didn’t seem to be helping, you could bail out with no harm done. Talk to your doctor.
Next, I agree again with Judy about having a steady state of benzo going. I was fearful, so I was taking it prn and trying to keep the number of days down. All that did was give me a lot of ups and downs. I finally committed to daily Klonopin and settled at 1.5 mg of K which is equivalent to 30, **yes 30 mg **of Valium (although equivalencies need to be taken with a grain of salt because each benzo is different from the next) It was the best decision I made. I have a chronic illness. I am 100 X more functional on it. I may be on it for the rest of my life. The only things that could go wrong are tolerance and/or depression. I have talked this over with a psychopharmacologist, my neuro-oto, and three family practitioners. They all agreed that with long-term use, tolerance is a risk, but not likely at the dose i’m at. They also agreed that my daily dosing was nothing but responsible benzo use. I need them to function. They are not the devil. They come with some risks, but so do the other drugs I’m taking. And DD **you **are at a VERY low dose of V.
Give yourself a break - talk to your doctor about taking a little more and about taking it regularly during this set-back.
Best of luck, keep us posted.
Julie
Im royally pissed off now…woke up this morning dizzy and offbalance again…i guess i was ALOT better than I thought I was cause I havent woken up this way in MONTHS and this is how I used to feel every morning and I am so ANGRY to feel this way again I just dont get it and why NOW when all next week I am getting ready to set up the biggest event of the year for me I was doing so well!!! What are the chances this might clear up n the next day or two?? is this going to be months again? I just feel so damn defeated!! I just cant believe this is happening again and NOW
DD,
I can’t blame you for being stark raving out of your mind mad. the timing is incredible. the illness is maddening AND incredible. And you must being out of your mind trying to figure out what the HECK you’re going to do with your upcoming event.
i hope that others on this board find me to be a compassionate person, and I hope that you take the following with compassion.
The timing may be bad, but there is no fairness in life.
Look at the stories of others who have posted in the Post Your Story Here link. Read some of the posts of others who are still bedridden/housebound. Lives have been put on hold, not for a week, but for decades, for some, indefinitely and forever.
My Dad died and I wasn’t able to attend, his dying, his death, or his funeral. I expect the same for my mother.
You are much more functional than a number of active posters, including myself, but you’re still sick, DD and you may not be up to holding the biggest event of the year. I learned some things over the last horrendous few years - worse things happen.
I hope you take all that in the way it was intended,
Julie
DD-
I remember being angry. So damned angry… In a way looking back, I think its what saved me. I took my anger and decided if the doctors couldn’t help me, I’d help myself.
The choice for me was simple. Lay down and die, or fight like Hell. I chose to fight. (I’m pretty sure, alot of people on this board can say the same thing).
So here I am.
(Julie- There is nobody more compassionate than you!!! Your knowledge and encouragement are never-ending, and very much appreciated!! Always.)
Kim
Doctors helping . . .hmmm isn’t that an oxymoron?
Heather
— Begin quote from “DesperatlyDizzy”
Im royally pissed off now…woke up this morning dizzy and offbalance again…i guess i was ALOT better than I thought I was cause I havent woken up this way in MONTHS and this is how I used to feel every morning and I am so ANGRY to feel this way again I just dont get it and why NOW when all next week I am getting ready to set up the biggest event of the year for me I was doing so well!!! What are the chances this might clear up n the next day or two?? is this going to be months again? I just feel so damn defeated!! I just cant believe this is happening again and NOW
— End quote
DD,
I hear you. I am doing my best to remain optimistic through this process, but there are times when I’m angry, sad, frustrated, etc. I think there is a good chance the reason you are having worse symptoms now is because of the added stress of the upcoming event. I was just talking with someone who most likely has MAV but does not yet have a formal diagnosis. She was having a horrible time with vertigo as she was preparing for her daughter’s wedding. As soon as the wedding was over, the symptoms improved some. Do your best this weekend to try relaxation techniques. This is the approach I am now taking in addition to my meds and diet. I find that worrying about my condition and how it is affecting my life is actually making things work. I am determined to continuing living in the world and participating in my family’s lives. However, I am having to make modifications by taking time-outs for me and remembering to rest and relax. So, take a few deep breaths, accept what you don’t have control over, and don’t be too proud or afraid to ask for help when you need it. (That was advice I recently received from friend. I’m going to try to follow it). Good luck this week! 
Take care,
Marci
well until about 6 months ago i felt terrible…slowly i started being dizzy less and having more energy and being less offbalance it was slow so I didnt notice it as much…now after the fire and the preschool/kindergarten stuff I feel like I did months ago it is soooo depressing…just dont know what would cause me to fall so far back…it cant have been just anxiety cause i had it real bad starting the nortriptyline but didnt feel like this bad…do you think it is just a blip and after a few days of taking it easy this will go away? I mean I had progressed so far why would I stay back here for a long time again?
Reminds me of what someone wrote on the MDDS board-- that a single 45 minute car trip knocked them out of remission. I can see how. Any 45 minute trip messes me up, royally.
So for MAV, anxiety would easily knock someone out of any type of remission since anxiety/panic is closely linked with MAV.
Heather