I’ve always been skeptical lol. I do have migraines since 16 but they were incredibly sporadic and I could go for years between them. I did notice an increase between 2020 -22 when I got diagnosed with hypothyroid. I was then averaging 1 or 2 a week.
But crucially mine were never vestibular. I just had migraine with aura. I never had any balance issues, vertigo, tinnitus. And most of the medical sites about VM state VM is normally episodic, that the vertigo and other symptoms can last between 5 minutes to 72 hours. They say nothing about constant 24/7 balance, disequilibrium, or dizziness. I just had a migraine one day and the balance problem started the next. Crucially I never had motion sickness as a child which is common with those with VM.
I’ve had a brain MRI, hearing tests to rule out Meniere’s. I have no hearing loss, tinitus. I think part of my ongoing scepticism is that I’ve tried all the usual suspects in migraine prevention and none have worked. If it was migraine related I would have expected something to have worked or at least alleviated it.
I kind of feel my NHS neurologist leapt of my balance problem and history of migraine. As we know the NHS is vastly over worked and hospital doctors just dont have the time to spend with patients and cynically I feel they send us off with a diagnosis just to get rid of us and reduce waiting lists.
Interestingly though my Vestibular Physio did say my repeated migraine attacks could have attacked my Amygdala and left it over sensitised and traumatised. I’m not completely ruling out VM, or MAV but my hope is if I see a Neuro Oto they can consider other conditions. And if they conclude it is migraine then I can concentrate on trying to find something to manage it.