Ritalin - Update

Medication 💊 Other Prescribed Medicines
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As it was when raising my third son, I quit measuring time in weeks, opting for the less restrictive boundaries such as ‘the beginning’, ‘a bit ago’ and ‘now’.

SO…

In the beginning, I had my doubts.

A bit ago, I concluded that Ritalin doesn’t make the dizziness go away, but gives my body the distraction of energy, allowing me to function normally which, in turn, allows my brain to receive a normal amount of input which leads to compensation for my inner ear damage.

I recently came down with the flu. During that time, I reduced my dose of Ritalin to allow my body the rest it needed to recover. I immediately noticed an increase in dizziness, more headaches and fogginess. You see - I upped my dose just days before I fevered up, thinking that the breakthrough exhaustion meant that the Ritalin wasn’t working as well.

Then one morning (okay - it was day before yesterday), the exhaustion began to lift - my coughing decreased - and I realized that not everything is about my UVL and MAV. We can get sick…aside from our conditions. For some of you, this is a total ‘duh’. For me, it was an epiphany.

And so - I’m keeping to the lower dose…for now.

Today is a good day. Some coughing fits - but all in all, I feel pretty terrific. As before, the dizziness still floats somewhere above my consciousness while I move on through my day, bleaching baseboards and windwosills and attack the creatures called ‘cobs’, and destory there habitats (cobwebs).

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Hi MJ,

Thanks again for keeping us updated on how you’re faring with the Ritalin!

I’m a little bit confused about your description of what happened this past week: are you saying that the increased dizziness, headaches, etc. were a result of you lowering the Ritalin, and therefore you know now that the Ritalin had been helping with those things? Or are you saying that it turned out the increased dizziness, headaches, etc, were actually due to the flu, but you just didn’t realize at first because you’d assumed it was part of the MAV? (BTW, I totally know what you mean there – I often think about the fact that if anything ELSE went wrong with me, whether a simple flu or something else, I’d probably completely ignore it because I’d just assume it was some new variation in my MAV symptoms!!).

I’m just trying to understand whether you feel that the Ritalin is helping w/ the dizziness & headaches, or do you feel it’s simply giving you more energy (which is of course great in and of itself since this illness is so draining)?

In any case, it’s great to hear that you’re feeling better than you were “a bit ago”!!

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— Begin quote from “alwaysmoving”

Hi MJ,

Thanks again for keeping us updated on how you’re faring with the Ritalin!

I’m a little bit confused about your description of what happened this past week: are you saying that the increased dizziness, headaches, etc. were a result of you lowering the Ritalin, and therefore you know now that the Ritalin had been helping with those things? Or are you saying that it turned out the increased dizziness, headaches, etc, were actually due to the flu, but you just didn’t realize at first because you’d assumed it was part of the MAV? (BTW, I totally know what you mean there – I often think about the fact that if anything ELSE went wrong with me, whether a simple flu or something else, I’d probably completely ignore it because I’d just assume it was some new variation in my MAV symptoms!!).

I’m just trying to understand whether you feel that the Ritalin is helping w/ the dizziness & headaches, or do you feel it’s simply giving you more energy (which is of course great in and of itself since this illness is so draining)?

In any case, it’s great to hear that you’re feeling better than you were “a bit ago”!!

— End quote

LOL…that would appear to be such an easy question…but it’s not.

The dizziness, headaches and exhaustion broke through my Ritalin. I thought it was surely my MAV or my UVL that that was threatening to blow up in my face, so I increased my Ritalin. When fever, coughing and aches set in, there was a monumental ‘NO KIDDING, YOU IDIOT’ moment. I was dealing with the flu - not a medication breakdown.
I still think that part of how this Ritalin is working (at least for me and surely what I’ll be talking to my dr about) is that it removed the anchors that seemed to be pressing down on my entire body. If you have vestibular loss and can’t get up out of bed or perform normal, everyday tasks, you’re simply not going to compensate. Getting better, for the UVL patient, is to push through the dizziness, at least to some degree, and stimulate your mind into accepting the twisty-twirly world as it’s presented, forcing your mind to make the translation that makes sense to the rest of you. I was willing to push through the dizziness. What I couldn’t overcome was the exhaustion, by far the very WORST symptom of all, in my book.
As the medication leaves my body, my symptoms return though not to the same degree as before I was taking the meds. As it stands now, I continue to function. I can clean my house. I can shop and be around multiple conversations without feeling like I need to lay down.

Determining whether the Ritalin’s success is due to a reduction in my ultra-fatigue, or migraine supression is still a mystery to me. For now, I’ll take it.

God…please…if this response did ANYTHIN to clear this up for you, would you 'xplain it to me? LOL

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LOL, sadly, I know exactly what you mean! It is impossible to ever figure out what the heck is going on w/ our bodies, to try to determine whether medicine is helping( or hurting), or whether you’re simply going thru a random good phase (or bad phase), or whether some lifestyle change is helping you to feel better (or worse). There are so many cumulative factors that go into how we feel on any given day, it really is hard to ever determine what’s making things better or worse. And then to try to explain that to other (non-MAV) people? That is the ultimate challenge!!

I guess it must be extra complicated for you since you’re dealing w/ two different vestibular conditions at the same time! Well, whatever the explanation, I’m glad that you’re feeling somewhat better. And I can definitely understand the exhaustion issue & how that alone might make a difference – the exhaustion can be really overwhelming and make it impossible to function even when the rest of the symptoms aren’t too terrible.