Should I go for a walk or not?

Thatā€™s a negative. The other day when I was writing on the board, things went really swirly. I then had such brain fog that I couldnā€™t use sentences and couldnā€™t work out how long Iā€™d been married - even doing simple math. I went home. And had a week of the floaty feeling and migraine headaches.

Itā€™s gone now. But noā€¦ def not 100%

Did you start to see benefits from medication before you began exercising? Or did you start exercising before meds?

I was very bad for about 3 months. Floaty head, vomiting every one of those days (well 6 weeks of them), magnet ear, blurry and double vision, complete head intolerance etc etc for all of that time. I started propranolol which actually made me worse, insomnia, depression and complete body fatigue. Was on that for nearly 4 weeks before I couldnā€™t handle it anymore. All of this time though, my mum took me for walks. Outside along a river path - They were not enjoyable. I walked around the house as much as I could. Up and down the hallways. I started pizotifen at the 5 week mark. It made me sleep which was the turning point. Still very bad though and slowly started to improve after another month or so. I still walkedā€¦ it was horrible as I felt I would float away. I couldnā€™t turn my head.

I started work again after 4 long months off (secondary teacher). Still highly symptomatic and tried to reduce stress. Lots of climbing stairs and walking. At this point I was at VRT who insisted I walked everyday, finding a target like a tree branch and watching it as I walked past. Training my eyes to work with the ear and brain again. Was at VRT for another 4-5 months. Some days were worse than others.

Over the next year, I continued to improve, but still had quite bad vertigo when laying down and during my period. Not bppv - not spinning but shifting/swaying.

I began Ajovy in January and stopped pizotifen in May. All this time I walked. Never jogged, and certainly never ran. I was afraid to. (I started jogging just prior to falling sick so I put it down to that - among a million other things). So nowā€¦ trying to convince my anxious mind that I can in fact exercise, I said yes to a friends suggestion to join a cricket team. And Iā€™ve run quite a bit now. I still feel like Iā€™ll be back here any time telling you what a disaster it become so Iā€™m touching wood.

In my experience, WALK AS MUCH AS YOU CAN.

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FYI I never found running a problem, in fact I had fewer symptoms running than walking. I experienced no imbalance whilst running.

It was more mental I think. Didnā€™t want to shake my head in case the crystals dislodged. Almost phobic ā€¦ severe avoidance.

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Understood. ā€œCatastrophisingā€

And if you actually consider the real anatomy, ā€œloose crystalsā€ doesnā€™t make sense, given they are held in a tissue matrix, not precariously on the end of extremely delicate fibres. The whole BBPV model many doctors have is highly suspect!!

I just wanted to give an update. Short recap: About eight weeks ago I injured my ankle and was unable to go for my usual walks. About a week after the injury, I started to get vertigo and felt dizzy. It stayed like that for seven weeks, until my ankle was healed and I started to go for my walks again.

I have been going for my walks over the last nine days. And the vertigo and dizziness has almost gone, I am back to where I was before I injured my ankle. I donā€™t know whether walking helped with brain compensation, decreased anxiety or increased relaxation, but it certainly decreased my vestibular symptoms significantly.

I have come to the same conclusion as @Belindy:

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