— Begin quote from ____
Hi Everyone,
I’ve been struggling for almost two years and its a relief to find this website today. I would love to hear from anyone about whether this sounds familiar as at the moment I feel like I am the only one in the world with this weird illness.
— End quote
Welcome to the forum, Rob!
— Begin quote from ____
It started about two years ago. I had a minor head injury but wasn’t knocked out and a few weeks later started to develop symptoms. I began feeling spaced out, dizzy, unbalanced when walking and it was frightening. I noticed that being in busy places or looking at moving objects triggered the dizziness - sometimes even having a conversation with someone and watching their face would do it. I would get dizzy, nauseated, and feel disoriented and unable to think. I also noticed that my vision was not clear like it had been before, particularly when moving. My eyes felt different, tired, like they were moving more slowly and like it took alot of effort to keep them still and focussed on something. By the end of a day at work I would have sore eyes. I also developed tinnitus around this time and my hearing on the left seemed slightly less sharp.
— End quote
Sometimes chronic migraine appears to be triggered by minor head injuries or even stressful periods of life. Your symptoms above
are somewhat specific to migraine - as you describe a lot of visual disturbances. Other purely peripheral diseases like Menieres
and Vestibular Neuritis do not cause visual abnormalities beyond the oculomotor system. ie. they can cause eye movement abnormalities
(nystagmus, loss of vestibulo-ocular reflex). Classic migraine visual abnormalities usually include being bothered by striped or checkered patterns
(they often seem to shimmer or move), and self-describing problems such as ‘visual snow’ or ‘tv static’. Light sensitivity is also common.
Tinnitus is not rare in MAV, but hearing loss is. Your symptoms do not sound like Menieres disease however, as Menieres usually starts
as severe episodes of spinning vertigo, at which time damage occurs, and dizziness and hearing loss become more permanent over time.
— Begin quote from ____
I have had headaches all my life but have never considered myself a migraine sufferer. I get throbbing headaches on one side though. On a small number of occasions, I have had episodes of unexplained nausea and vomiting and, come to think of it, probably vertigo, and always put it down to food poisoning or something like that.
— End quote
From what you have described above, you are definitely a migraine sufferer. Sounds like it wasn’t impacting on your life too heavily at the time
though.
I have had those occasions of unexplained nausea and vomiting also - especially during childhood.
— Begin quote from ____
I have seem lots of specialists. I have had all the balance tests numerous times and on a couple of occasions my caloric on the left has been down 30%. I also have a very small high frequency hearing loss on the left. Some doctors believe I have an inner ear problem and treated my with steroids orally and injected into the inner ear. This helped once but not the second time. Others have suggested migraine which at first I was reluctant to believe. However now that this has been going on and on and on I will try anything to get relief. My neurologist has put me on Prinivil which is supposed to be a migraine preventative. I have been taking it for 2 months with no relief. Now they are talking about Topamax or Lamictal but I really want to avoid anything that makes you drowsy as I already have enough problems with concentration.
— End quote
Prinivil is an ACE inhibitor used for blood pressure reduction. It has only recently been used in migraine, and has not proven
to be terribly successful so far.
Verapamil is actually first-line for MAV. The e-medicine article on the front page also describes other drugs that have
proven effective - these include propranolol, sodium valproate and amitryptiline. Topamax and acetazolamide are also two
other good ones. Methysergide is rarely used as it is too dangerous.
— Begin quote from ____
I would love to hear anyone’s comments or recommendations about what medication might help because I want my life back!
Bye for now.
— End quote
Please come back and report on progress! Would love to hear that you have gotten well.
Adam