I am trying to figure out if I have MAV or not and could use some help? I have had vertigo for a little over 4 months now. It is pretty much my only symptom, besides some visual snow which I have had for 4 years. I want to ask what is everyone elses dizziness like? Is it constant or more episodic? I’m trying to figure out what the criteria for MAV is.
My vertigo is like a slow rotating, almost like the room is turning. However, if I move my eyes in the other direction, the turning will go that way. Unlike most people on this board who get an MRI, they found a cyst in the area of the brain that controls balance and other things. However, all of my VEMP, VNG and ABR were pretty much normal.
I’m trying to find out what is causing my dizziness…MAV or this cyst. Maybe if I get input on what your dizziness symptoms are like, I might be able to go in one direction. My symptoms are constant, I feel them when I am lying down or sitting the most. I’m sure MAV isn’t the only thing that causes this type of dizziness but it may be what I have. I have tried Nortriptilyne to to avail.
From my experience on these boards people’s symptoms vary tremendously, not only in type of sxs, but in duration and severity as well. For me, I have chronic dizziness for 2 1/2 yrs. my major complaint as far as dizziness is disequilibrium. I basically feel as though I’m on a violently rocking boat when I walk. Also feels like a trampoline. so hard to describe, but it is so very severe that I am pretty much bedridden. I also feel as though someone took my head and shook it one million times and I am left with the aftermath 24/7. I wish you luck with figuring out what you have. what dose did you get up to on nortritpyline before you considered it a failure?
My dizziness is pretty similar in that I walk on a trampoline, but not for that long. It’s only sometimes. Mine is more like a slow spinning that is really noticable when sitting in a chair laying back a little bit. It shifts with my eye movement. What does the snow globe feeling feel like? Do you just feel out of sorts or is the room actually turning?
I am dizzy daily. If you were to spin around repeatedly and then stop, that would be how I feel. Some days the dizziness is only slightly bothersome, but other days it is really problematic! I am trying to figure out what makes it worse , so I am cutting out alcohol, caffeine and reducing possible trigger foods. Regardless of the severity, it is always amplified by big dept. store flourescent lighting and uneven flooring. I’m still not sure if I have MAV, MM or something else. I do know that with so many afflicted there has to be something we all share!
Constantly feels like one eye can only see distance and the other only close up, and at the same time a weak light is being shone in my eyes. I feel “unsteady” all the time rather than dizzy. The edges are blurry - a bit like how I imagine tunnel vision might be perhaps?
Intermittently a weird ‘dizzy’ sensation of steadily sinking/dropping through the floor. Happens when standing, sitting, lying down. If I’m lying in bed it feels as though the bed has tipped backwards and I’m sinking head downwards.
Intermittently, the sudden sensation that I’ve just stepped off a children’s roundabout and I’m still spinning - this can last up to a couple of minutes - I have to grab something to stop myself from falling over. (The same feeling as when you’re a child and you spin round and round to deliberately provoke this sensation followed by drunkenly falling over. )
Teresa
I have constant Motion which is felt mostly in my head and affects my equilibrium. The right side of my head feels tense…like a light to moderatly squeezed sponge. My head never feels completely relaxed or clear. It’s like this Tension that never entirely goes away. At times i feel like i’m walking on a Trampoline. Without medication these symptoms worsen and can even bring on Vertigo.
The trampoline describes it well. With new medication - my trampoline that used to be accompanied by an intense difficulty in making sense of ups/downs has decreased. I was never, EVER good with alcohol - and even decongestants (single dose) were enough to insteady my world. THAT is how I’ve been feeling lately, though. Slightly tipsy. Bad days have been cropping up here and there and the bandaid rips off and lays open that trampoline.
I’ve never seen a definition of dizzy that describes how I feel so I 'm not sure if what I have is “dizzy” or something else.
For me, I feel constantly motion sick, any kind of movement (on my part or others or that of an inanimate oject), flashing lights, scented odors (especially candles) makes me feel sick. It’s like a nauseaus feeling in my head, not my stomach. Occassionaly I’ll get a brief second feeling of actually spinning but that doesn’t happen too often anymore. I can function pretty much normal when feeling like this though if I had a choice I would just lie down. This is how I feel for most of the day, with it increasing and decreasing throughout the day. I can’t even turn my head without feeling motion sick. If I need to look at something off to the side I have to turn my entire body.
The only time I get the trampoline feeling is just before I go into a severe vertigo attack. And, vertigo, that’s a different story. 99.9% incapacitated when they happens.
My dizzines (until I started Topamax Nov 5) was 24/7 since the end of July. It felt like I’d had a few drinks. Sometimes it felt like a really bad head cold where my head was disconnected. There was one spell that lasted about 3-4 hours that I couldn’t get off the couch without stumbling around. And then another spell that only lasted about 10-15 minutes that the floor felt really uneven (in my living room). It wasn’t really a spinning motion. Lying down didn’t really help it much. Sometimes getting into a car would make it worse if I was a passenger/not the driver, sometimes not (but I’ve always been that way about the car-since grade school). I tried meclazine/antivert/dramamine- that didn’t help. I still have it some; it now seems like the same dizziness. I kept telling my doctor- it’s like a dizziness in my peripheal vision- like my peripheal is rocking.