Thenukes i am just like your aunt I refused to believe this was stress or anxiety for so many years and still do to some degree. When my Valium does nothing to help I think itās my ear or migraine. Itās just so strange to think that your mind could cause something this bad even when you think you have your mind together. Sorry I reached the limit of messages I could send on my first day LoL I wasnāt ignoring you.
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GetBetter the rotational chair was not bad I was at one of my worst days when I took the ride if you are used to being off balance itās not bad itās actually worse for people without any issues.
Wowā¦ok thanks for letting me know.
You said Effexor helped you, how long did it take for you to notice it working? Did you have any side effects from it? I took the first one today.
I noticed effects pretty quickly within a day or two. But I saw more consistent days around month 3.
My mav has morphed a lot while on it. Now I have a toppling backward kind of sensation.
I have a falling forward feeling now which Iāve Never had. It seems like itās doing that for me also. Iāve been horrible for about a month now just wonāt let up. I took 12.5 mg of the Effexor this morning and Iām not sure if it was just anxiety of taking something different again but seemed like it was a bit hard to breathe, but my off balance let up a bit about 3 hours after.
Flutters,
That was a great post. Agree completely. The majority of us with chronic or recurring conditions need to spend a lot of time on mental approach, mindset, messaging issues. Not to mention, life stress managementā¦ personality management.
Again, I may not make many friends here (or anywhere) saying thisā¦ but I think the vast majority of us who have these conditions have them largely because of underlying emotional/behavioral/stress-anxiety factors that led us to a lifetime of poor management and stress/anxiety either directly caused these conditionsā¦ or allowed for the gene expression to do so.
Dr. Sarno talked about huge studies that showed almost half of the people X-rayād in a study had spinal/disc abnormalities in their back. (āBulging discā etc) It turned out that only a few of them complained about any pain. Yet, if one goes to the doctor WITH painā¦ the doc will x-ray and blame a bulging disc for any pain you may have.
Itās a very tricky topic because people think youāre calling them ācrazy.ā It took me a while to truly accept what stress/anxiety could produce. I truly believe emotional facotrs are at the core of so much of what peopel deal withā¦ IN PARTICULAR with these elusive, hard to pin down - hard to track ongoing conditions.
*Again - this is not to say pain isnāt pain. Pain is pain. Pain is real, regardless of the sourceā¦ and conditions existā¦ but this doesnāt mean that condition didnāt have a different genesis.
Starting with the psychological is an inarguable point IMO. Why? Because no matter WHAT condition arises in life (and they will) ā¦ mindset is going to be a huge factor in recovery.
Anyway, itās an interesitng topic. Perhaps one for another thread some time. I wonder how many around here have looked into the work of Dr. Sarno, Shubiner, read books by Claire Weekes, etc.
Be well.
Iām going to vehemently disagree with this statement.
There is a very intimate relationship between the inner ear and vestibular processing in the brain and a direct link to anxiety when there is a vestibular crisis (its part of your instinctual survival mechanism to keep you alive!)
If you injure your inner ear, for example, or compromise your vestibular system in some other way you will cause yourself neurological impact. (the severity of which I can personally attest having injured mine! Migraines, the lot).
A physical injury to your balance sense is nothing to do with how you are as an emotional person and no amount of positive thinking is going to resolve such a physical insult in the short term.
Root cause in a lot of cases is nothing to do with mindset.
No doubt that they do have a bearing though and part of recovery of even a physical injury would be to try and control your anxiety response to help limit symptoms, but it wonāt fix the root cause. Thatās why doctors refer you to psychotherapy including mindfulness as you have to retrain your reactions.
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Dizzyforever,
The falling and wobly feelings are proabbly #1 or #2 symptom for stress disorder. Polls of those with anxiety disorder always show it to be in the top 3. (Panic attakcs, dizziness, insomnia, etc.) Itās good to rule things out, Iām doing that myself after a bout of issues after weight lifting. However, itās also helpful to be truly educated as to the effects of stress/anxiety (particularly long term) on our symptoms. I recommend Jim Folk at anxiety centreās work for that particualr aspect.
Worry is an incredible stressor on the body. Stress hormones are massively powerful.
Also, just a thoughtā¦ when we use explosive language and adjectives like āHORRIBLE!ā and things of that natureā¦ our minds cue on that. We send messages to our brain with the language we choose.
You can choose to say the last month has been:
HORRIBLE! THE WORST EVER! HELL ON EARTH!
Or you could possibly choose:
Diffiuclt. A challenge. A trying timeā¦ but one you plan to work through and overcome.
Certainly some things can be āhorribleāā¦ my last 6 weeks have really been bad a lot of the time. But, I managed, and had a few laughs in that stretch as well.
I think we with anxiety disorder develop habits of sensational language because we do feel bad, and we feel like conveying that to others in extreme langauge will make them understandā¦ sympathizeā¦ maybe even help or save us? Itās a common thing we do.
Just an observation, but slowly starting to make the concious choice to use more measured language might help settle your mind just enough to allow you more peace in your day, even days when things arenāt perfect. Iāve spent almost a decade reprogramming and learning to live better. So, itās a work in progress for all of us.
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I think we can maybe moderate this language a bit. Both Bryan (@thenukes) and James (@turnitaround) and Iām guessing Helen (@Onandon03) will argue causation. I agree, James, this is NOT all down to anxiety and stress management. But, Iām right there with Bryan on the role of stress management. Our mental and physical health are intimately connected. One affects the other. Work to pull down stress and learn to strengthen your emotional responses because that in turn can help reduce your physical symptoms or the perception of the severity of those symptoms. Our perception is how we define our reality. 8 days of violent spinning vertigo isnāt caused by anxiety, but it is anxiety inducing. The strategy, after knowing the pattern, is to know itās temporary. Weāre running a marathon. Our symptoms morph as the miles pass. Thatās the strategy, knowing things change helps us get thru the present crisis.
I would argue the complete opposite is also possible, an actually probably quite a usual occurrence. Probably goes undiagnosed too. Iāve discussed that possibility with a psychotherapist friend - that there are people walking around who think they have an anxiety disorder but in actual fact they have a vestibular injury!
A vestibular condition could give you an anxiety disorder.
Agreed totally wholeheartedly with James.
Wouldnāt imagine mindset is the root cause of many MAV cases. Agreed, MAV must have a cause. Itās result of trauma to the balance system, maybe through RTA, migraine itself, whatever. Anxiety, depression comes later, the result of the seemingly hopelessness of the condition maybe. It can and will aggravate the MAV but cause it. Wouldnāt think so, not in most cases. Of course, itās listed as a contributory factor for the development of PPPD but PPPD is a different thing, if indeed you believe in PPPD.
Emily, as per my previous post, totally agree with developing coping strategies which help to deal with the anxiety to limit impact ā¦ no argument there!
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I know you are shooting the breeze here to some extent, and beginning to develop a mental model of your condition to help you cope. I get that.
I did the same. And my model changed a lot in the first 1 to 2 years of being sick. I have since refined it to a hairs width.
I bet Iām close to being more informed about the anatomy of the inner ear than most first line doctors. I even caught my consultant out at last visit, but I donāt claim to know more.
But there are some real realities we have to deal with here and its not going to help the longterm prognosis of vestibular patients if we donāt keep the science at the forefront of our minds.
A lot of arguments have occurred on this site when different peopleās mental models of their illness come into conflict. Thatās unfortunate but will re-occur as long as there is an element of doubt in the underlying science.
I would urge everyone to keep an open mind and consider all the complex variety of circumstances which may cause people to get sick with MAV. Its definitely a variety of causes, but the underlying aetiology is bound to have some commonality because we are all human and share the same anatomy, if not always the same circumstances and condition.
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TurnItAround,
Itās funny, because the enthusiasm you show in your answerā¦ is the same enthusiasm many who have overcome simialr disorders using alternate approaches would show. Again, this is why I sayā¦ we all choose our belief sets and some people simply will never be pusehd off of theirs, and thatās fine. Iām not here to do anything other than share my experiences, learn from othersā¦ and maybe open a mind or two along the way.
No one is doubting science.
But itās a maze of a discussion. There are credible doctors out there I can point you to who believe cancer may develop from partially emotional sources in some cases.
This is why itās deeper than saying itās ALWAYS science and nuts and bolts, or itās ALWAYS just stress-induced.
To keep an open mind, as you put itā¦ allows for the notion that even seemingly mechanical issuesā¦ as pointed out in the bulging disc study may have alternate interpretations.
My wife works in medicine (cardio) and she sees many controversial diagnoses of things they can actually SEE on an MRI. She deals with real structural issues all day longā¦ saves livesā¦ and is a big believer in that beyond mechanical.
This isnāt to say direct trauma doesnāt cause direct issues. But in the field of migraines, there is a lot of debate out there as to the genesis/origin/reasons for longevity, etc.
The good news is, no one will change my mind and no one will change yours. 
So thereās no need to argue.
But suffice to sayā¦ itās accurate to say that anxiety can WORSEN symptoms. Itās also accurate to say that it can cause them, and potentially trigger underlying condtions many never knew they had.
Science doesnāt even know what the appendix does. We canāt even measure serotonin in a living brain.
The possibilities are vast, and to shut either science or psychology down with absolutes, IMOā¦ is misguided.
Yes, so long as you consider āby how muchā, āto what extentā
I can agree with your statement, all these things are true.
When my inner ear hydrops was developing I used to get dizzy at moments of stress. This had never happened before in my life. It had made me more sensitive to stress. This can probably be explained physiologically very easily (a brief increase in CSF pressure for example, when you get stressed), though iām not convinced ANYONE in science has observed this phenomenon nor written a convincing explanation of it in a journal.
Also, if you read the science there is an influence of the hormone ADH on the inner ear regulation. This is a very important insight and it may suggest a potential additional option for treatment of hydrops. This is written up on hydrops.info if you are interested.
Yes agree with you, medicine has a loooong way to go!
Iām suspicious dizzy might not require an inner ear component. Brain chemistry could suffice, which is influenced by hormones. Anxiety causes dizziness without an underlying mechanical issue. Iāve watched it in my husbandās panic disorder for years. Except for occasional panic attacks (which heās largely learned to control through cognitive techniques), the man is right as rain. Throw adrenaline or cortisol into my mix and I can barely stand.
Well we know you can get dizzy when drunk. Not sure if science has determined whether or not the inner ear is involved during inebriation ā¦
āLittle birds is the nest must agree or else they will fall outā. ā¦
Very nearly typed āweāre all in the same boatā, but, with the constant rocking, perhaps not the best analogy.
Distraction is a very good form with which to reduce anxiety, Iāve found.
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I agree anxiety definitely is going to exacerbate symptoms, heck they may even bring on a few more symptoms or at least be a catalyst to additional symptoms, but in my situation, itās not coincidental that things for me started going downhill after the incident I had in the soccer game. I firmly believe had i not gone to that game, I wouldnāt be in the position I am now, had James not tried to clean out the ear with the shower head, he wouldnāt be in this position now etc. Mindsey plays a huge role sure, but itās not the initial cause of underlying issue in most cases
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