Vertigo.....does anyone else suffer with this?

Raggedy Ann:

If there's anything I've learned in the last couple of years, it's that allergies are manifested uniquely in every person and animal. For a long time I tried to diagnose everything I had myself. The last reaction I had to medication convinced me that the doctors know more than I do. LOL. Go figure.

There are some standard allergic responses, but we are each unique, so it could well be allergies that is causing your sinuses to fill with fluid. My pets are the same way - each responding a little differently - though their allergic reactions are mostly in their skin.

Gloria:

I weaned myself off Celexa (SSRI) earlier this year and am convinced that it was responsible for a variety of physical symptoms. When I went on it 4 years ago, there weren't any side-effects noted. Now there are lots of them on the Web. It was great when I started, but . . . I'm convinced, too, that you should check your other meds frequently and keep researching potential side-effects of them.

Kathy

Recently, I was manager at an apartment house for the elderly and disabled. I was so surprised when I learned talking to the tenants how often they just take medicine for years on end without getting the side-effects checked, even though Alabama has pretty good medical insurance for poor people. Its just something that slips through the cracks. Its just another way people can live a lower quality of life than they need to.

You are so right. I love the new program used by many insurance companies, to get people to put all their medications in a paper sack and take them in to the doctor to look at the combinations. The company I used to work at actually sent out paper sacks and it worked!! People just need reminders and doctors need a little help to keep track.

Kathy

Many of my allergies are plant-related (pollen, mostly) so I now use local honey instead of sugar in hot tea and other places I'd use sugar (except coffee, LOL). The honey made by the bees which collect pollen and take it back to the hive. The principal being, that a tad of allergans like pollen ingested over a period of time in honey build up an immunity in the body.

darius: do you think it works?

Yes, but it takes several month of continued use, and then ongoing use. I probably get 2+ Tbls. a day, some in tea, and some with my unfiltered apple cider/honey drink to change the pH of my body. Darn toenail fungus is giving me fits, plus changing my pH will help other problems as well. (Don't ask me to list what all it helps, too long a list that I don't remember anyway!)

tea tree oil is supposed to be good for toe nail fungus. ive used it for athlete's foot. It works for that. Never had toe nail fungus.

Yes, that's one of the suggested remedies. This evening I start soaking my feet in 50% vinegar and 50% water, for 30 minutes. My problem is that I wear work/hiking boots from Fall to Spring, a fertile environment for fungus.

So darius, are you saying that the toenail fungus developed from drinking the cider/honey drink and eating the honey or that you're hoping to eliminate it by drinking the cide/honey drink and eating the honey.

I have heard that eating locally grown honey is beneficial in exactly the way you describe. But I've never actually heard anyone comment on it's effectiveness. I subscribe to the Whole Dog Journal, and the September issue has an article on the health and healing benefits of honey and other bee products for dogs. In addition to honey, there's royal jelly, propolis, beeswax, and bee venom and all are said to be(e) usable.

Kathy

Erynne, how are you doing? I have the same thing BPPV- and did the exercises one time only - way too dizzy. It seems to come and go with me, starting a few years ago, acts up here and there, but haven't had it now for at least a year. It seems that if I tell myself its my dizziness, it seems to go away faster, as sometimes I feel sick - and it just gets worse - nausea and everything. Keep it to "just my dizziness", I know that I'm not "sick" and it doesn't get so bad. That probably doesn't make sense. I'm a nurse and almost 46. It's all in my head, litterally : ) !

katie, the fungus developed from living in the deep humid South... and the vinegar/honey solution is an attempt to right my body's many years of out of balance pH. Just so happens that may affect the fungus as well... most fungus don't thrive in an alkaline environment.

debilu - a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. If you can get it to go away quicker, then I say, "Go for it." While I hated the dizziness, I hated more the resulting nausea and headaches. And there was no way I was going to induce the spinning and call it exercises. Glad my doc didn't recommend that.

Thanks, darius, for the info. I'm thinking of incorporating honey and other bee products into my diet and didn't want to unleash something I wasn't prepared for. How did you find out that your pH was out of balance, if I may ask? Do you know what caused it?

Darius: I couldn't remember where this thread was, so I mentioned this somewhere else. When I worked in the field, I was fortunate to have a pair of army surplus 'jungle boots'. They are made from leather and heavy canvas, and they have little portholes along the bottom so if you get in water, the water runs out. My job was usually to run a water pump through the winter, so the water would condense in my boots and then freeze. Not good for feet. I still have damage to my feet from working in frozen water. I believe the jungle boots were designed by General Swartzkoff. They are hard to find now, but sometimes you can find them at Army surplus stores.

A foot soak with hydrogen peroxide solution is also effective for fungus.

Crazy . . . see . . . how would one find out about that, except from this site. I love it!!! I don't need them, but you can be sure that I'll pass this along to anyone talking about their boots getting wet.

Kathy

gloria125 (I think) asked earlier about pH of the body. Here are some links:

Body Ph
http://www.thewolfeclinic.com/phbalancearticle.html
http://biomedx.com/microscopes/rrintro/rr1.html
http://biomedx.com/microscopes/rrintro/rr4.html
http://www.sweetpoison.com/ph-balance.html
http://www.janethull.com/ph-balance-testing/index.php

It was Katie59. I am a macrobiotic vegetarian. Macrobiotics is sort of based on yin/yang, which is acid/alkaline, i.e. pH.

Thanks, Gloria...

Hey thanks, guys. I'll read up.

Katie59

I had the worst episode that I can remember on Sat. Friday it rained and I felt like someone had let the pressure out of my head, like letting air out of a balloon. I thought I was getting a break from it, or it was finally going away. Boy was I wrong. This time when I turned my head to either side I, I felt like I was going to hit the floor. The meclizine made me sleepier than usual. I got up Sun. and went to church and when I walked I felt like I was staggering and walking through tall grass. You know the feeling when you are walking carefully like you don't want to step on something you shouldn't? That's the only way I know how to describe it.
So how is eveyone else doing?

well, i will add myself to this thread.....i have been suffering dizziness for 2 months.....did the antibotics/decongestent route...didnt help

i shall try the meclizine route

i also suffer from fibromyalgia....but was diagnosed in 97....but i am not sure if it would be causing the dizziness right now....glad to know you are here:)

Does anyone's head feel like they have a baseball hat on 2 sizes too tight?

Raggedy you mentioned I felt like someone had let the pressure out of my head, like letting air out of a balloon.

do you always feel this "pressure" ?

DH was on clonazepam -- and all it did was make him sleepy. He got more sleep in the past week than i ever recall.

No, I don't always feel the pressure, mainly when it's rainy and the humidity drops. It hasn't rained here much at all this summer, so I don't know if it's early allergies coming on too.
I forgot to mention that 2 weekends ago, I went to a college football game and was way up in the stadium. Not a sign of vertigo. I was even looking up at the plane flying overhead with an advertisement. I do remember going to a baseball game years ago and had seats in the nosebleed section, with vertigo.

Hi debilu, thanks for asking......well, I got another round of vertigo right now and I'm not on the computer much at all. On top of that, everyone in the family has a head cold including me, lol.
It is so beautiful outside today and I don't want to be sick like this....grrrrrr.

Anyone using a neti pot to keep sinuses clear?

OH yeah --- i had a nice ceramic one til DH accidentally broke it, now we has plastic ones.

they are great.

I just read this and had never heard of a 'neti pot' before. I am willing to try anything as long as it brings relief. Well, not anything!!!! Anything besides medications. Hubby and I have used the ear candles from the health food stores. Doctors tell you that there is no benefit from using them. They don't want to hear anything about 'alternative medicine'. But I think if I remembered or took the time to use them as regular as I should, I might not suffer with as many ear problems as I do. Thanks for the info :)

Susan

Neti pots were recommended by Dr. Oz on the Oprah show. I still haven't got the hang of inhaling saline water without downing myself, but I don't have the neti pot yet. But by inhaling the warm saline water and letting it drain your sinuses, you are supposed to be able to prevent sinus infections.

Sinus infections as you know are a major cause of inner ear infections, which in turn can cause vertigo.

Erynne, sorry to hear you haven't been feeling well! Think of you often!

hating to be on antibiotics... i once cleared up a nasty sinus infection by "breathing steam" [like breathing VICKS when you were a kid] i'd use Tea Tree Oil and breathe steam 3xs per day and use the neti pot. did that for 3 days til it cleared, but then i stopped and it came back. Started up again for a week and darned if it didnt completely clear up... I'll never use antibiotics again.

i will always try a "nature" cure over meds any day.

for the neti pot, do not use "table salt" -- get the natural sea salts... it will have brown speckled stuff in there, but it settles to the bottom of the pot, so it's not like it will be going into your nasal cavity.

any time i feel a "cold" coming on, I neti pot and have not been sick in a few years now.

tcs. How do you get over your fear of drowning yourself. Do you snuff the salt water or simply pour it in?

NO, not at all.

being on a very slow connection, i couldnt get this site to load.
http://www.himalayaninstitute.org/Netipot/NetiPotGateway.aspx

but you insert one end of the pot [spout] into one nostril, and tip your head on just the right angle... and the water flows in and then out the other nostril. It takes some to get used to it... but it certainly works for me... and DH, who really doesnt care for anything 'natural' -- well, he read an article on it, and came home with a pot one day all excited - asking me if i'd ever heard of it... then i showed him my pot, explaining that i'd had it for over a year.

**the site loaded.... and on there they have a video that should show you how to use it.

HTH

Terese

Thanks. I did some practicing but wound up with "fear of drowning". Thanks for the video, if I can get it to load.

gloria

Raggedy Ann and Gloria125:

I found that the key was to have a true pot that was designed right, rather than trying to "make do" with something else. And then the tip to actually breathe through your mouth while running the water into your nose is good. It's fascinating how your body knows where to direct the water. This is a fantastic thing for anybody with sinus problems. You can buy kits here:

Benign positional vertigo DOES NOT include congestion or head pain. If you're having symptoms other than dizziness or headaches or motion sickness that is directly caused by the dizziness, then you should see your doctor. There are a myriad of other things that can be causing the pain and congestion - not all of them related to the vertigo. It's important to note that.

Hope you

katie59. I think everybody needs to be on some kind of medical monitoring program--- not just an occasional visit to the doctor only if something is wrong.

When I learned that chronic sinus infection can be helped by using a neti pot, that is simply a health-hygiene measure, not replacing medical care with a home remedy.


thanks,

gloria




This message was edited Sep 20, 2007 8:52 AM

I have used eucalyptus oil/ steam when I feel a cold coming on, or that yucky chest congestion. It feels awesome and puts me to sleep like a baby. I think I will try the tea tree oil. I bought some and was using it for my skin.
Thanks for all the wonderful info you guys are sharing. I will try the neti pot too. I have a bad fear of drowning (thanks to a lady that gave me a perm when I was a teen LOL!!!)

Susan

tea tree oil + hydrogen peroxide solution foot soaks clears up athletes foot for me.

As for sleeping, I have it down. Memory foam mattress pads and pillows, plus lavender stuffed into a small buckwheat pillow. The only thing that wakes me up is barking greyhound puppy -- every morning at 4 a.m. Hurricanes. No. Puppy. Yes.

my 2 favorite oils are Tea tree and Oil of Oregano -- it's HOT and ya smell like oregano... but it does work wonders.

Gloria -- i think it's the Mom thing.... once we become 'moms' [whether it be for actual children or pets] we tend to awaken to the sound of them.

I can sleep thru my kids coming and going at all hours, but if my dog walks into the bedroom and just scratches behind his ears or shakes... i hear it.

Gloria - congrats on your greyhound puppy. That must be fun :-)

And yes, I agree that one should see the doctor regularly. I was pointing out exactly that - that one shouldn't assume that other symptoms are related to the "benign" vertigo.

Katie59

yall....i did the first dose of meclazine last night and today no vertigo.....; i kinda feel it still there...but not as bad...; so tonight will be night 2....will keep you posted:)O

sticks: i hope you have something that works.