What to do during vertigo attach

During a vertigo attack I would go to bed in a fetal position and put the pillow over my head. For me it seemed to slow down the spinning.

 

Well I had one last night around 8 pm, so here is what I did. Spent 1/2 in bed lying on the affected ear, trying not to vomit.
Spent an hour on the bathroom floor, trying not to vomit.
Spent 1/2 hour back in bed lying on the unaffected ear, trying not to vomit.
I was successful, but it was a close one. Slept from 10 pm to 1:30 am when I came out of it.

Jim

 

During a vertigo attack, while at home, like Redwing1951 I felt most comfortable in the fetal position. However I would enter this position while laying on a towel, on the ground, next to the toilet.

Over a period of 5 - 10 hours, & after having emptied the contents of my stomach, I would then crawl to my bed & fall asleep, in any position, as the experience is both physically & mentally exhausting.

I experienced two shorter lived vertigo attacks while in a university amphitheatre. In this circumstance I simply had to crawl & stumble, mostly crawl out of the class, or have someone help me walk to the nearest toilet. This is where I would stay until I was able to walk & call a taxi.

Regardless of the position I was in, I found that focusing on a specific point found high in my field of view generally decreased the duration & severity of the attack.

 

I have a bucket near the edge of my bed. I lay on my stomach with my head over the edge of the bed and vomit in the bucket. I lay on my stomach to avoid strain on my stomach and neck muscles from vomiting. I then lay in bed and sweat profusely from every pore in my body hoping to fall asleep which eventually I do. When I get up I am totally wiped out. When I am able to eat I start out with oatmeal in case I vomit again and oatmeal would be easier to pass. After 30 years I can't count how many times this has occurred. I have a small bucket in my vehicle that I vomit in if it happens while driving. Then I have to be in the sitting position while of the road and stopped somewhere. Usually lasts for 4 to 5 hours before I can go again.

 

Sounds like me...only I drink Gatorade as soon As I’m able. Gotta get rehydrated as soon as you can and also settles your tummy down a little. Aren’t as often as they used to be but are just as intense. Also if you can keep it down, Valium helps when your having an attack. Does something to your vestibular system. And makes you fall asleep quicker which is a blessing at the time.

 

True dat, true dat.

If I remember correctly, diazepam more so depresses the brain & the nerve linking the brain to the vestibular system.

Hence when experiencing an episode of vertigo, while under the influence of valium, the vestibular system still produces the same level of erroneous information that it otherwise would while void of the influence of diazepam, however the diazepam decreases the brains ability to soak up & receive the erroneous information that the vestibular system produces.

If the above finds you confused, as it does me at 6:15am, allow me to increase your confusion by offering the only analogy that comes to my mind at this time of the morning. Which is to say a bad mobile phone analogy. A place holder analogy, if you will, that will be updated in the future by someone who's receiving more sleep than I.

If I were to throw a blanket (valium) over you (your brain) & fill the space (nerve) separating you from your ringing mobile phone (malfunctioning vestibular system) with honey (also valium), the honey & the blanket will not decrease the ringing volume produced by your phone, but rather they'll decrease the ability of the sound waves produced by your phone to propagate through the transmission medium separating you from your mobile phone.

 

Now that I'm awake & slightly more coherent, I would like to substitute "If I were to throw a blanket (valium) over you (your brain)" with "If I were to drop a whale (valium) on you (your brain)", & insert "your ability to process the sound waves &" between "but rather they'll decrease" & "decrease the sound waves produced by your phone to propagate".

Doing so renders the analogy as follows:

If I were to drop a whale (valium) on you (your brain) & fill the space (nerve) separating you from your ringing mobile phone (malfunctioning vestibular system) with honey (also valium), the honey & the whale will not decrease the ringing volume produced by your phone, but rather they'll decrease your ability to process the sound waves & decrease the ability of the sound waves produced by your phone to propagate through the transmission medium separating you from your mobile phone.

Much better. Much more analogous, no? *chuckles & notes to self 'just stop contributing to .org at 6am on sunday mornings, Nathan'.

 

I once, for many years, fought the horrid urge to vomit. I no longer care to suffer and vomit as soon as I can so I can get on with feeling better. It is so violent but I want it over with.

 

I don't seem to have a problem with the spinning it's the dizziness I get afterwards that lasts weeks.
Do you get the dizziness and off balance feeling for days after?
My vertigo don't last long but I'd kneel on the floor with my head down and don't move until it's gone but it depends how long it lasts for. I take valium for anxiety

 

Amen Twodogs. I thought I was the only one to do that!

 

Hello Weeba. I would go for hour after hour fighting the deep nausea. One day I thought that I was prolonging something unnecessarily so I embraced the porcelain and let it all out. Our bodies think we are being poisoned so we need to help it be rid of the offender. Then we get on to healing sooner.

 

Weeba, this has been my greatest fear...what to do if I get vertigo while driving, but after just a few years of this plague, thankfully it has never happened while driving. I, too, keep a bucket and bags in the car. I'm sure I would have the 4-5 hour experience like yours, so it's comforting knowing that it's possible to just sit there and get through it. Have the police ever approached you? I wonder if they would insist on a ambulance ride to the hospital which I think would be worse than waiting it out. I sometimes have the nausea combined with the equally violent happening from "the other end" and I don't know how I would stop that in a car, so any advice on this would be appreciated!

Rich and Nathan, and others who have recommended these drugs in earlier posts, thanks for mentioning this fix. I have an old Rx of Lorazepam (Ativan), which I will try next time, similar drug I got when I had to fly again 2 years ago. In my working years, I had to fly about once a month and hated it. Wish I was smart enough to get the drug then.

Irishstu, I've had some success with the eye exercises you find for BPPV, even though I'm sure I have Meniere's and I don't have BPPV. They surprisingly work sometimes. Especially the ones that have you keep your head fixed and move your eyes vertically several times, then horizontally several times. I focus on a straight object in the distance like a door frame or a table edge. Here's a link, but there are many similar videos on youtube.
PreviewPreview3:09Vertigo Treatment: Exercises To Get You Less Dizzy

If the eye exercises plus the Meclizine and the Odansetron (8mg) don't work, then I try to get to the toilet for the first round, and then bounce off the walls to a bed and try to prop up some pillows and lie on my back so my head is a bit elevated. I find it better to keep my eyes closed and try not to move a muscle. I put a small trash bucket with a bag in it under my arm and a box of tissues in reach. This is my position for the next maybe 3 hours. It helps to have a supply of trash bags already opened in the bucket and a husband who might happen by once in awhile to tie up a bag and toss it in the trash for me. And it helps to have the pills and a bottle of water with a straw in it nearby for another round of pills after the first ones end up in the bucket. Again it helps to have a "significant other" to go fetch the water because I surely would not be able to do that. Even getting the pills again is tricky without help, especially if they need to go down dry, but I now use the chewable Meclizine after someone on this forum recommended it. A great tip! Sleep usually comes in 3-4 hours and I'm going to try the Larazepam next time to try to hasten the sleep.

HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS! After a miserable summer of 2019, I had 11 weeks without a vertigo attack, then 16 weeks, and now I'm on a stretch of 8 good weeks so far! I take the full JOH plan, (my primary care doc told me to be careful with the Ginkgo Biloba which apparently acts like a blood thinner, so I may discontinue that after the bottle is used up), vitamins B5, B6, B12, Monolaurin, and the doctor prescribed diuretic Dyazide (which was the first thing I took for several months and did nothing to help), plus the Rx of Acyclovir which I asked for based on the recommendations of people on this site. So, I don't know whether any one or all of these are working, but I'm afraid to discontinue any of them! If I gad to guess, I think the Acyclovir (800 mg, 3x day) is the most helpful.

So, Irishstu, focus on finding some relief as well as the ways to get through the episodes and keep us posted on your progress. All the best to you.
Diane

 

The police have never contacted me but I have always made into a parking lot or rest area and once I pulled off into a farmers field. I bet if I was parked on the side of the road than the police would probably call an ambulance

 

Diane's description of an episode sounds so similar to mine. I have started JOH approach a week ago.
I am in a very beginning of bumpy road. My question is about dosages. I have started with 500 mg of L-Lysine and reached 1,500 mg. When I tried take it before meals it give me stomach pain, so I take it after each meal.
I am skinny woman in age (126 lb, 5'7" tall) and always take any meds or supplements at the lowest dosages, which work for me. Is anyone has experience with dosages lower than JOH recommended?
Also, does the order of starting the supplements make a difference? I am already taking Vit C and E, and B complex. Should I continua taking them, instead of dropping them now and restart them later?
This question related to a difficalty later to determine which supplement is working and how they mix together.
Will appreciate your opinions
Eveva

 

When I have an attack I get it over with and vomit sometimes even have had diarrhea. Then take Phenergan by mouth if I can hold it down (or suppositories)and my husband props me up in bed. It’s best to be upright and still so the crystals stop moving. Sometimes I try to focus on something like put my finger right in front of my face to help stop it but it doesn’t always work. The Phenergan knocks me out usually then I sleep for hours.

 

Do you have meniers, bppv or both? It really depends what you have. Bppv will affect you when laying down. I sleep sitting up and make it as comfortable as I can. Don't lay on your affected ear and have many pillow's if you can. Laying on your back is better it stops the crystals from floating. The epley is for people with bppv I don't bother doing this. Meniers can happens however you lay. Sounds like you have bppv I'd you get dizzy with epley

 

For Meniere it is best to find a position in which one is comfortable, this can be sitting or lying down, looking up or down, etc. Everyone knows in which posture everything moves less, you have to quickly take the vestibular sedative that we should all always have on hand, in my case it is 100mg of a drug called Sulpiride. Once you have taken the sedative in 20-30 minutes, everything will begin to feel better and to be very sleepy, take the opportunity to fall asleep for hours while the vertigo attack passes.

In case of vomiting the sedative, you have to go to the emergency room to have it put in an injection in the ass. The effect here is faster.

 

I agree but you will still have the vertigo. My point is if you only have vertigo when laying down or only when moving positions then it's unlikely meniers. The original post stated that he gets vertigo during the epley then that isn't meniers that's bppv. Meniers comes on at any position bppv don't. I control my vertigo by getting out of bed or by keeping my head still. This is unlikely meniers. I'm saying this because I visited an audiologist and he said so many people have been diagnosed with meniers and his opinion don't have it. Not saying he hasn't but epley is for bppv.