just curious to see what your experiences were - I am just diagnosed and want to see what the future might be...
Hey, Dizzychick. To clarify my response, I voted once a week as a "few" can be a difficult quantifier to respond to. I know people who consider a few to be 3, no more & no less, while others consider it 4 or possibly more. My mother, for instance & despite her years, insists to employ a few when she refers to a dozen *chuckles During the first 1 - 1 1/2 years I experience epodes of vertigo on a weekly basis. The 2 years that followed found these episodes decreasing, though continually fluctuating, to a rough average of once a month. After 3 - 4 years the vertigo I was experiencing settled right down, to the point that I haven't experienced an episode of vertigo for 4 years. I was diagnosed almost 9 years ago. It can be a difficult thing to quantify & pin point. Analogous to wondering which day it was that you became emotionally mature. I can't recall any day that I looked in the mirror or said something indicating the precise moment of transition between emotional adolescence & adulthood. Just the bazaar, perhaps shocking revelation of already having become mature - much to the disquieting surprise of many high school teachers too, no doubt.
In the beginning it was rare for me to have the violent vertigo attacks, two or three a year, just before my VNS (15 years after DX) I was having them about once a week, bad ones too.
I had my first episode and then went months before the next one. Then after the 2nd I would have 4-6 weeks stretches of weekly to 2x week extreme vertigo attacks then would go 2-3 months until another attack. But from the onset the horrible ear pressure was constant; ringing was daily but worse during the "bad" periods. That pattern went on for the first 3 years. Since April 2014 I have been better, also started at the same time anti-virals. I also moved from WA to VA in summer 2013 - did have longer stretches after I moved between attacks. Weather/seasonal related? Reduced stress? Combination? Don't know the "why" but do know that I will take any relief available for as long (or short) as available...and say thank you for it! For me though attack periods are always in clusters and then I would get a little relief.
thank you so much for your replies - I'm very new to this so I think it's natural to want to know how it will go, though it seems quite variable. I'm vertigo free since Jan 2nd. Nathen - regarding 'a few' for me 'a few pounds' (of holiday weight gain) might be as much as 10 or 20, but 'a few' of anything else, for me, is any single digit. LOL - thank you for sharing your experiences, I'm glad that things have settled down for you. THanks for sharing your story, Chris, it is interesting that this can go either way, starting at the worse and getting better or starting off not to bad and gaining steam. I guess the VNS is the surgery - glad it was helpful for you. cheers to all -