Worst day ever !

[Shawn T. W.]

"Golden Years" mean you need lots of Gold to keep going!

Getting old ain't for the faint of heart!

 

[kenhar]

"Golden Years" mean you need lots of Gold to keep going!

Getting old ain't for the faint of heart!

Getting old has much worse alternatives.

 

[JBF43]

I am extremely frustrated and don't want to vent to my family so I am doing it here. Gotta be cheerful and optimistic around the family. I am afraid this constant dizziness and vertigo will be permanent and I will end up sitting on my constantly growing rear end and watching soap operas for the rest of my life. I have always kept the one acre lot we live on in tip top shape and have done nothing this year.

As part of the 'therapy' for my ongoing inner ear problems I was instructed to walk two miles a day "rain or shine". Before all this started I could make it in forty minutes. Takes me fifty minutes now. Yesterday while going up a slight incline the ground suddenly tilted down to the left and I staggered to the right and nearly took out a neighbor's mailbox, while on foot. The 4x4 it was mounted on must have been weak anyway and I made it weaker. I will fix it for her when I get a little better. Yep you read that right I collided with a mailbox while walking and nearly took it down. If it hadn't been there I would have been face down in the side ditch. I hung on to that mailbox for a while and the ground suddenly snapped back level and I made it back to the house.

We couldn't take our fall vacation this year because I am not allowed to drive. Wife, daughter, and granddaughter wouldn't let me get on the roof and clean out the gutters. They had to be cleaned out because the screens over them were piled up with leaves and a crew is coming to paint the house next week. So the daughter called a teacher friend in the neighborhood that she used to work with and he came and cleaned them. It was embarrassing to me. Cannot help son it law clear a thicket because they won't let me run a chainsaw. I am allowed to drive my little Kioti and the Bad Boy. Granddaughter took me to Lowes and wouldn't let me get out of arms reach because she was afraid I would fall. Can't walk thru the house without bouncing off walls and door facings.

I am frustrated!!

RSKY

I hear ya. I have had dizziness off and on since childhood. Saw a chiropractor about it back then, and he said that I had bones out of place in my neck because one of my brothers loved to grab me around the neck and pick me up. Doc moved the bones back several times, but my brother kept undoing the good, so I gave up on getting the treatments done. Years later, I saw a neurologist and asked him about it. He said Vertigo. He sent me to a Vertigo specialist who tested me extensively and in the end said' you don't have vertigo because if you did, you'd be laid out on the floor right now, unable to move". I reported back to the neurologist, and he swears it's either Vertigo or Meniere's disease; and you sure don't want that. My response," I've got news for you, I don't want either one."
With me, now, it's not room-spinning dizziness, but suddenly being off balance and luckily it doesn't last for real long periods. Lots of times it happens while walking and especially after walking through doorways. Seems to happen a lot while passing the door frame. An upside to it for me is that it does not happen while driving or operating equipment or anything like that. My previous co-workers who knew about this said," They let you drive?" I said' I have to drive, I can't walk."
I always have been and still am a 'go-to guy' for friends and family, but this stuff can really get in the way. Docs can't figure out what it is, so it's just another thing I live with and create workarounds for.

 

[JBF43]

Could not lie on my back and look up without everything spinning.

This raises a question with me, and I wonder if anything similar has happened with any of you. I used to be lying on my back in bed watching TV and not moving at all. All of a sudden, still with no movement on my part, the room would spin violently and I would go total spread eagle arms and legs wise trying to keep myself from rolling out or falling off of the king-size bed. Keep in mind, I know in my brain that my body is not moving, yet my brain is in a major hurry to get someplace. Has this happened to anyone else?

 

[buckAngus]

For now, your project is to get well again. I suspect you've had others leaning on you most of your life, now it's your turn to accept some support.
Best wishes.

 

[JBF43]

There ya go. Folks express sympathy to me when the find out I have been dizzy for about 35 years I just tell 'em the truth. I have gotten used to it and I really don't care anymore, it's just a part of life for me.
Eric

Same here. Are you at the point yet where friends, family and strangers look at you when you have an episode like' What is wrong with you?" And respond back with "You'll get used to it, I did."

 

[etpm]

Same here. Are you at the point yet where friends, family and strangers look at you when you have an episode like' What is wrong with you?" And respond back with "You'll get used to it, I did."

Anybody that knows me even a little is used to me being wobbly. They don't comment any more. I tell folks that don't know me that I am dizzy, have been for years, I won't fall, and don't try to catch me.
Eric

 

[RSKY]

I hear ya. I have had dizziness off and on since childhood. Saw a chiropractor about it back then, and he said that I had bones out of place in my neck because one of my brothers loved to grab me around the neck and pick me up. Doc moved the bones back several times, but my brother kept undoing the good, so I gave up on getting the treatments done. Years later, I saw a neurologist and asked him about it. He said Vertigo. He sent me to a Vertigo specialist who tested me extensively and in the end said' you don't have vertigo because if you did, you'd be laid out on the floor right now, unable to move". I reported back to the neurologist, and he swears it's either Vertigo or Meniere's disease; and you sure don't want that. My response," I've got news for you, I don't want either one."
With me, now, it's not room-spinning dizziness, but suddenly being off balance and luckily it doesn't last for real long periods. Lots of times it happens while walking and especially after walking through doorways. Seems to happen a lot while passing the door frame. An upside to it for me is that it does not happen while driving or operating equipment or anything like that. My previous co-workers who knew about this said," They let you drive?" I said' I have to drive, I can't walk."
I always have been and still am a 'go-to guy' for friends and family, but this stuff can really get in the way. Docs can't figure out what it is, so it's just another thing I live with and create workarounds for.

Hopefully you do not have Meniere's.

The original doctor I saw back in the early nineties told of going to a mental institute or group home of some type in Memphis. He had some people tested, don't know how he selected them, and found two he was sure had Meneire's. These two had been committed since they were in their late teens and were in their twenties. He did the same surgery on them that he did on me except I only had the problem on one side and both those patients had Meneirs's on BOTH sides. After the surgeries and within a month or so they were "normal people" and left the place they had been institutionalized in for years.

Cut out your caffeine and cut your sodium intake down as much as possible. If the problem persists then please go somewhere else and get tested. It does not get better by itself. Any competent Ear Nose and Throat surgeon can test you for this. And once again Shea Clinic in Memphis Tennessee is supposed to be one of the top places in the world to go to.

RSKY

 

[Doofy]

Here's an odd one for you: Father in Law just turned 92 and was having dizzy spells and falling down quite often. From trial and error, he determined that to much potassium from his bananas was causing his problems. Turns out that the riper a banana gets, the higher the potassium levels. No more Dizzy, no more Falling Down.