Vertigo-ish Symptom?

[Vote Tyler Stearns]

If the salt is causing my body to retain water, then it might be upping the pressure in my ears causing these funky wigglies.

I appreciate your concern, though, and I'll have to do the "home-remedy" stuff for a while to put a stop on the funky-bad feelings.

I'll have to see a doctor eventually, I know.

I did go to one neurologist back in NJ before I came up here.  He was fairly unhelpful, but perhaps I went in with too narrow a view.

Speaking of neurology-ish stuff, anybody else have visual snow like I do?

Does this mean you've had these symptoms before? 
OK, the visual snow stuff is worrying me more...call the Plymouth clinic and explain your symptoms.  My guess is you can be seen for free on Tuesday night.  Worse comes to worse, go the emergency room.  They can't turn you away regardless of your ability to pay.  So you might have to pay the bill $5 a month for a while, but isn't that better than stressing out over this (not to mention making ME stress out on your behalf). 

In the meantime, follow 'Dr. Malevil's' instructions:
-- NO caffeine
-- NO added salt (reduce consumption of salty prepared foods)
-- LOTS of water
-- Ingest POTASSIUM (bananas are a wicked easy/cheap, baked potato (eat the skin), spinach)

[eques]

If the salt is causing my body to retain water, then it might be upping the pressure in my ears causing these funky wigglies.

I appreciate your concern, though, and I'll have to do the "home-remedy" stuff for a while to put a stop on the funky-bad feelings.

I'll have to see a doctor eventually, I know.

I did go to one neurologist back in NJ before I came up here.  He was fairly unhelpful, but perhaps I went in with too narrow a view.

Speaking of neurology-ish stuff, anybody else have visual snow like I do?

Does this mean you've had these symptoms before? 
OK, the visual snow stuff is worrying me more...call the Plymouth clinic and explain your symptoms.  My guess is you can be seen for free on Tuesday night.  Worse comes to worse, go the emergency room.  They can't turn you away regardless of your ability to pay.  So you might have to pay the bill $5 a month for a while, but isn't that better than stressing out over this (not to mention making ME stress out on your behalf). 

In the meantime, follow 'Dr. Malevil's' instructions:
-- NO caffeine
-- NO added salt (reduce consumption of salty prepared foods)
-- LOTS of water
-- Ingest POTASSIUM (bananas are a wicked easy/cheap, baked potato (eat the skin), spinach)

Aw, I feel loved!  Or, at least, worried about.

I've felt this vertigo before, yes, on at least two or three separately distinguishable occasions.  To be honest, I can't rememer why I didn't go to the doctor before last summer (July 2006).

And the visual snow has been a more or less constant thing since the age of 10 when I first remember saying anything about it to anybody... I remember because I asked the eye doctor about it.  My father scolded me(???) for asking.  The optometrist said (guessed) that it was an "echo" of artificial light, but I've observed that to not be the case since.

It is far more noticeable on some occasions as compared to others, usually when I start talking about it--but not always.  As far as I can tell, it's always there.

I'll head up on Tuesday night... if it's free-as-in-beer, then at least I don't have to sacrifice a meal... dunno what they'll be able to do or tell me to do, but at least I will have been seen.

I love potatoes and their skins.  Never understood how people couldn't eat them (with the exception being when they're tough as leather).

I generally don't eat a lot of salty prepared foods, and I don't use a lot of salt in my cooking, either.

Anyway, it's really time for me to eat dinner now (leftovers, probably too salty, but that's the food we have to eat... and I can't justify not eating it... I'm probably driving you crazy, but I'm doing what I have to do--I will, however, drink water).

[Vote Tyler Stearns]

You ARE loved!  I'm glad you're going to the clinic.

Fathers are dumb sometimes, huh?  When I was a kid and was having asthma attacks, my father would yell at me to stop faking it and to quit coughing.  He'd never let me go to the doctor.  Thank God for the good ole days of house calls, because my parents would inevitably have to call the doctor in the middle of the night to come to the house because I couldn't breath. 

My bill's in the mail...

[eques]

"Fathers are dumb" doesn't quite make the grade with some of the stuff my father's done.  I won't get into it right now, though (it's kind of a sore subject that I can't seem to get off once I get on).

I think you might be on to something with the sodium.  I was having Eggo waffles for breakfast and (maybe you already know this) two waffles provide you with 440mg of sodium!

I was eating 4 for breakfast.

Lately, after eating them, my stomach was goin' kind of "errghghhh."  So I haven't been eating them much since it wasn't making me feel very well.

I guess I should have looked at the package before I even bought it for the first time, but that didn't cross my mind at the time.

So anyway, I just read up a little bit on Meniere's Disease, and I read the description of vertigo there.  That doesn't describe what I'm feeling, so "vertigo" is the wrong word for it.  Instead of a spinning feeling, it feels like my upper back is traveling "up" while my chest is traveling "down."  I don't really feel anything out of the ordinary in my lower abdomen, though.

My head feels pretty floopy right now.  Bah.

[CNHT]

For me, this happens if I have sinus congestion, and from the dryness. It also happened a few years ago after a walk in the woods probably from allergies to something there. I woke up and could not lift my head off the pillow. I had my roomie get me a water bottle, drank that for a while and then the feeling subsided.

I often do not hydrate as I should, and in this weather, being inside with the dry heat on means you must. If I don't I also get massive nosebleeds.

I was in the market with a friend yesterday and we met up with two people that I knew and were talking for a while.

When I turned to go, I must have swung around faster than the fluid in my middle ear could tolerate because then all of a sudden I felt like I was being pitched to the floor.

So, potassium, water, rest and a better diet and see what that does first.

(Now that the holes in my shack are fixed, my house is REALLY warm!)

[Vote Tyler Stearns]

Vertigo can be a symptom of different ailments.  It's just one of the symptoms of Meniere's Disease, which certainly doesn't sound like you have from your description. 

Sometimes I just have spinning whenever I recline my head and turn it right or left...just like the spins you get when you're drunk.  My eyes also flicker back and forth rapidly when I'm spinning.  I feel it and someone watching my eyes can see it.  But there are other times when I am not spinning, but I just feel like my head is in a fog and like my brain is bopping around like those compasses people use to stick on their car dashboard.  I describe that as feeling like a bobble-head doll.  Then there are times when I can't seem to walk a straight line and I "list to port" as my husband describes - kind of tipped to one side as I stagger along.  And then there are the times I just tip over and fall.  The joy is that sometimes all of these symptoms happen at the same time. 

I've talked with people who've also been diagnosed with vertigo and they can have very different symptoms and triggers.  Once I was diagnosed and realized I didn't have a brain tumor or cancer I started relaxing and kind of enjoying my spinning moments (as long as I wasn't driving a car!). 

[Vote Tyler Stearns]

I think you might be on to something with the sodium.  I was having Eggo waffles for breakfast and (maybe you already know this) two waffles provide you with 440mg of sodium!

I was eating 4 for breakfast.

That's a hell of a lot of sodium....and just think, that was only breakfast.  My doctor said I shouldn't consume more than 1,000mg of sodium/day.  Here's a little tidbit from Healthwise about Meniere's in particular....
"Many of us like to use table salt?it adds flavor to the foods we eat. Salt is also found in many prepared foods, both for flavor and for preservation. However, salt contains a great deal of sodium?1 teaspoon contains 2 g (2,000 mg). This amount alone nearly meets the recommendation of the U.S. daily value for sodium, 2,400 mg. The typical U.S. diet includes about 4,000 mg of sodium per day. Evidence exists for restricting sodium intake to 1,000 mg per day for M?ni?re's disease."

[CNHT]

I am told the sodium from mined salt is bad but if you use sea salt and drink lots of water it is not.

I use tons of sea salt. It does not swell my hands.

[eques]

The salt I use in my cooking is sea salt, by and large.  Occasionally, a few shakes of table salt will be thrown into noodle water, but that's if I haven't gotten to the pot first.

The sea salt probably has other minerals in it whereas table salt is most probably refined to contain just sodium.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's not sodium that's bad per se, but the imbalance of sodium with respect to other minerals.

As for salting my meals, I can't imagine putting a full teaspoon of salt on my food--yuck!

When I'm cooking, I can only gauge by sight, but it certainly doesn't look like I'm putting nearly that much salt in my food... also, I usually end up cooking for "four," so even 1 teaspoon of salt would end up being 500mg of sodium per person per meal.  Again, I don't think I come close to that.

Garlic, onion powder, chili powder, oregano, etc., yes, I probably overspice with those.  But salt I don't use too much of if I can help it.  Food doesn't need a lot of salt.

[CNHT]

Garlic, onion powder, chili powder, oregano, etc., yes, I probably overspice with those.

But you can never overspice. Those things are all 'good' for you.

I know this is going to sound weird, but recently during my long illness the doctor gave me a long list of things to AVOID. Some of those things you mention were on the list.

So, I did just the opposite and ate MORE of those things, and more. It was the only thing that worked for me to get rid of the thing that was giving me severe stomach pain.

The doctor has yet to give me one pill that has helped heal my stomach, and the diet he said to avoid, is why I'm even out of bed right now.

[eques]

That sounds a lot like the people who get heartburn not from an overproduction of stomach acid, but from an underproduction of it.  Maybe that doesn't cover all cases, but it's something worth considering when typical avenues fail to produce the desired result.

[CNHT]

That sounds a lot like the people who get heartburn not from an overproduction of stomach acid, but from an underproduction of it.  Maybe that doesn't cover all cases, but it's something worth considering when typical avenues fail to produce the desired result.

I still believe it's something I 'caught' that ate several holes in my stomach and the only way to heal it was with antiseptic foods since they won't give me antibiotics.

So far, I've healed myself, but that did not mean I could skip all the gruesome tests to rule out something worse.
There were biopsies taken of the affected areas and I did not yet hear the results of those.

The doctor as I said, gave me all sorts of vile tasting antacids that I did not take.

I instead I ate food with or made tea with an overabundance of these items:

cinnammon
cloves
lemon
garlic
thyme
basil
fennel
coriander
cumin
pepper
hot pepper
sea salt
sliced ginger
onions

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Speaking of neurology-ish stuff, anybody else have visual snow like I do?

Yes, but since it actually is snowing...

[eques]

Speaking of neurology-ish stuff, anybody else have visual snow like I do?

Yes, but since it actually is snowing...

I wish I could chuckle it off...

It's a persistent static through my visual field that doesn't seem to strengthen or abate unless I'm concentrating on it or thinking about it.  But I'll find that I notice it when I've not been thinking about it as well.  For example, I see it right now, and it's in both my central and peripheral vision.

Here's pretty much what it looks like (give or take): http://www.hkj.se/vs.html
Set the "noise" to about 25%.
The first blend is applicable to my vision.
As you flip through the photos, you can see that it only really shows up in darker areas, which is where I first noticed it.

I don't know if there are people who experience a "noise" of 100%.  That would certainly be very distracting.  I can get by without much trouble, but I do tend to wonder if it's an indicator of something or if it's just a funny effect I have the privilege of living with.

This is a distinctly different phenomenon than what occurs when you look at the bright sky.  If you pay close attention, you can see little translucent dots flickering across your field of vision.  Those are your white blood cells in the capillaries in your eye (I think the ones on your retina).  We don't notice the red blood cells by way of adaptation.

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That's horrible. I'd have to go find new eyes if anything like that happened to me.