For those who suffer from mild to severe dizziness, it can be debilitating and life-altering. People who have never experienced vertigo before usually don’t understand how difficult this condition is. They will try to relate by telling you they sometimes feel lightheaded too, but we are not talking about lightheadedness. We are talking about room spinning, falling down, nauseating, dizziness that changes every aspect of your life.
Some types of vertigo can usually be cured by an exercise called the Epley Maneuver, or similar exercises like this. Other types of vertigo can usually be cured by muscle relaxants depending on the type and severity. Some medications can even cure vertigo as well, depending on what type you have and how severe it is. Other’s don’t find any relief from medications at all. If you have one type, or more than one type of vertigo at the same time, you may think there is no hope for you, but that might not be the case.
How do I know this?
Because I am a vertigo sufferer like you, and I have been for most of my life. That makes me qualified to speak about this though I’m not a doctor or have any kind of medical training. One might dismiss what I have to say because of this, but from my experience, the health care professionals don’t know much about why people have dizzy spells. They put us all into the same category and when something doesn’t work to fix the problem, they say it’s all in your head. Well, yeah, dizziness is in your head. We just don’t know why.
I decided to write this article to help other vertigo sufferers have some hope!
Once again, I am not a doctor. Please do not assume I am just because I’m writing about vertigo and telling my story. I am not responsible for anything you may try because of this article. I only wish to give hope to those who think there is none. I’m here to say there is relief. It may not work for you, but it has for me. It’s worth a shot to tell the world.
IN THE BEGINNING
As a little girl, I fell off a 10-foot cliff and survived. At the time it was just fun and games with my siblings. There was this giant pile of dirt from a housing construction site that we liked to play on. We always climbed to the top where it dropped off like a cliff to the other side. At the bottom were numerous boulders.
I was eight-years-old at the time. I liked to have fun so I climbed up while my older siblings were at the bottom playing. They yelled up at me warning me not to go too close to the edge. Well, I did.
Suddenly I came tumbling down, dropping to the bottom smacking my head on a large boulder. They thought I was dead. I should have been. Instead, I cracked the boulder clear open without a scratch on me. Man, I sure had a hard head.
Sure, as I recall, the boulder was hard clay and not rock, but it still hurt. I pretended it didn’t. I got up, dusted myself off like it was nothing and went home with my three siblings without saying a word to my mom. Instead, my head throbbed in silence all night long.
Why didn’t I tell my mother? I don’t know. I was just an eight-year-old kid.
Fast forward to the present day, I believe I suffered an undiagnosed head injury as a little girl because of this. I wonder if this caused my dizziness. As I grew, starting in my older teenage years, I started having dizzy spells.
I will never know if this was the cause, but it was very likely.
I also have had two incidences of whiplash. One, when I fell coming down a step, and another in a car accident. Afterward, I had dizziness that was so debilitating, I couldn’t function.
The whiplash could have caused my dizziness, but doctors couldn’t give me a clear answer and that frustrated me.
I also had a lot of shoulder pain. I found out I was magnesium deficient. When you are magnesium deficient your muscles tighten and hurt. When your muscles do that around your neck, it can cause dizziness, though the doctors couldn’t tell me for sure and that was upsetting.
I also think I was bitten by a tick when I was in my late teens. I can’t be sure but I had circle rashes on my skin and still do. Every time I go to the doctor, they say it’s nothing, just a form of eczema. It’s very frustrating. Yet, one of the side effects is Lyme disease which causes a magnesium deficiency, and dizziness. I’ll never know for sure, but it was worth mentioning.
So what exactly did cause my dizziness? I think it’s a combo of all my theories but I will never know, and you probably won’t either if you suffer from vertigo. That’s the trouble. Nobody knows how to help you because they don’t know what the cause is for sure. Everyone thinks you are a hypochondriac and made it all up.
In fact, my chiropractor refused to treat me now because he said the dizziness is not my neck, it’s my ears even though for many years his neck treatments took away my dizzy spells for a time.
I have heard doctors blame my ears all my life, and maybe it is, but it is certainly more than just that. It could be several different reasons. My dizziness wasn’t the same every time. Sometimes it was, but sometimes it wasn’t, indicating there were different kinds of vertigo going on at different times or even at the same time. But certainly, I was NOT catastrophizing it or making things up.
If you suffer from dizziness for whatever reason, I just want to tell you that I believe you and I also know your pain. It’s one of the worst forms of punishment in the world. Vertigo sufferers are the most misunderstood people on the planet. When you are dizzy nobody understands or sympathizes. You can be at work and have a spell, or driving in your car, or at the dentist’s office. You can be lying in bed and have an attack. It can strike you anywhere at any time, and that’s disgusting, depressing, and debilitating. You can’t do anything!
But I’m here to give hope to all you sufferers because there IS hope. Keep a journal of how you feel each time you have a dizzy spell and see if there are any commonalities to them. Try to pinpoint the triggers. If we are more self-aware, we may be able to find a cure.
Below are some cures that worked for me.
Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo
Okay, so most of you don’t even need a definition of this bad boy because we’ve heard it so many times. But for those who don’t know, it’s called BPPV for short. It’s the most common cause of vertigo. It’s caused by crystals in the ear that get dislodged for whatever reason, causing your balance to be thrown off. That makes you dizzy when you move your head a certain way depending on what ear is affected.
And just so you know, there are no test doctors can do to see these dislodged crystals. If they look in your ear, they can’t see them. You don’t just have an ear infection, resulting in dizziness. Most of the time it’s a complete mystery.
One time, my dizziness was so bad I was falling down in the hallway crying and stumbling. I thought I was going to die. I thought I was having a stroke or had a brain tumor. Most vertigo sufferers feel this way. Let me tell you, I sympathize with you. It is absolutely horrific!
My husband took me to emergency and I spent several hours there while they tried to find the cause of my dizziness. They found none. Yes, you heard that right. They said they couldn’t find anything wrong with me at all. All my vitals were normal, head CT, blood work, blood pressure. Everything was normal! Finally, a doctor came to talk to me, looking at me as if I was a hypochondriac. He explained what BPPV was as if I had never heard of it before or had never been told I had it. He offered me medication but I shook my head. I’d taken it before and it did nothing.
So, I left the hospital in tears like so many other vertigo sufferers with no hope at all.
Let me tell you, that is devastating.
I started into my natural health journey at that time, and found some natural things that worked. But for this section, let me tell you what I found. Firstly, for the longest time, I refused to even believe my ears were the culprit.
Once I researched BPPV thoroughly I found this thing called the Epley Maneuver. Its a treatment throwing you into different positions quickly, trying to make the dislodged crystals go back into place. The theory behind this maneuver makes sense, but it seemed like the only way you could get this maneuver done is by going to a vertigo treatment center where you’re put into an Epley chair.
Well, I was not near any treatment center and realized this option was out of the question. I then decided to try it myself, lying on the bed. That resulted in me getting severely dizzy and puking my guts out. Nope! Not for me. My chiropractor tried to do this maneuver too and failed miserably making me so sick I could barely leave the office.
Finally, I did some research online and found another way to do this maneuver myself. I call it Ear Yoga, and it absolutely worked for me. It’s not my own invention, but I certainly tried it. I was shocked that it worked.
The premise behind it is to MAKE yourself dizzy. At first, that was terrifying to me. But once I got over that fear, I was amazed that it worked. It’s hard to push through the dizzy spell, and I suggest if you try it, you have someone else with you. But I toughed it out by myself and it totally worked. Now, whenever I feel like my head isn’t right. Maybe my ears pop or I’m feeling queasy, I do the ear yoga and put myself right again.
Those stupid crystals can get dislodged for any reason it seems, from getting water in your ears to the wind blowing in your eardrums, or allergies, or even from being in a dentists chair, especially if you have TMJ, which is another cause for vertigo. That’s when you have jaw pain. I have it all the time when I chew. My muscles lock up and I clench my teeth.
Your jaw is only inches away from the ear canal which houses the infamous crystals, so if something goes amuck with your jaw, I can see how it would affect your ears.
Regardless of the reason, these crystals can get dislodged quite easily with BPPV vertigo sufferers. So be aware of the triggers and avoid them like the plague. I keep my ears out of the wind, using my earbuds when I go outside, especially in cold wind. And I use earplugs in the shower and I avoid dunking my head in the bath or pool.
Below is a video I made of my Ear Yoga. I hope it helps someone.
Cervical Vertigo
This kind of vertigo is really the only other real contender with positional vertigo. It’s triggered by certain neck movements. It can happen as a result of whiplash from an accident, or any trauma or damage to the neck or spine. As I mentioned, I suffered whiplash twice and had mild to severe dizziness for quite some time afterward.
Cervical vertigo can also be caused by tight muscles. Ultimately, that’s what’s going on when you experience pain when you move your neck anyway. If you injured your neck and the muscles around it, your nerves can be pinched and your tight muscles can turn this bad boy into something chronic in no time.
I concluded that I had cervical vertigo as well as BPPV. Each had its own set of symptoms, different from each other. My cervical dizziness had a different feel to it than BPPV. I found relief with ice packs behind my neck and heat as well. I liked to alternate between ice and heat.
I also found relief by using a travel pillow behind my neck when traveling long distances in a car. I can’t tell you enough how much this saved me from having a dizzy spell. I also sleep with a Sandwich Pillow. It’s shaped to support the neck. Below, you’ll find some options on Amazon. If you click on either picture you will go to the Amazon store. It’s an affiliate link, and what that means is I get a small commission if you buy it. But you can skip over the pillows and keep reading if you like. I’d rather you get the help you need than buy a pillow from me.
One day, when my vertigo got so bad and doctors said I was just fine, I decided to take my health into my own hands and be my own health advocate. I stormed into a health food store and asked if there were any natural muscle relaxants. My neck and shoulders were so sore and I refused to take any more medication because it wasn’t working anyway.
The health food representative told me to take magnesium. I was surprised because I had never heard of magnesium before. I bought a bottle and it changed my life from that day forward. I began researching it, and found a magnesium facebook group and realized I was magnesium deficient.
After only a few days of taking magnesium, my dizziness went away completely. My shoulders stopped aching and I felt like I got my life back. It was amazing. The kind of magnesium I take is called Magnesium Bisyglycinate. Below are Amazon affiliate links to the product so you can research it for yourself. Just click on the pictures. It’s one of the best magnesium brands on the market.
Finally, I wanted to post another video I made (before) I realized I had more than one type of vertigo. I refused to even think I had BPPV and only looked at cervical vertigo as the culprit. Forgive me for not recognizing I had BPPV too, but its important to show this video to you because magnesium really has changed my life.
Magnesium has enabled me to live free of cervical vertigo and helped me realize I need to take magnesium every day. Not just Bisgycinate, but Epsom salt baths too. Epsom salt is pure magnesium and relaxes muscles. This, in turn, prevents cervical vertigo.
If you think you have cervical vertigo, please watch the video below.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I just want to say that no matter what is causing your vertigo, please keep trying to find a cure that works for you. It is doable! I found a cure for myself, and I’m happy to say that I function better today because of it.
I know my triggers now and I stay away from them. I practice my natural remedies every day, and I’m pro-active in keeping this ugly beast called Vertigo OUT of my life. I NEVER want to see it again!
Let me also mention one more thing. I am an Intermittent Faster as well. It has been an important part of my life since 2014 and I’m still going strong with it. It’s a natural health regime I started after that ER incident where they told me there was absolutely nothing wrong with me even though I was so dizzy I could barely stand.
I vowed to never be in that situation again and to do whatever it took to be healthy again. So, I put it in my own hands and started Intermittent Fasting. Not only did I lose 50 pounds and keep it off, but I experienced huge health benefits. One of those health benefits is called Autophagy. That’s when your body seeks out bad cells and replaces them with new ones.
I attribute my cured dizziness to that as well!
I continue to do Intermittent Fasting so that those parts of my body that were possibly damaged because of that fall when I was eight, can heaI once and for all. I continue to do Intermittent Fasting to heal my neck as well, and even to heal my body if I did get bitten by a tick.
Do whatever you have to do to get your health back on track, even if people think you’re crazy. It’s YOUR life, and living with dizziness is NOT an option! Be well, my friends! I hope you find what works for you.
LIVE. YOUR. BEST. LIFE!
For more, please click the following link, Crunchy Menopause.
Thank you for reading!
References
- Science Daily
- The North American Menopause Society
- Harvard Health
- Endocrine Web
- NCBI (Pub Med)
- Alternative Medicine for Menopause (LCBI)
- Healthline
- WebMD
- Women’s Health Concerns
- Reader’s Digest
- Mayo Clinic
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Author Kathleen Morris
Kathleen Morris is a successful published author, blogger, and Youtuber. She enjoys writing about things she’s passionate about and making a difference in the world.
Thankyou Kathleen for this very informative post! I got my first ever bout of vertigo 3 days ago, i still have it… it’s awful, debilitating!!
I’ll try all I can to fix it naturally, Thankyou for your helpful hints.
You’re welcome. I hope you feel better soon!