Vertigo - things that help/trigger

[watervole]

Good things.  Body balance class at the gym.  I think the Cawthorne-Cooksey exercises may also be helping.

The vertigo (certainly when I'm indoors) is better when I'm wearing contact lenses than when I'm wearing glasses.  (the peripheral vision confusion of focus with glasses makes it worse)

Bad things - working at the computer can definitely trigger it sometimes.  The most likely occasions seem to be when I'm scrolling down the screen (I'm trying to use page down when that is an option).  Also looking at the computer to a piece of paper and back again several times can sometimes be a trigger.  I've got the screen on the highest refresh rate.

Bonus symptoms - I'm getting a little bit of tinitus in my left ear.  I only notice it when I'm trying to go to sleep as other sounds mask it during the day. (and it often goes away all together).  It's not very loud, just a small pulse of white noise at intervals of around a second, but it's surprisingly annoying.

Comments

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

You are so right about the screen > paper > screen eye movement causing the queasies. Ugh. A copy holder level with the screen helps a bit, a left / right movement seems easier than an up / down one.

I have all sorts of pops, whistles and rhythmic white noise in my left ear. It's probably your pulse you can hear. The specialist I saw couldn't work out what was wrong but it is very annoying.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I can't use copy holders (have tried). They set off my neck trouble. In fact any form of looking from screen to anything is bad for the neck, it's just that it now affects the balance as well.

I suspect you're right about the pulse. It was that sort of timing. It's gone at present, but I'm sure it will be back again. I can already see the possibility that I'll end up playing quiet music at night just to mask the sound.

There are so many possible causes of tinnitus that it's hard to know where to start. (Impacted wisdom teeth are one of the minor options, ranging all the way up to things like Meniere's disease - although Meniere's really appears to be a catch-phrase for "well, you have all the symptoms, but we don't really know much about it and can't fix it"

[cuddles-batcave.livejournal.com]

Did you know that there are little gadgets for helping Tinnitus sufferers sleep? It's basically a white noise box that is supposed to dampen your 'inner' sound for better sleep. Check out http://www.rnid.org.uk/shop/products/tinnitus/

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I'll check that out if it gets any worse. The gadgets look very pricey. I can't initially see any advantage over a CD. (unless it's that they keep on playing all night.)

[cuddles-batcave.livejournal.com]

If the tinnitus is not expected to go away, you should find out about Disability Living Allowance, which could help towards some costs for specialist equipment.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

It's only just started and is intermittent, so I'm hoping it will go away.

on the other hand, my grandad had Meniere's... But I'm getting symptoms in both ears and Meniere's almost invariably starts in one ear.

With luck, it will turn out that I have something that an antibiotic will shift.