New, New Diagnosis … Unknown.
We’ll, here we are almost a week past the last update and there is a new diagnosis: not sure. So, I have been fighting this thing on two fronts: the physical and the emotional.
First, I worked on the physical aspects of the problem. After I had the Epley Maneuver on Monday, I felt no better either Tuesday or Wednesday.
By Thursday, I was so fed up with feeling dizzy, nervous, and anxious that I decided to try doing the Epley myself at home. I didn’t feel much better after that either.
I was scheduled to see the physical therapist again on Friday, so I just waited it out until then. Sleeping had been harder and harder to do and I was feeling very wrung out.
On Friday, I went to see the physical therapist and explained everything to him and how I hadn’t felt any better at all. He then had me do several other motion therapies and asked me to rate them, on a scale of 1-5, on how dizzy they made me feel. After doing several of these including rocking back and forth with my eyes opened, then closed, walking and stopping on his command with my eyes opened, then closed, rocking side-to-side with eyes opened, then closed, etc., he told me that he thinks they need to rethink the current diagnosis of BPPV.
He first told me that I shouldn’t just fade into the background with my ENT, but that I needed to be persistent in telling him to keep working on my case. Then he stopped and said that he would talk to the doctor and that they would get back to me next week, hopefully with some more ideas.
He also told me that, after looking over my ENG tests closer, he saw a positive Hallpike (which is a jerking of the eyes when the head is laid back in a certain position and almost always indicates BPPV) on both sides of my head which indicated that, no, I am not crazy, and there is a documentable dysfunction in my vestibular. In addition, he said, based on my physical therapy tests, there was even more proof of something physically wrong.
I asked him what other things were likely to cause this and he said he didn’t really have any concrete theories, but he did mention Meniere’s and also neuritis (which is, I gather, a generic term for inner ear dysfunction.)
But he did say that I should be comforted by the fact that he was certain there was something they would be able to do to treat whatever it is that I may have. This was somewhat comforting.
Now, on to the emotional.
I also had scheduled an appointment with my GP on Friday to discuss with him the problems I was having with anxiety (with a capitol A) over the whole deal. I told him about how I wasn’t able to sleep and that when I lay in the bed, I would just get more and more anxious about NOT being able to sleep. I also explained to him about how I was unable to freely get out in public because I felt so drained, exhausted and jittery.
He was very understanding and, after about 30 minutes of explaining everything to him, he told me that I sounded like a textbook. He put me on Paxil CR (for the apparent panic and agoraphobia I was experiencing) and Lorazepam to help with the extreme panic and sleeplessness.
I can tell you that I have been able to go to bed and go to sleep soon afterward for the last several nights and I almost feel like a veil is being lifted, albeit slowly.
In fact, I have noticed some lessening in my nervousness to leave the house. Two weeks ago (which was before the most severe panicky feelings I have had recently) we went over to some very good friends’ house for an evening. On the way there, I was nervous as a cat. After we got there, I settled in OK, but still occasionally felt out-of-control and anxious.
But yesterday, we went back over and I enjoyed the time tremendously. I know it is still early, but I am starting to feel a bit more like myself again.
I still notice the odd feeling of unbalance, but it doesn’t seem to be stressing me out as much.
