It was 4:00am, I turned in my sleep, when the ceiling hit the floor and the room began to spin.
YOW!!
As if a puny, mortal howl could bring the cyclone of my spiralling bedroom back down to earth. I flung myself on to the whirling mattress and held on for dear life. It stopped as quickly as it started. An expletive drooled from my lips. My bleary eyes opened and despite the ceiling and roof above my head, I saw stars.
Hello, Vertigo. Back with a bullet for the third time in four weeks. I should have known that you never left. Between the first two bouts, I was still feeling dizzy when I leaned over to smooch my sleeping prince. I’m no princess, I should have figured it out.
I lay drenching the sheets of my memory-foamed life-raft, iron-gripping my pillow, weighing my options. There weren’t many. One tilt of my noggin in the wrong direction and I’d be gyrating on the hellish Half-Cups at the “amusement” park of my youth, tortured forever by a notorious public barf as I spewed and staggered down a wooden ramp, grossing out the crowd.
In my head.
As the world turns.
It’s not easy staying still, but the spinning wheel going round-and-round forced me down and I lay prone for weeks, whispering to myself and watching the clouds drift by. I was too woozy to work, but oh my people, how the tears did flow. I was flooded with frustration, itching to get back to the roller-coaster ride of my writing life. Two months later, as I type this post, it finally hits me what I learned from lying down: I needed a break.
Here’s to happy endings, new beginnings and the year 2014. Thanks to a friend’s referral, I was blessed to be treated by a brilliant, vestibular physiotherapist with boffo bedside manner, who diagnosed me with Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) and then kicked its butt out of my inner ear. With my sweating head in his steady hands, he performed the Epley Maneuver, brought me into the spin and beyond it. He promised he wouldn’t make me puke, and I didn’t. A Christmas miracle for a dizzy Jew.
C’mon and do the Epley with me!
*20-30% of the general population is affected by dizzyness and vertigo.
*It is coming to my attention that many people suffering from vertigo don’t know about the Epley maneuver, so please tell them about it and/or share this post!
*
FAN THE FLAMES
*
GOOD NEWS FLASH: My vertigo tale has been published on Huffington Post right here! Check it out and keep your feet on the ground.
Wondrous song-stylist Lullaby Baxter, pianist Robinson St. George, lyricist Lutwidge Sedgwick and sound engineer Howard Bilermanare cooking up a breathtaking stew befitting our gorgeous new year. Check outL’Heure de L’Etoile, support great indie music with a jazzy, vintage/vibe and listen to your heart.
Welcome!
Click on FOLLOW THIS BLOG VIA EMAIL and join the party. Don’t forget to send back the confirmation email you’ll receive.
For pix and an almost daily fix, click LIKE BURNS THE FIRE on Facebook.
Please COMMENT, QUESTION, DANCE and SHARE, and help spread the good word if you dare!
burns the fire 
37 Responses to As The World Turns
I am glad you’re back and feeling better.
I missed your words.
LikeLike
Thanks so much, Wakinyam! You just lit my fireplace.
LikeLike
Well in that case, I’m going to come and sit by your fireplace now.
It’s all kinds of awesome and comfy and cozy beside you!
LikeLike
FABULOUS post, I just shared and enjoyed.
Your insight into the need to rest certainly struck home. I have another dear friend dealing with this…will send it to her pronto,
LikeLike
Thanks, JE. The need to rest is the moral of my story but so is finding the right help for vertigo. Please do share it with anyone dealing with BPPV. I keep hearing stories about people who can’t find the right help and who are taking drugs when they are not very helpful.
LikeLike
Welcome back, Brenda.
LikeLike
Thanks, Jerry. Feels right as punch.
LikeLike
So glad to hear of your positive response to BPPV exercises for the Vertigo you experienced. Scary as hell isn’t it. The first three episodes I had in Feb & March 2013 lasted maybe ten minutes while the room spun unrelentingly, & I lay frozen in place. Doctors were non-plussed as I didn’t respond to any treatments. Then the next two episodes of Vertigo, occurring in June 2013,
stopped me dead in my tracks and put the fear of God in me. These two episodes lasted hours, and threw me against a wall, wouldn’t let me raise my head off the floor, & finally let me crawl across the floor & pull myself onto my bed. It was only then I ceased my denial and knew I could not drive anymore. So I’ve hung on to the words of the virtually hundreds of people (doctors, friends, relatives. and strangers) who have all told me their Vertigo “went away” after a few months
to a year, after no medicine, exercises, meditation, etc., etc. was able to prevent the episodes. Its now been 5 months since the last violent episode happened. Luckily I have drivers, taxis, city
access buses, & friends to continue to get around. Maybe, if I am able to complete a year without
another episode, I will drive again—but I’m not sure I will do so, because I remain a potential danger to hurting or killing someone in a driving accident, and I could not live with that on my conscience. I continue to be stunned at how many people tell me, “Oh, yes, I have Vertigo, also.”
LikeLike
That is so rough, Myrna, my heart goes out to you. I was told that 30% of people will have one episode of vertigo in their lives. You’ve had your quota, here’s hoping it will never return!
LikeLike
Myrna, I’m assuming that you saw a vestibular physiotherapist and that the maneuvers didn’t work. Still, I wonder if it would be worth it for you to do the Epley as a daily preventative measure. It only takes one minute a day.
LikeLike
I loved the line “into the spin and beyond it.” Sometimes the only way out is through. Welcome back, friend!
LikeLike
Thanks, Jennie. It was something to face it head-on to get past it. A kind of violent poetry.
LikeLike
Ah Ive had a mid case of that. Not fun. Great writing though.
LikeLike
No fun is right. Then why do so many people love spinning rides?
LikeLike
You’ll never believe this, but I have met Dr. Epley. I actually used to work for a company which produces a repositioning medical device. He is a brilliant and wonderful man.
I’m so sorry that you have vertigo/BPPV. From what I know, it can be a debilitating disorder. I can’t imagine not being able to move at all for fear that I’d send myself into the worst spins of my life. I’m happy the doctor treating you was able to help you.
LikeLike
Yowza, Jen! This is news. So glad to hear that the man responsible for discovering an incredibly simple and effective way to treat vertigo is also a mensch. The name Epley makes me feel tingly.
It was not a doctor who treated me, it was a crackerjack physiotherapist with 25 years of treating people with vestibular disorders. I wept into his infra-red camera and threw myself into his arms when it was over.
LikeLike
Super writing, as usual! There were flashes of Dorothy, in the Wiz of Oz, in the first part. I know you’d like her shoes!
I’m so glad the only things making you spin now are my wit and dance moves!
LikeLike
You can spin me anytime.
LikeLike
Well I have suffered from BBPV for over 13 years till recently I finally got helped by a sports medicine therapist who did the Epley procedure. I to this day only have a few bouts but I can walk and actually be functional again in my life…WHAT A BUMMER spinning your life away. Ginger root was my favorite friend for the longest time. Glad to know your back, but be warned you will always have vertigo 😦 But let me say the Epley ROCKED once you got over the fear of spinning and sweating like crazy! Good post!
LikeLike
Oh Slingshot, I am so sorry to hear you went through 13 years before you found the Epley. Are you doing it every day as a preventative? Hope so.
LikeLike
Its still a work in progress, but when the wind blows oh boy am I doomed!!! It sends the spins out of control, so I have to crash on couch and try not to move my head. I have given up almost everything in my life to be functional. However, driving calmed it down but moving head to and fro became a task in itself….I only do the Epley when needed to subside the spins, other than that I will always have it. 😦 but its manageable now.
LikeLike
Brenda, welcome back! I’m so happy you found a doctor who could help you. Maybe it was your body’s way of talking to you, what you really knew all along, which was to have a break for yourself. This was a forced break, but a much needed one. Great post!
LikeLike
Thanks, Amy! I am so grateful to have had this much-needed break. The body knows.
LikeLike
Its so great to taste your words again. I am however happy you have been able to rest and restore. The body always finds ways to slow us down so we can “re-boot” and then we can truly Kick -Ass!
Looking forward to getting together upon our return from Amsterdam. Mucho Amore xofelish
LikeLike
Thanks, Felicia! Looking forward to kicking some ass with you.
LikeLike
Brenda, je ne savais pas que tu avais une labyrinthite. J’ai déjà fait une chute de pression et tout tournait autour de moi, c’était vraiment horrible. Donc j’espère que ça ne reviendra plus. Je t’embrasse. G.
LikeLike
Merci, Gen. Je fais l’Epley a tout les jours maintenant pour preventir une autre episode. Ca fait du bien.
LikeLike
Dear Brenda,
I always enjoy reading your smart, funny, and very real blogs. However, this time you outdid yourself. Here’s why: I spent Wednesday with my mother at the emergency room in St- Marry’s Hospital. She suffered from severe vertigo and was very scared. My mother is 77 and lives two block from me. All I could do was to hold her tight in my arms and accompany her as the world turned around her. She was released that night but the vertigo didn’t go away. She stopped eating and was in bad shape. I was pretty desperate when your blog arrived last night. My brother had already told me about Epley maneuver but knowing someone else was there who understood the experience and shared our story helped me and my mother. I read your blog to her this morning and performed the maneuver on her. She says it helped and she’s feeling much better. She also says hello to you Ms Brenda. Keep on writing my friend. We’re reading.
Love, Yassaman
LikeLike
That you held your mother as she spun touches me deeply, Yassaman. I am very happy she is better and think you are amazing to have performed the maneuver on her. It helps to have someone to hold on to when the vertigo is so acute. As I had it chronically, I do it every day now to prevent it.
I am realizing that many people don’t know about the Epley and I encourage you to share my blog with that intention in mind.
Your wonderful words warm this writer’s heart.
LikeLike
Brenda, I am so sorry that you suffer from vertigo. I hope that this soon will be a bad memory. Get better! X
LikeLike
Learning how to ‘go into the spin and beyond it’ recalls for me embracing the contractions of childbirth. Here’s to getting beyond it, and to skilled therapists, and to learning how to take a break. Thanks for a great post, Brenda.
LikeLike
Well I’ve never had it that bad, a ‘non-specific viral infection of the inner ear’ so I am told. And then there is Miniere’s Disease which can be managed with diet. A friend of ours had to give up driving but doing his own research cut out coffee and herbal teabags (most contain ‘flavour’ a euphimism for some form of salt) and is now vertigo free. Thanks for the Epley tip, is the movement speed important and does it matter which way you turn first?
Graeme
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing about your friend with Meniere’s disease, glad he found his way. As far as I know, when doing the Epley, the first turn is on the side that activates the spinning. As well, when you go from sitting to lying, it’s important to attach some speed to the process. Stay in each position a good ten seconds. Finally, you might want to see a physiotherapist or a doctor who can help teach it to you properly. When I saw the physiotherapist, we did the maneuver two times in a row and, presto. Good luck!
LikeLike
Thanks Brenda, Having left my comment I thought I could look it up myself and did, but your reply has added to what I found out too. We’ll see if we can get my old Dad sorted and next time it hits me, I’ll give it a go.
Cheers Graeme
LikeLike
Omg, my best friend has been through this twice!! It’s the most horrific, debilitating thing EVER. I’m so so sorry you experienced it, but I’m grateful as hell you got a correct diagnosis and treatment, *hugs*
Beyond grateful you’re better, sweetness!!! xo
LikeLike
Sweet Beth, thank you! This happened a year ago and I’m still on my knees with gratitude, and do my Epley every day. xx
LikeLike
[…] Download Image More @ burnsthefire.com […]
LikeLike