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Constant Dizziness and Nausea

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A couple years ago I started having "episodes" of dizziness and nausea. These initially occurred about one day a week, but over time increased until now I am dizzy and nauseous 24 / 7. I have been out of work since February 7 because the symptoms are debilitating. I also over the past couple years have developed problems with memory and thinking clearly.

When I recline or tilt my head backwards I have a severe sensation in the center back of my skull as though my brain is being electrically shocked. Any time I move my head in any direction I get motion sickness. I have no pain at all, just severe symptoms.

I am barely functional. Between the dizziness, the nausea, and the side effects of the medicines I am all over the place all the time.

I've seen MDs, an ENT, a neurologist and an allergy doctor. No diagnosis. MRIs of head and neck were negative. The only medical issue found was I'm 50% deficient in Vitamin D but that does not seem to be related to my problems. I've been prescribed 50,000IU of Vitamin D3 but have not yet started it.

The neurologist referred me to a neuropsychologist who says he thinks he can treat me, but didn't tell me how yet. On May 24 I go for a day-long battery of neuropsychological tests, then on June 1 I get the results and start whatever treatment he prescribes.

Right now I'm taking Promethazine for nausea. It stops the nausea very nicely, but makes me feel stoned.

An MD and psychiatrist both agree I have some unknown physical cause, apparently something wrong with the nerves in my neck near the base of my skull. They both prescribed drugs to try to help, but the drugs are significantly different. My impression was they were prescribing drugs to treat seizures and epilepsy-type situations, or that help with nerve pain an damage.

The MD gave me Gabapentin, which I just started taking. Low doses at first (100 mg a day), then building up to 300mg a day. I've not noticed it helping yet.

The psychiatrist prescribed Imipramine. He said it would treat the physical problems, but in my research it seems to be a strong antidepressant. I'm skeptical it will help, so I started Gabapentin instead.

At this point I'm quite desperate. All the doctors seem clueless. My only hope is that maybe the neuropsychologist is right and he can help me. If not, I'm in big trouble.
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replied January 23rd, 2012
re:
I feel the same too, too bad we cannot really exchange our bodies w/ the doctors so they could rule out the main cause. In my case, i've been thinking a lot of possibilities, and I'm thinking that maybe its a fatigue and/or dehydration that I have to pay attention (and there may be a lot of root cause under it too), or maybe my sinuses, since I also saw something from my nasal xray a year ago...too many possibilities, but just have to rule out...how bout you, have you ever been diagnosed w/ fatigue? how about your heart?
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replied February 3rd, 2012
I'm having some of the same issues. I feel as though I'm constantly barrel rolling (usually counter clockwise.) When I try to drive at night, it's almost impossible. If there is any fog on top of being at night, I absolutely can't. The vertigo feeling also comes with very bad neausea and my vision constantly blurrs in and out rapidly.

I finally ended up being sent to ENT and they sent me to physical therapy. The therapist did a bunch of tests and said there were things she say that "conserned" her. She didn't elaborate yet. She wants to see me again and try different tests. What she did kind of basically say is that any motion of my head causes it to onset (confirmed by my reactions to the tests) and said my body seems to want to go where my head does. I also get topical numbness around my eyes when it gets above a 3 or 4 on a 0-10 scale.

With that, I have very bad memory loss. I lose about 80% of what happened past 24 hours. Anything I do remember has no sense of time of day, day of week, date, month or year for a lot of older memories.

On the memory note, I went to see a few mental health providers. When I was a kid, my step father abused both myself and my sister on all 3 types of abuse. She said that she thinks that I was in "fight or flight" constantly. Which would constantly release the chemical that is supposed to help you "come down" off of the response. When the chemical is constantly released, she said, then you start to get damage to your neural connections. In addition to memory, I have almost no ability to multi-task (yes I know its a false label but it works) and I've developed tremors in my hands. Not sure if that is related but, now both of my sons have it. Luckily, my daughter doesn't. No one else in my family tree has had tremors at all (and we have a history back to 1400's.)

I also have sleep problems. I now have apnea, which is most likely more related to another problem. However, I have a problem where the melatonin doesn't properly release so I get little to no REM sleep. This has gone on since I was a kid. Which I'm starting to wonder has to do with abuse.

Anyway, for the dizzyness/vertigo, try seeing an ENT and trying to get to physical therapy. Memory, may be an issue of overload or (if it applies) a history of being abused. On the overload part, there is only so much a human memory system can take in. It works almost like a computers RAM, except the excess is completely ignored as if it didn't happen. So, if there is too much input from your body for other things (for me its constant very bad pain, vertigo and some other issues) then other things will be ignored, or gotten rid of quickly. I've had blackouts where I function normally (my wife was next to me for one that leasted 15 mins) but I had no memory of what happened in that timeframe.

If I rambled, I apologize. I kind of got offtrack part way through.
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replied April 21st, 2013
dizziness for yrs till recently
All of you look in to occipital neuralgia
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