Your Tests Are Normal. Now What? The Causes of "Vague" or Daily Dizziness....

Discussion in 'Your Living Room' started by nassman, Mar 31, 2008.

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  1. nassman

    nassman Guest

    "The majority of persons with vague dizziness they can ill describe have an anxiety equivalent. They are just nervous. This may seem ridiculous at first glance but a number of good studies have shown this to be true and laboratory tests are almost always negative. When a vague nondescript headache accompanies dizziness this is nearly always indicates anxiety. Dizziness, especially vertigo, can sometimes also occur as part of a migraine headache syndrome. Lastly dizziness may be a panic attack equivalent, a kind of agoraphobia, fear of being outside in a public place. Subjects report severe dizziness often accompanied by other symptoms, palpitation, anxiety, sweating, on leaving the safety of their own home, perhaps in going out in a car or in a supermarket or being out in a public place where they may not be able to get into safety, so that they feel there is no escape, should an episode happen to occur. This sensation is most often described as "dizziness", though it is truly a form of phobia or anxiety. So as you can see, we use the history of the complaint to point us in a certain direction. It's the first step in helping you with your problem."



    This has been extracted from the site that I believe is the best all-round site on the net for vestibular disorders:

    http://www.pneuro.com/publications/dizzy/index.html
     
  2. tm53

    tm53 New Member

    Been there, had that (at an extremely stressfull albiet self induced, stage of my life), agree.
     
  3. So Cal Cyclist

    So Cal Cyclist View Askew

    Very good information. It certainly shows that when speaking with doctors you should be as concise and precise as possible when describing your symptoms.
     
  4. June

    June New Member

    I have been fortunate not to suffer with dizziness although I will pretty soon if dr's don't quit asking if I am dizzy.
     
  5. jim1884again

    jim1884again advocating baldness be recognized as a disability

    Yes, I am aware of this phenomenon--have not experienced it but have seen it clients and have read about it often (mostly in the context of panic attacks, but I realize the "dizziness" associated with anxiety is a bit broader than that as suggested by the initial post). Please note, however, if you have MM, what you often experience is rotational vertigo which is to be distinguished from "dizziness" or light headnedness. Granted, anxiety can exacerbate or even trigger MM symptoms, but the vertiginous aspect of MM is different from dizziness as described above. I would be willing to bet the link posted discusses this.

    Personal experience: I discussed this extensivey with my ENT and one of my psychologist colleagues when my two very disloyal and very self centered secretaries (I inherited them from a predecessor) would accuse me of "faking" or having a panic attack when I would have rotational vertigo. The one who called them panic attacks did have them herself and was zoned out on xanax all the time. When I would be calmy sitting my desk with my feet up scoring an assessment or reading a testing manual and a simple turn of my head would throw me into a two hour spin fest during which I felt like I was attached to a spinning wheel and being spun at 30 mph, I wasn't having a panic attack--once the attack began, I might have had some anxiety associated with whether I was going to puke or how long I was going to have to sit there holding my head before I was well enough to drive home, but the attack wasn't caused by anxiety.

    In fact, historically for me, the majority of my attacks have come when I was fairly relaxed and engaged in something less than stressful. However, these would often come on the end of several stressful days. This is why I think Nassman's quote is important--we should try to differentiate between anxiety induced physiological symptoms (and as the quote says, there are several in addition to dizziness) and true rotational vertigo which may or may not be substantively linked to anxiety. Finally, as I asserted in another post, anxiety and our symptoms are often "chicken and egg" cyclical--therefore, I am a strong proponent of the anxiolytics like valium.
     
  6. jim1884again

    jim1884again advocating baldness be recognized as a disability

    PS I am also a strong proponent of exercise like Tai CHi and walking as well as engaging in things we enjoy and other stress reduction techniques--but when all else fails--don't feel bad about pharmacological intervention
     
  7. MedievalWriter

    MedievalWriter Ryan's Rose Pvt Ryan Winslow KIA Iraq 4-2006

    Re: Your Tests Are Normal. Now What? The Causes of "Vague" or Daily Dizziness...

    First of all, the article is 9 YEARS OLD. Yep. No way in the world if could possibly have accurate, up-to-date information on medical conditions. Scroll down to the bottom to see the copywrite and revised dates.

    Secondly, the article is contradictory throughout. Scroll down and here's a nice quote:

    That's not what the introductory paragraph states. Read the whole paragraph that this sentence is taken from--the silly doctor says he's "not prepared to discuss" patients whose dizziness symptoms are caused by vestibular disorders because he goes on to say that so many vestibular patients have sensory overload problems that cause their vague dizziness.

    And of course, "a good number of studies" does not cite the studies, there is no ICD9 code for "anxiety equivalent", and there is no such thing as migraine headache syndrome. There is no ICD9 code for such a thing and no such terminology is recognized by the International Headache Society's International Classification of Headache Disorders, 2nd Edition (ICHD-II), the world-wide authority for headache and migraine diagnosing.

    ICD9 Search Results for migraine headache syndrome showing everything except migraine headache syndrome
    http://icd9cm.chrisendres.com/index.php?srchtype=diseases&srchtext=migraine+headache+syndrome&Submit=Search&action=search
    International Headache Society's International Classification of Headache Disorders, 2nd Edition (ICHD-II)
    http://216.25.100.131/ihscommon/guidelines/pdfs/ihc_II_main_no_print.pdf

    HELLO??

    Sheesh.

    I am EXTREMELY SENSITIVE to migraine bias. I have made it my business to debunk migraine myths and misconceptions. Some of the reasons I blog is to educate on MM, migraine, and earth conservation. For these so-called doctors to define dizziness as "an uncomfortable inner feeling of confusion"--my heavens I FELT THAT WAY WHEN I FIRST ENCOUNTERED GOD BUT LORD BLESS ME I WASN'T DIZZY!! I'm also personally offended by that ridiculous picture.

    AND

    According to the website, the only neurologist out of the whole list of MDs is that Charles Yanofsky. So what specialty (if any) are the other docs?

    I'm going to bed. This wasn't worth my time to debunk.
     
  8. jim1884again

    jim1884again advocating baldness be recognized as a disability

    Hi Med--took the time to read much of the article but would need to read it again more thorougly, but just as I suspected and said in previous post, they do differentiate between lightheadness or dizziness and vertigo

    in particular

    What we don't know and have difficulty measuring and defining, is the component of vestibular dysfunction and the relative roles of psychiatric and physical problem.

    There is little doubt that dizziness can occur from anxiety alone. This dizziness tends to be vaguely described or more often it is a light-headedness or giddiness, rarely a discreet vertigo. A dysequalibrium or gait unsteadiness rarely happens just from anxiety although a complaint of sudden weakness of the knees is often encountered.


    there are other references to this also

    I believe this is a relevant discussion because rarely is this "all in our heads" (it actually is, but which part of the head is significant)--if it is primarily inner ear and the crazy signals going to the brain and being misinterpreted as movement (as I believe it is with the vast majority of us) then it may be treated differently from those who merely have anxiety which manifests itself in dizziness. The exact physiological mechanism behind these different events may be beyond the scope of this discussion, but if one understands the difference bewteen the two, one may attack the problem differently.
     
  9. MedievalWriter

    MedievalWriter Ryan's Rose Pvt Ryan Winslow KIA Iraq 4-2006

    Oh sure, the discussion is absolutely important.

    The article is my gripe. And that's all I addressed.

    I'm in the middle of this discussion with my brother. He told me that only he was entitled to have vertigo because he'd had it during inner ear surgery. I was not entitled to it because I had not had inner ear surgery. He said that he had never heard of Meniere's disease and that dizziness was a mental illness.

    I told him I didn't have dizziness but vertigo. I told him I'd give him information about Meniere's disease if he didn't have time to look it up. And I asked him where on earth he heard that dizziness was a mental illness? He gave me a blank look and had no answer.

    The article was my gripe. We can SURELY find a better source to discuss this than that article, can't we Jim?
     
  10. jim1884again

    jim1884again advocating baldness be recognized as a disability

    Hi Med--I won't try to defend the article
    I culled from it what I wanted to and that was their acknowledgment that rarely is rotational vertigo attributed anxiety. Also I haven't read much about MAV or migraines in general in three or four years so I can't even discuss those intelligently.

    The point I tried to reinforce was that the vast majority of folks who hang out at MM.ORG are experiencing true rotational vertigo as opposed to panic attacks or anxiety induced dizziness or orthostatic events. We all place differing emphasis on events based on our bais or history--I admitted where mine came from (that lazy secretary's assertion that I had panic attacks and not rotational vertigo). Also, we also all differ in the role anxiety plays in our illness, but I think I said that before also.

    Perhaps the reason I think it's worth discussing is that some need reminding that it isn't all in our heads or primarily psychosomatic. I know you only took issue with the article and not the notion it might be worthy of discussion. Again, I don't intend to try to refute your opinion about the article.
     
  11. VickiS

    VickiS New Member

    It's too easy to pigeon-hole people thus IMHO.
     
  12. Titus

    Titus New Member

    I have had general anxiety AND panic attacks. Believe me, the dizziness is NOTHING like the horrible vertigo when you crawl to the toilet and lose it both ways.

    Panic attacks are scary, for sure. You can feel off balance, lightheaded, and dizzy. But nothing like a full-blown vertigo attack.

    I can agree, from experience and recent literature, that vague dizziness (even daily dizziness) can come from general anxiety disorder.

    But there are so many causes of dizziness.......
     
  13. MedievalWriter

    MedievalWriter Ryan's Rose Pvt Ryan Winslow KIA Iraq 4-2006

    Re: Your Tests Are Normal. Now What? The Causes of "Vague" or Daily Dizziness...

    Yes! That's one of my problems with using this approach to begin a discussion on any topic.

    We don't need any so-called 'authority' to lean on to begin a discussion. Jim's secretaries who believe 'the best defense is a good offense', my brother and his sibling rivalry, so many of us who have gone through the many causes of dizziness--those are platform enough to provide a jumping-off point for this important discussion.
     
  14. jim1884again

    jim1884again advocating baldness be recognized as a disability

    thank you for reinforcing that notion

    and Med, you are too kind in your description of my former secretaries but I won't take up any more space griping about them
     

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