Vertigo!

June peonies, March sheds.

Sitting down long enough to do a post is a real struggle in June. But I have a PSA to write, a great need to take the time to write about something that happened to me, because I hope it will help someone, anyone out there who's suffering from vertigo--unexplained dizziness, with no other symptoms. Here's what happened.  I basically killed myself all Memorial Day weekend getting planting, weeding, mulching and manuring done. I got this jones to manure the gardens, and I wasn't going to let lack of a backhoe or pickup truck stop me. My friend Jeff told me I was welcome to dig around in the barnyard where their cows come to give birth, 100 years of continuous cow poop in dry stratae free for the taking. Wahoo! Full of weed seeds, too, but that rich stuff is what my gardens need.

I have golden raspberries from my dear friend Connie Toops in NC that were crying for manure. 

photo by Connie Toops

I've got rhubarb from my dear friend Ann Hoffert in ND that wanted some too. 

photo by Connie Toops

 I'd put the little steel mesh carrier on the back of the Subaru, take shovels and dig the stuff into containers, tubs and muck buckets and window boxes, and haul it home by the 300 lb load. I probably hauled a ton of manure in muck buckets and tubs on the back of my Subaru. Sunday and Monday I made repeated manure runs to fortify all the gardens. Yes, it would have been nice to have a truck but I don't, so I do what I can. Bill and the kids helped, but I waaay overdid it. I got dehydrated and though I was drinking gallons of water, nothing was coming back out.  I had no pee. Weird, I thought. Then while hauling a tub of manure for the last load up a steep hill in hot sun I suddenly got dizzy and had to quit. I had lifted the tup up, rising rapidly from a squat, and boom! I just had to sit down and let the kids haul the rest for me. I felt like puking, and I was actually staggering like a sailor. That was Monday. From then until Wednesday afternoon I had vertigo. I never want to have vertigo again. I was mildly nauseated and listless, with no other symptoms. I wondered if I'd had a little stroke. Not a pleasant thought. But had no weakness or paralysis or cognition issues. Well, my head felt very fuzzy, but I was making sense, and I knew who the president is (Roosevelt, right?) and the date and day of the week and all that. My brain was functioning reasonably normally, considering I felt like I was on a pitching ship.

I'd put it on the snap peas, too.

Finally on Weds. around 3 pm I couldn't stand it any more. I'd done some online digging and come up the possibility of an inner ear infection, but it came on so suddenly that didn't really fit. I didn't think it was a disease. It seemed to me like an event, not a disease. I called Shila, my personal shaman and wellness guru (who happens to know a ridiculous amount about the workings of the human body as a certified cranio-sacral and polarity therapist). After running through some questions to ascertain if I'd had a TIE (transient ischemic event, or mini stroke),  she told me she thought I had BPPV*, and told me to go on Youtube and look for The Epley Maneuver, which is this exercise where you incline your head back while lying with your upper back on a pillow. Then you roll your head around slowly in a spiral. Doing this will dislodge  any otoliths, little crystals that form in your inner ear, that might be blocking the flow of fluid in the cochlea. Having free flow of fluid in the cochlea, the little snail-like coil in the inner ear, is vital to knowing where you are in space. Stop that flow and you are seasick, Sally, and it ain't fun.

I did the Epley maneuver as shown on YouTube once for each ear and got up, not dizzy any more. It was a flippin' miracle. A doctor I spoke to afterward, who confessed he'd never heard of the maneuver, said, "Based on your symptoms, I'd have sent you straight to the ER for an angiogram."  Well, this was free, not scary or hard to do at all, did not involve massive ER charges,  and I am feeling so very, very lucky to have a best friend and incredible healer in Shila. 

*The name for the condition is "Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo." It's caused by rapid changes in head position that dislodge otoliths that then bung up your cochlear canal and keep the fluid in the cochlear canal from moving correctly. Being completely dehydrated probably had something to do with my sudden onset BPPV, too.

As many of my stories do, it gets better. We have a Rain Crows new music rehearsal on the evening of June 3, and Wendy, who is vital to contributing, receiving, arranging and reacting to our newly written songs, is clearly not operating at full capacity. She says she's dizzy and nauseated. No other symptoms. Has been for a couple of days, and she's miserable. I scribble "The Epley Maneuver" down on a scrap of paper and give it to her. Just to make sure, I texted her this link:

The Epley Maneuver

 She manages to make it back to where she's staying, looks up the video, and by 10:30 that night she's done the maneuver and the vertigo is gone. Hallelujah. Let life resume. 

So already, I've had one friend present with the same symptoms I had, and Shila's wisdom has rippled out and helped another person. I give this story to you as a gift for when your cochlea gets jammed. Or the cochlea of anyone you love. Vertigo with no other symptoms. Remember this. Look it up, do it. If BPPV is your issue, The Epley Maneuver will fix you.

xoxo

jz

Obligatory Disclaimer: Although my family calls me Dr. Zick, I am not a doctor. There are many things that can cause vertigo, including inner and middle ear infections (which are often viral) and mini- strokes. I'm offering this easy-to-do maneuver as a first, at-home stop in figuring out what might be going on when you're suddenly taken dizzy with no other symptoms. If you execute it as directed a couple of times and it doesn't work, hie thee to your doctor.