Vestibular Migraine is the Devil

S.R. Karfelt/The Glitter Globe

Migraines changed me. It was for the worst in some ways, but for the better in others. My Any Day without a Migraine is a Good Day motto was born. They make me take risks I once wouldn’t have taken. They’ve made me both tougher and fiercer, and if I could stab the bastards to death in a dark alley, I’d do it with a glee unmatched by any murderer that’s ever existed.

Vestibular Migraine is a bitch to have diagnosed. I get dizzy can accompany many problems. Once a doctor asked if I got dizzy opening a drawer, from movement in my peripheral vision, in brightly lit supermarkets or crowds, unintentionally veered to the right or left when walking, or from moving my head. I said, "YES! All of those." He frowned at me and told me that those are different types of dizziness and if I could tell him which one was my problem, then he could help me. 

But it was all of those and more.

• Usually I dream I'm running/flying/jumping and I can really feel it, in an out of control this isn't fun anymore way. Then I wake up and the world is spinning. The bulk of all my vestibular migraines start when I'm sleeping.
• At their worst I'm spinning. No. The rest of the world is spinning. No. We both are. Either way, it's not something you can ignore.
• Occasionally I start spinning in the middle of any given day. After fifteen years of this I can say with confidence it has little to do with my stress level.
• If my head were to fill with water, and my brain set afloat inside, it feels like that. Sometimes I'm spinning fast, sometimes I'm bobbing.
• If I keep my head straight, and don't move it at all, it helps.
• Usually they last the greater part of a day. Once I get one, there are more on the horizon.
• Nothing gets done during an event. Not moving my head is paramount. 
• If I've had several of them, there's a residual slightly off-balance aftereffect that can last days or weeks.

Since meds make everything worse (in my personal experience). I've learned through trial and error to avoid them. 

• Wellbutrin gave me tachycardia. Antidepressants made me depressed. These meds were given to me during the early years. I was desperate enough to try anything, and when MRIs and scans came back normal, I think I got lumped into that give her something pile.
• Beta blockers (low dose) increased my blood pressure (doubled my blood pressure randomly), so much so that I was misdiagnosed with Pheochromocytoma. (Beta blockers are sometimes given as a migraine preventative. I have chronic trouble with meds. This might work for other people.)
• Diazepam is actually the best help I've had, pharmaceutically speaking. It has to be taken daily, very very low dose. It's a fine balancing act though, too much and you spin. 
• Physical Therapy is best done between episodes of vertigo. It helps you learn to spot, and how to cope. 

How to get diagnosed?

• It's a slow painstaking process of elimination. 
• First off learn coping skills right off, because this isn't something you can suck up and move through. When vertigo hits, you're down.
• This is something I've had for fifteen years. That's how I got my diagnosis. I've had no other health issues in all that time. BINGO. Must just be a migraine variant. 
• Keep track of what happens when, write the facts down. Show the written facts to your doctor. Try your very best to tell the doctor what is happening physically. 
• You're probably going to have to go through a huge battery of testing on the off chance it is something else. 
• Eliminate caffeine/dark chocolate/alcohol (most especially RED WINE). These are considered migraine triggers. I've found that to be fact when I'm having a bout of them. I can consume all of the above with wild abandon and have no problems when I'm not. The hell of it is, you never know. IMHO nothing is worth a vestibular migraine. 
• Eat healthy. Exercise. The more fit you are, the less migraine you're likely to have.

How to cope without losing your will to live.

• The vertigo will stop. Know that.
• I go to bed with an electric blanket. When it's really bad the spinning makes me anxious (which I happen to think is perfectly natural. I challenge anyone else to spend a day spinning and not get anxious). When I get that nervous, I have cold flashes.
• Spotting helps me. I like to use a light switch (the plate around it precisely). Look at it, stare at it, focus on it. Don't move your head around.
• Breathe. Deep breathing in through your nose until you fill your lungs completely, and slow breaths out help me.
• Talk to yourself, or a calm friend that understands if you're panicking. 
• I'm one of the lucky ones. As a writer, even at my worst spinning, I can escape into my head and plot through stories. If I wasn't a writer, I'd keep books on tape handy. There can be no computer or television when all visual input is spinning.
• When the spinning slows, and you can, check the barometric pressure on the weather app on your phone. I find that when I get this problem the pressure is usually high.
• A thought that helps me is that many creative people are migraine sufferers. I wouldn't change this if it meant giving up my ability to write. Just don't ask me that when I'm in the middle of spinning, because I'm not rational at that point. I'd eat live chickens feathers and all to make it stop then.

The way these migraines have changed me for the worst.

• When I read anything containing health-related advice, I run it through my mental BS detector. It's a huge detector. It's worse than anything the TSA can throw at you. What works for other people might not work for me, and I'm not very cooperative about trying anything new that I can't trust heart and soul. Maybe I should put this in the best column.
• When doctors give me advice, I do the same thing as above. 
• When doctors attempt to give me meds, I approach it as though they're knowingly trying to poison me.
• When I'm having a spinning episode and anyone tries to talk me into doing that BPPV rollover backward treatment (for people with loose crystals in their ears), I'm tempted to tear their feathers off with my teeth. BPPV is a different type of vertigo. Rolling over backward in the middle of a vestibular migraine is akin to tossing me out of a military craft over the Pacific in a hurricane with no chute, OR jamming dynamite into my ears. Just don't even say it. 
• I alternately go between wildly healthy over-the-top eating organic vegan, no-sugar, no-caffeine, no-alcohol, no processed foods AND bingeing on cake and spare ribs. My internal organs are either in a state of blissful health or WTF. My clothes and size reflect where I am in my current state of eating-lunacy.
• Time. I'm always racing the clock/barometric pressure. I want to get books written. I want to hike and do yoga. I want to kiss my husband in a way that chases my kids out the doors never to return. I want to travel and have adventures. But I've got this ticking time bomb in my head that swallows huge swathes of my time. I'm always fighting this and trying not to be a total dick to people and things that waste my time, like paperwork and those people who take life slow and easy. I alternately want to be those people or hulk smash them.

How these migraines have changed me for the better.

• Every day without a migraine is a good day.
• I appreciate every moment.
• Normally I give everyone the benefit of a doubt. I'm not going to waste time being suspicious. If it turns out that I'm being taken advantage of, please see the hulk smash comment above. Maybe this should be in the worst column.
• Sweating the small stuff is not my thing.
• I don't waste time gossiping or lying.
• I will be honest with you. It saves time. 
• I don't play games. If I blunder into the middle of someone's game-playing life, there's a good chance I'll Jenga yank something important out and wreck the whole damn thing. This is good because game-players don't invite me to their party twice.
• Sometimes the most I can do is plot out a novel without moving my head. There is no story shortage here.
• As a life-long chicken-shit I find myself taking risks and going on adventures. I'll try the open cockpit airplane, eat anything tossed on my plate in any freaky foreign country, or drink the iced coffee from the random taxi driver in Athens (even though the whole thing looks like a scene in Taken). It's not that I have a death wish, it's just the opposite—I have a life wish. It's only a wee little bit the fact that the worst consequences from anything (which probably won't happen) aren't going to be me stuck spinning somewhere unable to move. So I don't worry about it.

As always, please run any advice gleaned here in The Glitter Globe through your

S.R. Karfelt/The Glitter Globe

personal BS detector—or your physician if you have (or think you might have) vestibular migraine. In the past fifteen years I've only met one other person who has them. Hopefully that means they're rare. If you do endure any type of migraine, please leave me a comment below and tell me what has helped you. Also, if you have migraine and are a creative, please tell me that too. I'm beginning to wonder if the two go hand in hand.