Vertigo update: My latest (this morning) vertigo testing found 40% damage in my right inner ear. Diagnosis is “Right Unilateral Vestibular Deficit” (RUVD). Damage most likely caused by some virus I caught mid-winter, the virus is long gone but the damage remains. My brain is receiving 40% fewer balance signals from that ear, which it notices as mis-matched motion between both ears so it tells me I’m dizzy. So the physical therapy will be to cause me as much motion as possible, so my brain will decide “Hey, I’m tired of this dizziness, I’m going to suppress the differences” and then it re-syncs the signals and I’m good to go after about six weeks. Essentially re-training my vestibular system. In other words, it seems like I should have been doing maximum CrossFit this whole time! The final test was very interesting. They blow a minute of steady cold (and later warm) air directly onto your eardrum. (Quite noisy!) That cools (or heats) the one of the three inner ear balance loops that is most closely connected to the eardrum. The cooling (and heating) of the liquid inside the loop causes it to start flowing (i.e. heat rises) which sends a direct mis-matched “Hey, I’m dizzy!” signal to the brain from just one ear. They measure the exact dizziness amount by a virtual reality headset with little cameras observing my eye motions—think Google Glass. When you’re dizzy, apparently your eyes swivel around predictably. My eyes were 40% less dizzy from the cold/hot air in my right ear by measurement, and also noticeably less dizzy by my personal assessment. Up to 20% mis-match is considered “normal” and common in people without any dizziness symptoms, but 40% is “UVD”. nationaldizzyandbalancecenter
Posted on: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 21:13:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015