Spent about an hour in EMDR trying to make the fight-or-flight go away from this week’s joy. Moderate success. Then, off to the doctor. His theory is that there’s a problem with a tiny, tiny electric guitar in my ear. Usually the guitar just strums gently, its strings floating in a slow stream like Monet’s lilies. It sings a happy song that tells my brain that I’m in balance and that my stomach is okay and does not need to be inverted and emptied. Occasionally a chunk of Masonite floats in and crashes into the strings and the guitar starts playing a shitty Ted Nugent song. This causes the brain stem, cerebellum, and other parts of my brain to decide that I’m off balance and have just eaten something nasty. The result is vertigo and explosive vomiting.
Eventually the chunk of Masonite sticks to the banks of the stream or moves on or dissolves and the problem goes away. People get it because they throw their heads backwards, for example in the sink at the hairdresser’s, or on a pillow on their beds. I hadn’t realized that flinging my head back was a hobby of mine.
Of course there’s nothing much to be done about this. One treatment actually consists of flinging your head about in a very supervised manner at the ENT doctor’s office until the Masonite comes loose, but this causes the symptoms to come back in full force even if it works. That sounded awfully Victorian to me.
Since excess fluid in the stream where the tiny electric guitar sits can cause this problem or make it worse, he wants me to take a diuretic, which is a twofer because he also doesn’t like my blood pressure. I don’t like my blood pressure either, but then again I spent the weekend either dry-heaving or being betrayed and/or menaced by mall goths, so maybe it was just a tad higher than usual. But I don’t care if I pee a little more. I’m also supposed to take 50 mg of niacin a day, because that might help too.
Be My Blog 
CAT SCRATCH FEVERRRR
BWOW WOW WOOOOOOW
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Have you considered earectomy?
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My mother had some kind of strange vertigo type thing for a couple of years. I don’t know if they ever figured out the exact cause, but it wasn’t for her lack of trying. She took Chinese herbs, had acupressure, did some strange candle thing that was suppose to take the wax out of her ear, did the Adkins Diet, then the Zone, then Vegan/raw foods and is now Vegan “but with a little protein”
I don’t think anything actually helped except that the thing, whatever it was, just went away. I like your doctor’s guitar answer, though. And niacin is always a good thing.
Yes, deep breathing exercises during high levels of stress will help the blood pressure. Just don’t hyperventilate!
Glad you are on the mend.
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The Flying V In My Mind Plays Manilow
I think the thing I was most struck by in mine and ‘s recent excursions to the hospital–and indeed my dad and aunt’s cancer treatment–was how unbelievably primative and clumsy and yeah, Victorian, “modern” medicine is. Victorian may be too modern a period, actually; Chemotherapy seems a lot like those charming Salem witch detection methods, where if it kills you, you weren’t a witch, and if it doesn’t, the punishment for surviving is death. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m sorry you’re going through this and I hope whatever Flintstone-era treatment they give you helps clear it up.
I’ve had EMDR during some of my darker therapy times and it helped me. It too seems like some kind of witchcraft or voodoo or something, but somehow it works. I’m due, actually. I hope it helps you.
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The Nudge..in your head??
i can see where the vomiting would come into play…
heres to speedy recovery and the lack of future exorcist style pukes in random parkinglots!
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ach de liebe
When I was a child, I had petit mal epilepsy. Bad. I would be fine, talking, blah, blah, blah, then I would just stop breathing and pass out. Was in and out of hospitals till I was 12. Came close to the final curtain a couple times. I know how freaky head trouble can be.
I am sure I sound like a broken record when I say this, but your diet will play a role in your mental state. Even if you think you’re eating well, you’re probably not, since the foods we eat today are from fields that have been stripped of their vitamin and mineral content.
Go over to Mother’s foods and get “Miracle Greens” or “”Green Vibrance”. TODAY. Even if your doctors are right in what they prescribe you, getting the proper nutrition will enhance your recovery. Don’t fight me! I’m too obnoxious to stop. “Miracle Greens” tastes the best and is a little cheaper (about $30-35) and “Green Vibrance” has more stuff in it and is slightly larger ($35-40). One or the other – don’t try a “greens” formula that costs $10. It’s just grass.
I’ve been taking one or the other every day for the last three months and it’s made a huge difference in my emotional and mental states. I can still get occasional headspins if I’m not eating right – I feel better than I ever have since starting this stuff. Honest.
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Re: ach de liebe
You’re a really nice guy, but I don’t buy the Miracle Greens thing. Glad it works for you; I’m more comfortable with conventional medicine.
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Re: ach de liebe
use BOTH.
why not take the $30 challenge? Use up one canister over 30 days. The worst that happens is you got more greens in your diet.
the medications I took as a kid did who-knows-how much damage to my brain (as any ex-girlfriend would attest). There’s room for both.
okay, I’m off the soapbox.
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Re: ach de liebe
please don’t mock my illness with this stuff, i really really don’t like the mother’s market scene
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Re: ach de liebe
sorry – not mocking anything, just offering a suggestion. I’m sure you can find it elsewhere, too.
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Re: ach de liebe
Oh man I LOVE the miracle greens! I used to have a messed up digestive system and it was really the last resort and worked wonders!
C-radical, My Mom got this almost exactly after a car accident, I hope that you choose against radical victorian torture treatment, actually, In a perfect world this would be a misdiagnosis and you just ate some bad cheese.
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There’s always trepanation!
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Ah, the joys of medicine
Do let us know what happens — that vertigo/nausea crap is murderous. I was once prescribed “antivert” for an attack of vertigo…but the antivert made me pass out, so that was out ;D Good luck!!
–adept
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So your doctor says you have Ted Nugent’s disease and the cure is repeated headbanging?
Is your doctor this guy?
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GUY MANN-DUDE!
GUY MANN-DUDE!
GUY MANN-DUDE!
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that seems kind of a weird way to describe it. I hope it’s embellishment on your part. If a doctor explained it to me that way, I’d give him a punch in his wang dang sweet poontang.
Dr Swolf prescribes you to sit in a comfortable chair, with high wquality head phones on, and blast W.A.S.P.’s Blind in Texas approximately 472 times in a row. If you live, you’re cured.
not trying to mock or anything, just trying to cheer you up in some way. Nothing says cheer like Blackie Lawless.
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Yeah, that was all me. His explanation was full of actual medical stuff which is kind of boring.
Hurray for W.A.S.P., the Daleville cure.
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As long as there’s a PMRC…
At this very moment, Tipper Gore is pushing to have your treatment withdrawn.
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One of these days we’ll get you to Daleville. We can go tip over the Live Bait Vending Machine.
i miss you, come back soon!
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I was going to say
You explain things in very interesting ways, and that’s good.
If a doctor explained something to me like that, I might be interested with the metaphor, but I’d probably be more concerned with the fact I’m getting some sort of literary device instead of words that they’re supposed to be using.
“I’m sorry, but did you just say I have Masonite in my head?”
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Re: I was going to say
As long as I know Ted Nugent’s not wandering around in there, I’m okay.
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