Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting at work concentrating pretty intently on what I was doing. My recollection is that I was sitting very still, reading whatever was on my monitor. I think I moved my head a bit to glance at something in my peripheral vision, and all of a sudden, I felt pretty dizzy. I decided to “walk it off”, and walked out to the break room, which is nearby. By the time I got there, the room was spinning around pretty good, and I decided that if I was going to pass out at work (hi Baditude!), I’d want to be near someone, so I walked back to my desk. At this point, I couldn’t walk straight. It was as if I’d spun around fast 50 times and tried to walk. The floor was tilting, and I could barely stay upright.
I made it back to my desk and lay on the floor and told my workboy that I wasn’t feeling well. I looked up at the ceiling and still felt like the whole room was rotating around me. My heart was pounding, and I broke a little sweat, but after just a minute or so, the feeling subsided. The room stopped spinning, and I was able to get off the floor. I decided to take the rest of the day off and drove home and went to bed.
Through the evening, I still felt a little unsteady, but better and better as the evening passed. This morning, I feel pretty normal, but a little scared to move my head around quickly.
The feeling of the room spinning was unlike anything I’ve ever encountered. It was crazy. I didn’t like it one bit. I talked to my dad about it last night, and read a little about vertigo, and it appears that it’s a pretty common occurrence.
Anyone else ever have any similar experiences?
6 comments:
Apparently, I've had vertigo! :) and one side-effect is amnesia.
Glad to hear that you are feeling better.
I see folks like you all of the time. It's one of the more frustrating things to treat as a neurologist because the most common cause of vertigo, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, is treated by moving the patient through a series of sitting up and laying down positions.
Of course, all of the movement usually triggers the vertigo...followed by nausea...followed by partially digested Chicken McNuggets on the floor.
Not fun for the patient OR me.
I hope that you feel better. It's kind of cool, though, to think through the mechanisms of what's happening and why you feel the way you do, but then I'm a Neuro Nerd.
Gwen
Adam, did you eat chicken nuggets yesterday? We may be on to a cause.
Interesting side-note: a coworker reported that last night he had the same type of vertigo episode, and has been feeling slightly dizzy today as well.
Coincidence? Or could we both have the same virus or something?
Coincidence or psychic phenomenon?
Read the book.
It's unusual for an infectious vestibular neuronitis to last only a few minutes, usually the active vertigo lasts more than a day with residual symptoms taking weeks to sometimes months to fully disappear.
There would be very few other explanations for why you AND your co-worker have had vertigo, though. The other causes of vertigo (and the list is huge) generally aren't contagious.
Unless your coworker just wants to be cool like you...an impossibility of course. There is only ONE Adman.
Gwen
I can't believe Gwen just dropped "Infectious Vestibular Neuronitis" on your comment section Adam.
Tell your coworker that's what he has, just to see his reaction - I bet he freaks out. Then tell him it's the new HIV....
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