Unusual vertigo episode followed by 2 months ongoing dizziness
Hi everyone, I am a 23M writing about my experience and current symptoms. I wanted to make a post because I am desperate for help, as I feel like my life has been taken away from me.
On June 15, I suddenly experienced severe spinning vertigo. It started while I was in bed and lasted roughly 20–60 minutes. I vomited three times and went to the hospital that night. Blood tests were normal. I went to sleep about three hours after the episode, but when I woke up the next day, I didn’t feel normal.
The actual spinning never happened again.
For the first couple of weeks, I was very unsteady and felt like I was physically leaning to one side when walking. I lost my appetite and some weight, had an eye twitch for about a week, and occasionally experienced tingling/pins and needles in my hands and feet. I also became extremely anxious about what was happening.
One strange thing (that might not be related, but started at the same time) was pain on the upper left side of my nose and sometimes an upper toothache, especially when biting down.
Over the following weeks, some things objectively improved. My appetite returned, the eye twitch disappeared, and, most importantly, the physical leaning gradually improved. However, the strange visual/internal sensation has basically remained.
I had a non-contrast CT of my head, which showed a normal brain but some sinus mucosal thickening involving the maxillary/ethmoid/sphenoid sinuses.
After a few weeks, I scheduled an appointment to have all my vestibular systems checked.
They tested:
- VNG/Oculomotor function
- Smooth pursuit/tracking
- Saccades
- Optokinetic nystagmus
- Positional testing
- Calorics
- vHIT
- cVEMP/oVEMP
- Computerised dynamic posturography
- Functional gait
My peripheral vestibular function was normal. There was no evidence of BPPV. Calorics were symmetrical, VOR gains were normal in every semicircular canal, VEMPs were normal, and there were no significant catch-up saccades.
Importantly, my smooth pursuit/tracking was objectively normal, as were my saccades and other oculomotor tests.
My posturography was also extremely good, and my Functional Gait Assessment was also good.
Despite all of that being normal, my biggest remaining problem feels like it's in my eyes/visual processing.
If a car drives past horizontally and I follow it with my eyes, tracking it feels extremely strange/off. The same thing happens watching people walk past me. The world itself does NOT move, bounce or spin. My eyes appear to follow the object correctly. It's the sensation while following it that feels wrong.
As soon as I stop tracking the object, that particular sensation disappears.
I can also sometimes feel internally wobbly/floaty/spacey, even though the environment is completely stationary. Face-to-face conversations can sometimes feel visually strange. Reading sometimes feels more effortful than it used to.
Busy environments can make me feel worse. For example, I recently went to a theatre, and the foyer/hall was packed with people moving around, which made me feel terrible. However, I can also sometimes feel bad walking somewhere with few people, so it isn't exclusively about crowds.
At other times, I can walk around my house relatively normally. Driving is manageable. Showering is fine. I can go into grocery stores without getting dizzy. Scrolling on my phone doesn't really bother me.
I also had an eye exam with an optometrist shortly after the original event and was told everything looked normal.
I've been given vestibular rehabilitation exercises involving walking while moving my head and VOR-cancellation exercises. Interestingly, these exercises don't reproduce my main tracking symptom. Watching an actual car/person move horizontally is much more likely to produce it.
At this point, I'm considering seeing a neurologist and potentially having a brain MRI because I want to rule out a central/neurological explanation. I am also considering a chiropractor assessment to rule out any neck-related issues. I am an anxious person, but the symptoms don't really feel like anxiety.
Has anyone experienced something similar?