The doctor...Who?

[fajrdrako]

I do indeed have labyrinthitis. But that wasn't the diagnosis, exactly; Dr. Griffith spent some time explaining what was wrong with me and why, and after she was finished she said that the ailment used to be called "labyrinthitis". It has been re-evaluated by the doctors and they now believe it does not have a viral or bacterial cause, and it is now called benign postural vertigo.

Which sort of trips off the tongue.

So basically: it's not fatal or dangerous, just annoying and uncomfortable, and it will eventually go away on its own. I just need to remember not to move my head fast. I should have remembered to ask if doing headstands was a good idea or a bad one. The big relief: she took my blood pressure both sitting and standing, and thought it was just fine. This is a good thing.

Feeling dizzy, I don't want to move around at all. I think self-indulgence is called for, like finishing the Harry Potter book and watching the rest of Veronica Mars.

Comments

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Weren't you also the one with frequent fainting spells? Am I confusing you with someon? Maybe you are just easily overwhelmed. :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, I used to have frequent fainting spells when I was younger. Used to faint at the drop of a hat, in all sorts of embarrassing places. I'm happy to say I haven't done that for a long, long time.

Easily overwhelmed. Yes. Maybe I'll put that on my tombstone.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

LOL! I would love to hear some of your fainting stories, unless it's really tramatic. I thought maybe your dizzy spells were a new, lesser form of the fainting? *shrug*

:) Yes, self indulge, definitely.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure there's any drama to my fainting episodes, or even any story behind it. It just used to happen rather a lot. When I was in high I sometimes used to faint just sitting at my desk - or at least I'd have to go running to the washroom to lie down, or put my head between my legs. Maybe it was because I was extremely underweight - ah, those were the days. My acupuncturist said it was because of the scleroderma, which interrupts my body's energy flow. My phrasing, not his. Probably true.

Anyway, I blushed easily and paled easily, and turning pale is the first step to fainting.

My most consistent fainting situation was when I went to the eye doctor - apparently I'm allergic or sensitive to something in the eye drops they give you to dilate the pupils. The first time they gave them to me, I was ten years old, and went into convulsions. My parents were alarmed. Being unconscious at the time, I missed the drama of the event, though I felt strange afterwards.

This made me nervous about going to eye doctors, and I didn't go again till I was about 20. Once again, I fainted (and had convulsions) moments after the drops were inserted. The next time, I told the doctor (another doctor) about the problem and he insisted there was nothing in the drops I could possibly be allergic to - so I let him use the drops again. Predictably, I fainted.

The next time, with another doctor, the same thing happened. I woke up with the nurse saying sternly, "You didn't tell us you had epilepsy!" What could I say to that? I only have epilepsy when I'm stupid enough to let them give me eye drops! Never again! I have no problem with ordinary eye-drops like Visine. One friend called this the most easily controlled case of epilepsy he'd ever heard of.

I remember once fainting when I was lying down in bed to start with. That was a strange one. At least I couldn't fall over, as I normally would, when I was already prone.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Oh my god about the convulsions! How frustrating that the doctor didn't listen to you when you tried to explain. No wonder you didn't say anything to the next one!

Body energy flow interruption sounds good. BEFI, LOL. Fainting lying down is definitely a new one - how are you aware that it's fainting and not just falling asleep really fast?

I ask just cause I'm fascinated, having fainted only once in my life and wondering what causes more frequent spells.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

How frustrating that the doctor didn't listen to you when you tried to explain.

I have been to many, many doctors in my life and my general observation is that they are not usually very good at listening to patients.

BEFI

Yup, that's what I suffer from!

Fainting lying down is definitely a new one - how are you aware that it's fainting and not just falling asleep really fast?

For one thing, the sensation is quite different - you can feel the blood leaving your head, that's a sensation in itself, and there's a sense of vertigo and a moment of intense sweating - usually accompanied by the thought, "I'm going to fall," just before I do. Then deep, deep unconsciousness followed by jumbled thought and confusion - the "where am I?" moment - total discontinuity, loss of sense of time and place. None of that happens with sleep. The body feels different, too. Not relaxed. A little shakey, weak, cold in the extremities.

wondering what causes more frequent spells.

I was wondering if fainting is typical of people with scleroderma. I have a book on the subject that some day I will get up the nerve to read. Otherwise I guess it's - poor circulation? General poor health? Oversensitive neurology? Odd brain chemistry?

Good question. I'm not so sure of the answer. Nor am I sure - besides the eye drop thing - what situations caused me to faint, and why. I don't see a common denominator. Sometimes stress, or distress, or sometimes being squeamish - but only sometimes. Other times there seemed to be no extermal cause at all.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

What is scheroderma, at the risk of beating this to death, lol. :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Hey, no problem. How often to we get a chance to talk about our health? Most people run screaming. I don't do it often, anyway.

Scleroderma is a disease that I got at the age of four. They talk about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scleroderma if you want to have a look. Basically something goes wrong in the cells of the skin and it hardens; but in my case the scarring stopped spreading when I was about 8 or 9, and I survived just fine. They say the scarring usually attacks the hands and face, but in my case it was mostly legs, arms and hips, so I'm lucky in that most people don't even notice I'm scarred.

I think I might be lucky that I got the disease in the dark ages before the medical profession knew much about it. I've heard of really extreme treatments for it these days - like radiation therapy - thank goodness I didn't need to go through that.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

And your observation on the sensation of fainting is interesting. The one time it happened to me seemed less conscious *pun intended*. I just remember feeling extremely disorientated, dizzy, and almost as if everything was going in and out of my eyesight in flashes. Sort of like a drug, but the doctors swear there were no drugs in my system.

I don't remember thinking I would fall, or that I was falling. Next I knew, I was waking in a hospital. I don't remember a deep unconsciousness, I remember thinking I was being raped and fighting them (the paramedics) off. I might have been convulsing... my friend, who was there, just said that I was fighting the paramedics like a crazy woman, LOL.

Maybe since mine was more isolated it was merely related to the circumstances at the time? They never found anything specifically wrong - I blame the strobe lights, which led to the beginnings of disorientation, but I was already lined up with a bunch of negative factors (didn't eat or sleep well, drank a little alcohol, took an advil, breathed in paint fumes that day, dancing for two hours, etc.).

The body is strange!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The body is certainly strange. It sounds to me as if you might have had some adverse reaction to something - paint fumes and advil, sounds like a bad combination - sounds as if it lasted a long time and that you were dreaming too. None of my periods of unconsciousness from fainting lasted more than a few minutes. Maybe five minutes, maximum. Certainly not enough time to get me to a hospital!

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I would say I was out for maybe fifteen minutes to a half hour (?) depending on how long they took to get an ambulance and get me to a hospital (I honestly don't know - they are fast these days).

I do know by the time I woke up I had an IV in me and all the doctors were around me, reviving me. I do know that I wasn't feeling well that day to begin with. I had just finished an internship I hated (there had been months of stress about that), and I had a headache.

I woke up early to go to the gallery to paint the walls and was having slight vertigo on the ladder (that's pretty normal, as far as reaching up to ceilings goes). I still wanted to go out, so I took a few advil to feel better and then I had one margarita at the club. Oh yeah, and danced for... two hours?

My first reaction was, of course, to think someone had drugged my drink, but I'm pretty sure that I had it with me at all times and since they found no sign of this kind of drug in my system, it just seems like I took really bad care of myself that day! LOL.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I suspect that the combination of fatigue and alcohol was enough to mess up your system - you probably didn't need any extra drugs to knock you out! We see so much on TV and elsewhere of people who drink a lot with little effect (the Lymond paradigm) but that isn't true for everyone - smaller people, or people like me who are sensitive to drugs, can get a big punch from practically anything. I've been known to get high on antihistamines, or to be drugged unconscious on a small dose of Dimetapp. And that's without alcohol. Gotta be careful!

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I'm small, so quite likely vulnerable. Wasn't Lymond small too? lol.

I know that I'm usually ok with fruity drinks, but certain wines and certain dosages of Nyquill when I'm sick definitely knock me out, or at least make my head spin.

This is why Eden does not drink!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Lymond was of middle height, and slim - if that translates as small, yes, he was. He wasn't large, anyway.

There you have it - the world is full of head-spinning agents. I tend to avoid them, because I never know what they'll do to me.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Yes, small enough to pose believably as a female. I really need to re-read those books.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I love it that Lymond isn't large. The world seems to be full of tall, broad heroes and I prefer the slim, graceful types.

I'm planning to reread the Lymond books before going to Malta. One per week will do it. Can I? Well, why not?
(Because I'm rereading George R.R. Martin. But surely I can find time to reread both?)

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

So do I. Eden case in point. Though in the Dunnett world I admit to prefering Niccolo for reasons that have nothing to do with his size.