the spectator by ned piper

Irecently learned the hard way that vertigo is more than the title of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Waking up at 3:00am, I got out of bed and went into the bathroom to weigh myself. (Editor’ note: That was not the only reason). You see, I’m on a diet and I’ve noticed that I weigh less in the middle of the night than any other time of the day. I stepped on the scale and, to my surprise, I became so dizzy I was afraid I would fall. Somehow, I made it back into the bedroom where I did fall, crashing into a wall.

Confused and dizzy beyond belief, I stayed on the floor, hoping that the dizziness would subside. It took 30 minutes for my head to stop spinning.

In the morning, a call to my doctor put me in touch with one of his nurses, who recommended I go to the emergency room to make sure my vertigo was not triggered by a stroke. Following the nurse’s advice, Sue and I spent five hours in the ER that day where the staff administered a number of tests.

One of the ER doctors explained to me that vertigo is brought on by the disruption of tiny crystals within the inner ear. He compared it to a snow globe, the insides of which swirl around when you shake it. The crystals somehow get dislodged from their little “cave” in the ear — often by sudden movement of the head — causing one’s balance to be disrupted. He suggested the Epley Maneuver, a simple but very helpful (for 80 percent of patients, at least) sequence of movements you can do at home. I looked it up on YouTube and tried it. It helped. A bit.

The thing that has amazed me is how many people I’ve spoken to about this who have also experienced vertigo. It seems fairly common.