About B. Todd Troost, MD Expertise vertigo, benign positional vertigo, BPPV, and related ailments.
Experience
Past/Present clients More than 2000 patients with vertigo.
Chairman of Neurology Department for 18 years and examiner for American Board of Neurology for over 25 years. Extensive information is provided on my commericial free website at www.ivertigo.net
Expert: B. Todd Troost, MD Date: 4/7/2004 Subject: vestibular imbalance
Question I've asked two previous questions here and have gotten a great response.
Recently, I was hospitalized because an illness I had been fighting had gotten worse. The doctors overseeing my case couldn't really come up with a diagnosis, but they think I was sucker-punched by a virus, most likely the Epstien-Barr virus.
As a result, I have had feelings of motion for a while now. I was able to describe my feelings to my aunt, who is an audiologist, and she said it sounded like I have vestibular imbalance.
About three weeks ago, the imbalance seemed to go away, but last week it came back. It's not as bad as it was before, and it seems to come and go throughout the day. Will this go away eventually once the irritation in my inner ear goes away completely? Or is it a more permanent thing which my brain needs to adjust to? My aunt said there were exercises that one could do to help, but I'm having trouble finding resources or examples of it.
Also, I have two related questions:
1) After my imbalance seemed to stop, I resumed doing a "nasal rinse," to keep me from getting a sinus infection during the allergy season. Is it possible that it could affect my inner ear?
2) The doctors put me on Trazodone, which I take at night. Is it known if this could this cause feelings imbalance as well?
Thanks a lot for your time,
-Jeremy
Answer Dear Jeremy:
The motion feelings do sound like a vestibular imabalance.
Sinus disease can possibly affect inner ear function but that is unlikely.
I don't think the Trazodone is causing your symptoms, but you could stop it for a few days just to see.
The imbalance sensations could be helped by exercise such as they do for postional vertigo. The home exercises are described on my website at:
