Don’t make the same mistake I made

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Lots can help vertigo. Problem is finding out what is causing it.
For the BPPV-type (caused by calcium crystals) femfatigued has mentioned is the Epley manouvre, vitamin D, Mg.
Generally ginkgo has in studies been found to help 'most' (which I'd been recommended by my ENT for sudden hearing loss and it worked in a week; increases blood flow; also 'getting awake'; 240mg/d).
For vertigo I usually take homeopathic nux vomica, as I get it together with nausea. (One of the few homeopathic remedies which work pretty much immediately for me.) However homeopathy differentiates 10+ different types of vertigo / remedies.
For vertigo there are other specific exercises (Semont-Toupet, Brandt-Daroff);
less stress, more sleep, yoga etc.;
diet: less cholesterol, sugar, salt, alcohol, caffeine, smoking,
more magnesium, vitamin D, water, coriander, almonds, lemon, strawberry, ginger, basil, wild indigo,
mouth wash, ice water in mouth or face.
And don't forget to check & if need be try replacing any meds for vertigo as a (common) side effect.
 
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JayCS - Thanks for your detailed information for dizziness and vertigo. I also have these issues and noticed the higher my stress/anxiety level, the more likely I will experience them.
So now once I start to feel dizzy, I take a nap immediately (not always possible) or go to bed early if in the evening and this has prevented a full vertigo episode every time. I will use your suggestions as that may help prevent the dizziness in the first place.
 
Now you talk of napping, Fibromale, I had dizziness combined with the numbness, Jan20, at the begin of this full flare, esp. playing table tennis. After a few weeks I realized closing my eyes whilst moving my head / eyes more (like bending down) was a crucial and lasting help - not really illogical...
Dizziness & nausea are things I have to watch out for with the levodopa I've started using for "RLS"/sleep - day 2 an inkling of it is there, let's see. And now you've mentioned it, I'll be wary of it increasing from the stress working next week. Got my nux vomica out for starters... (It's in my pocket - some sensitive people I know astonishingly believe that can already help them; well who knows exactly how potent nocebo & placebo effects are ;-D). I prefer not to use ginkgo now, as I had the feeling even taking it in morning the other day when I had to get up early kept me from getting to sleep that evening. And most of the rest I am either doing or can't (e.g. eat)... But splashes of cold water and drinking are easy... yep, help.
 
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Yes, I’m a big fan of napping. I read an interesting article that said many people with Fibro nap as a coping mechanism and I am one of them. I can only nap on the weekends because I work 40 hours a week.

Napping helps me in two ways. It prevents dizziness from turning into vertigo and recharges me after a long week of work. I will also take an afternoon nap if I know I will be doing something that evening like attending a social event.
 
Thank you for your input. I totally agree that one has to find what works for them.
 
Just found an interesting book that might help alot of us. It's called Food as Medicine. It explains how to change your diet to only foods that help you. Because we're all different they explain that following one particular diet like paleo won't work for everyone and how to find the right foods for you. I read a sample and looks good.
 
Hmm, I wonder which path they suggest aside from recommendations like sunkacola's. My primary one was an elimination diet, also using a brilliant olden time German cook book for sensitive guts from 1950s, also the Hay diet. Then when one therapist and then the forums suggested gluten etc. I tried each, but had to go for Mediterranean anyway. But finding out that my a... doesn't tolerate tomatoes (any more?) was piecework as ever, with a food diary.
But seeing as the title has now been named twice I wanted to read reviews and found there's quite a few things using this title, a website, including/promoting a cooking book, by Sue Radd (which sounds OK, but doesn't address diseases). Then Guru Dharma Singh Khalsa (which seems good, but "out of date" (20 years old made to look new); it seems to centre on natural organic juices, which I can forget from the start; also written Meditation as Medicine). Then Mohamed Essa (Oman & Sydney, extremely ) (& Mushtaq A. Memon, very expensive researcher stuff, they've also written about diet and autism, a connection which I doubt from family experience). Dr. Greger's Evidence-Based Nutrition DVD Series (doesn't look good, try his website nutritionfacts first, or his 19' TEDx talk on youtube, 3 other vids there with the title), and a 1h26 documentary by Lenore Eklund. Nothing that makes me jump out of my seat.... :cool:
 
Be very, very careful with tramadol!

It is as addictive as all other opiate drugs are and most people who take it find that it stops working and they have to take more and more, and the next thing they know they are addicted to it.

My best advice, based on personal experience and the experience of thousands of others, is stay away from all opiates and try other methods for managing the pain instead. Opiate medications are also getting harder to obtain, and you don't want to go down that road.
Tottaly agree. !
 
Tottaly agree. !
My doctor gave me tramadol with prozac and I ended up in ICU. Looked it up after hospital stay, and I am lucky to be alive. Those two together are NOT ever to be given to anyone. Tramadol used to be Ultram and used to treat migraine headaches. I was a pharmacy technician and should have looked up what medicines he was giving me. I ended up with Serotonin Syndrome. In hind sight, I looked up other meds he gave me two years ago when I had seizures and ended up in hospital. Welbrutin and Prozac together. A pharmacist had told me not to take them together, I approached my doctor, and my so called doctor said they were ok. I got a new Primary of course, but I am really not well now. The second primary I really liked. However, he was transferred to a small town by the same hospital CORPORATION, and he quit. Then it took me 3 months to get a new Primary at a different system. Saw her for 30 minutes and she made appt. to come back in 3 months. Can't walk, can't breathe as good, depressed when I wasn't, and helpless. I give up on doctors. No old time anymore, because money is more important to the Corporation, as I call it.
 
Dusty, due to your latest post on this I've not only seen that you'd already given a short impression of your doc experience regarding meds, but going into more depth now shows how it gives @Fibromale's thread title "Don't make the same mistake I made" a deeper touch and I'm realizing I cd repeat certain doc experiences of mine here again.

Regarding meds, but also supps & herbs what I've found is that neither docs or pharmacists have ever helped me with side effects (sfx), interactions & contraindications, neither knowing what I take, nor when I ask, nor when they are recommending something. Sometimes if I ask for the shop owner I will get a better answer in a pharmacy.

Recent experiences: After my acupressurist didn't tolerate a zinc supp, I looked up for her and saw what a lot of sfx are possible, it then surprised me that she didn't know, nor my GP who just generally recommends taking zinc, esp. when feeling an infection coming on.
Biggest experiences: I’ve had docs prescribing the same med again, and upon my objection a similar one, even after having said I’d gotten considerable sfx… None know anything about how my focal seizures work except praps my neurologist, none about how my skin works, none about my acid & IBSD (none about my back, bladder etc.). My biggest flares on top of my long continual one were caused by doc treatments, esp. meds, smaller shorter ones were supp & herbs treatments done by myself. Shows I am just too complicated.

My explanation is that docs & pharmacists need to know a bit about a lot of substances and concentrate more on the fx. Also unfortunately if we are told about sfx before we take things, or read them up we will sometimes get them (nocebo effect). However my experience, after all I’ve tried, deliberately not looking at the sfx before is I very often get sfx, and used to look them up too late unless my skin or seizures were exploding. Now I try to know beforehand what to expect and can do something about it quickly. I get less sfx now than before, because I start treatments more carefully.
And if at all, docs or pharmacists may know a few of the 10s of sfx of meds, which wdnt help me even if they recognized them (I often get the more unusual ones), and they know hardly any of the sfx of supps & herbs, not even those they recommend, like my GP recommends zinc without measuring the zinc level first.
The problem is also that they only tell me it might be 1 of the sfx of a certain med if I ask exactly that. If I just complain of a symptom, they will first give me something new to put on the pile (meds or operations). If I ask if it cd be a sf of something, they will need a reminder and long look at what I am taking, incl. supps&herbs, altho it’s not much. And if I say what I am suspecting, then I’ll still usually be better or just as well off using the web. But to get that far, I need to know what I am looking for…
And I’m not bashing here. As I keep saying: Modern medicine is quite good, but only for easy monocausal conditions, and that’s not its fault, it’s just the human body is much more complicated. Functional / alternative / holistic medicine etc. may be better at seeing the complexity, but still doesn’t have ‘enough’ answers and often dabbles in vagueness and a too fixed mindset. I say that from always having had a very complicated human body myself, the mystery of which medicine of all types has unravelled only a small bit, despite my 45+ docs in 1.5y, but also having had quite a lot of insight into what medical training entails and also how practitioners think and what they know, as I can talk with them at eye-level because of that. It’s often a case of me educating them so they can educate me back with background I don’t yet know.
So it’s only DIY sleuthing for me, watching my body (fairly) closely and using the experience of people (more users, occasionally practitioners) on the web and trying everything sensible carefully with a sense of proportion - with success, not like before. But talking with my docs/practitioners about all of it, and using their occasional ideas too. OK, even their last ideas weren’t good for me, but I’m always up for trying something new…
But fibromale's thread is written as advice. I don't like giving general advice, because I'm different and can work on things differently to others. And I don't want to be more than one voice in a good choir. But I myself remain am wary of the fact that docs make a lot of mistakes and the self-advocacy fibromale referred to means taking responsibility for my treatments too and only going a certain way with the docs, while educating myself as much as I can. My main pain doc made some big mistakes regarding my seizures, but at least she advised me that. That said, I want to stress that I still ask my docs for opinions (no longer ideas) (well-knowing that they usually won't be able to answer except my sleep lab psychiatrist) and always tell all my docs what I'm trying out. If only to educate them...
 
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Dusty, due to your latest post on this I've not only seen that you'd already given a short impression of your doc experience regarding meds, but going into more depth now shows how it gives @Fibromale's thread title "Don't make the same mistake I made" a deeper touch and I'm realizing I cd repeat certain doc experiences of mine here again.

Regarding meds, but also supps & herbs what I've found is that neither docs or pharmacists have never helped me with side effects (sfx), interactions & contraindications, neither knowing what I take, nor when I ask, nor when they are recommending something. Sometimes if I ask for the shop owner I will get a better answer in a pharmacy.

Recent experiences: After my acupressurist didn't tolerate a zinc supp, I looked up for her and saw what a lot of sfx are possible, it then surprised me that she didn't know, nor my GP who just generally recommends taking zinc, esp. when feeling an infection coming on.
Biggest experiences: I’ve had docs prescribing the same med again, and upon my objection a similar one, even after having said I’d gotten considerable sfx… None know anything about how my focal seizures work except praps my neurologist, none about how my skin works, none about my acid & IBSD (none about my back, bladder etc.). My biggest flares on top of my long continual one were caused by doc treatments, esp. meds, smaller shorter ones were supp & herbs treatments done by myself. Shows I am just too complicated.

My explanation is that docs & pharmacists need to know a bit about a lot of substances and concentrate more on the fx. Also unfortunately if we are told about sfx before we take things, or read them up we will sometimes get them (nocebo effect). However my experience, after all I’ve tried, deliberately not looking at the sfx before is I very often get sfx, and used to look them up too late unless my skin or seizures were exploding. Now I try to know beforehand what to expect and can do something about it quickly. I get less sfx now than before, because I start treatments more carefully.
And if at all, docs or pharmacists may know a few of the 10s of sfx of meds, which wdnt help me even if they recognized them (I often get the more unusual ones), and they know hardly any of the sfx of supps & herbs, not even those they recommend, like my GP recommends zinc without measuring the zinc level first.
The problem is also that they only tell me it might be 1 of the sfx of a certain med if I ask exactly that. If I just complain of a symptom, they will first give me something new to put on the pile (meds or operations). If I ask if it cd be a sf of something, they will need a reminder and long look at what I am taking, incl. supps&herbs, altho it’s not much. And if I say what I am suspecting, then I’ll still usually be better or just as well off using the web. But to get that far, I need to know what I am looking for…
And I’m not bashing here. As I keep saying: Modern medicine is quite good, but only for easy monocausal conditions, and that’s not its fault, it’s just the human body is much more complicated. Functional / alternative / holistic medicine etc. may be better at seeing the complexity, but still doesn’t have ‘enough’ answers and often dabbles in vagueness and a too fixed mindset. I say that from always having had a very complicated human body myself, the mystery of which medicine of all types has unravelled only a small bit, despite my 45+ docs in 1.5y, but also having had quite a lot of insight into what medical training entails and also how practitioners think and what they know, as I can talk with them at eye-level because of that. It’s often a case of me educating them so they can educate me back with background I don’t yet know.
So it’s only DIY sleuthing for me, watching my body (fairly) closely and using the experience of people (more users, occasionally practitioners) on the web and trying everything sensible carefully with a sense of proportion - with success, not like before. But talking with my docs/practitioners about all of it, and using their occasional ideas too. OK, even their last ideas weren’t good for me, but I’m always up for trying something new…
But fibromale's thread is written as advice. I don't like giving general advice, because I'm different and can work on things differently to others. And I don't want to be more than one voice in a good choir. But I myself remain am wary of the fact that docs make a lot of mistakes and the self-advocacy fibromale referred to means taking responsibility for my treatments too and only going a certain way with the docs, while educating myself as much as I can. My main pain doc made some big mistakes regarding my seizures, but at least she advised me that. That said, I want to stress that I still ask my docs for opinions (no longer ideas) (well-knowing that they usually won't be able to answer except my sleep lab psychiatrist) and always tell all my docs what I'm trying out. If only to educate them...
Doctors are 'practicing' medicine. All of our bodies are different. I have tried some supplements and some were not good for me. I keep trying one at a time to educate myself for my body and have the pain and conditions ease. I am in contact with Pharmacists a lot because they know about the chemicals. I believe doctors learn from each one of us. They go through medical school, then come out with hundreds of thousand dollars in debt (Most of them) and are employed by branches of hospitals that are more interested in money. That is just my opinion. We are all a hurting and I thank God we have a forum so we can learn from each other and not feel alone and helpless.
 
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