trouble
I've had some vaguely disquieting experiences lately, raising some questions about my physical wellbeing. While I'm not the kind of guy to go visit a doctor (I'm not sure why; I go to the dentist all the time but doctors are a bit of a different story for me) I think I may have to schedule something...
Over the last year I've had periodic trouble with my equilibrium. Every now and then it feels like the ground is swelling underneath me, just enough to make me feel a little off kilter. I don't even think it's noticeable to others, but I sway just a bit.
So funnily enough, I was on a boat the other day and felt generally fine, but upon returning to land it seems that (and maybe it's just me being hyper-aware of it now) these incidents of equilibrium-weirdness have increased.
Something much worse happened today, though. I had been drinking the night before, and also had eaten a ton of junk food, which probably didn't help things. But I was standing on the L train and all of a sudden a blistering whiteness crept up on all sides of my field of vision, and continued to grow until I couldn't see anything but white. This lasted for probably a few seconds, but it was terrifying. I thought it might be a sign of being about to faint (which might make sense since I was pretty dehydrated and had a bunch of sugar in my stomach) so I grabbed the subway pole a little tighter (there were no seats, and I couldn't see to get to one anyway) and rode the feeling out. Eventually the whiteness dissipated and I could see again, thank goodness, but then I was overtaken by a severe wave of nausea, and thought I might lose my lunch on the train. I was determined to not let this happen as well, and made it above ground about 20 minutes later in pretty rough shape. I really thought I was going to throw up and looked for a likely spot to do it as I headed home. I came upon this oil drum and thought "okay this is perfect," but as I (and this sounds funny in retrospect) took the gum out of my mouth and threw it away in preparation to puke, the feeling abruptly vanished. And now (having slept a few hours more) I'm feeling more-or-less fine. Weird stuff.
So yeah, maybe it's time to get checked out.
UPDATE: So I was looking online and the internet tells me that dehydration is a common cause for "vertigo or light-headedness with loss of function" which is as close as I can come to a definition of what happened. Apparently dehydration can sometimes be a factor related to blood not circulating properly, which causes dizziness and things. So hopefully it's just that I needed to drink more water.
Over the last year I've had periodic trouble with my equilibrium. Every now and then it feels like the ground is swelling underneath me, just enough to make me feel a little off kilter. I don't even think it's noticeable to others, but I sway just a bit.
So funnily enough, I was on a boat the other day and felt generally fine, but upon returning to land it seems that (and maybe it's just me being hyper-aware of it now) these incidents of equilibrium-weirdness have increased.
Something much worse happened today, though. I had been drinking the night before, and also had eaten a ton of junk food, which probably didn't help things. But I was standing on the L train and all of a sudden a blistering whiteness crept up on all sides of my field of vision, and continued to grow until I couldn't see anything but white. This lasted for probably a few seconds, but it was terrifying. I thought it might be a sign of being about to faint (which might make sense since I was pretty dehydrated and had a bunch of sugar in my stomach) so I grabbed the subway pole a little tighter (there were no seats, and I couldn't see to get to one anyway) and rode the feeling out. Eventually the whiteness dissipated and I could see again, thank goodness, but then I was overtaken by a severe wave of nausea, and thought I might lose my lunch on the train. I was determined to not let this happen as well, and made it above ground about 20 minutes later in pretty rough shape. I really thought I was going to throw up and looked for a likely spot to do it as I headed home. I came upon this oil drum and thought "okay this is perfect," but as I (and this sounds funny in retrospect) took the gum out of my mouth and threw it away in preparation to puke, the feeling abruptly vanished. And now (having slept a few hours more) I'm feeling more-or-less fine. Weird stuff.
So yeah, maybe it's time to get checked out.
UPDATE: So I was looking online and the internet tells me that dehydration is a common cause for "vertigo or light-headedness with loss of function" which is as close as I can come to a definition of what happened. Apparently dehydration can sometimes be a factor related to blood not circulating properly, which causes dizziness and things. So hopefully it's just that I needed to drink more water.
posted by Mike at 10:44 AM
4 Comments:
My mom had problems with vertigo and strange effects on her vision for almost a year, and didn't do anything until it was extremely painful - and it turned out to be an inner ear infection. Solved by a quick round of antibiotics.
-Rachael
I had similar issues- but my vision blanked out for 10-15 seconds at a time and realtively often. I had a heart condition.
Of course, my problem hasn't gone away...I'm just better at ignoring it...
I was teaching in September in Jappoland. Been out on the piss the night before, no time for breakfast, rode my bike to work, had a few smokes, nothing really to drink cause I was trying not to puke my guts out cause of the stuid amount of hard alchohol we'd been putting back. Anyhow it ended up being like 39 degrees that day with huge humidity. I frickin faded to black while talking. Almost fell over. Got through the class but felt like heaving for a few hours. Some water and a few more smokes and I was fine. Pretty nasty feeling though.
Wow, those are all really interesting stories; talk about running the gamut of people's experiences! I'm still at a loss for what's behind my own situation - I've had some more weird balance-related stuff happen, so I'm heading to the doctor tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed...
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