It’s been a while since I’ve written here, and I hope no one thought I was gone forever! Things have been very busy at work, and of course quite stressful as well. This hasn’t really helped the dizziness in the past little while, and it’s been a bit tough to deal with. Even walking to and from work can be a chore some days.

So I’ve decided to extend this weekend, and take Monday and Tuesday off as well. I’m planning on traveling somewhere (it’s noon on Saturday, and I still haven’t decided where yet, I think it’ll be fun to just get in the car and go somewhere).

I’m looking forward to this much-needed break, and I’m hoping that I’ll come back rested (and less dizzy!). As I said in my last post, I’ve got my appointment with the new neurotologist at the end of the month (which I’m feeling hopeful about), so I’m hoping I can allow myself to feel a bit better before then!

On a side note, I did only 20 minutes of biking yesterday, and felt absolutely terrific after. I didn’t feel great while doing it, but for several hours afterwards, I thought: why don’t I do this all the time? I guess you can never really go wrong with getting more exercise.

Well, it’s a long weekend here in Canada (a very long weekend for me, since July 1st is Canada Day, and I also took an extra day off on Monday). This usually means lots of travelling in the car, and for us dizziness sufferers, some uncomfortable times.

I thought I’d provide a quick list of things that seem to work well for me when I have to travel as far as keeping the dizziness at a minimum:

1. If at all possible, be the one driving. Strange as it may sound, I get much more dizzy when someone else is driving. I think it’s that I can’t anticipate the shifts in balance as quickly as when I have to pay attention to them.

2. Avoid caffeine and be wary of medications. Caffeine makes you jumpy and agitated, and is just going to make your dizziness worse. If you’re too tired and feel like you need caffeine to keep going, take a break instead (and a quick nap somewhere safe off the road if you can). Avoiding medications that make you drowsy is also an obvious one — being safe should be your first concern.

[Read more]

It’s funny how sometimes when you physically feel better, it can mentally makes things tougher. My cold seems to have pretty much vanished (about time) today, and I was actually feeling quite good.

Before I had my first episode of vertigo, I never had difficulty travelling. I’ve travelled quite far without any problems (Montreal to Hong Kong was probably the farthest I’ve been).

Since having the first episode of vertigo, I’ve travelled within North America, and I’ve also been to Costa Rica and Mexico — but I haven’t been able to make any overseas flights. Even those shorter flights (even the ’short’ international flights I’ve taken since then) have been really difficult.

[Read more]