This may not seem like a momentous occasion to anyone else, but I’ve only had about 3 cups of regular-strength coffee in 3 years. Yes, that’s right, about 1 cup of coffee a year.
But today my friend made some coffee (which was really tasty by the way), and I thought I would try to just suck it up and drink some. And guess what? My brain didn’t explode.
I was always very worried about the caffeine inciting worse dizziness, but I think I really need to force myself to get back to normal in many ways. Drinking a coffee once in a while might actually not be such a bad thing. Next time you have a cup of coffee, appreciate it — it’s not so easy for everyone to drink!
I visited the neurotologist this week after getting my appointment changed from July to now. I was hoping that after getting the caloric testing done, we would finally have some answers about what exactly could be done to make me feel better.
So I went in with my fingers crossed, not quite knowing what to expect. I saw the same doctor as last time, and he had the results of my caloric test in hand.
I was completely shocked when he said, as he was flipping through the pages, “It looks like your results were normal.” I didn’t quite know what to say.
I mentioned last time that I’ve had an unusually hard time falling asleep — but I was still always managing to get to sleep by around 1:00 or 1:30. Things seem to have gotten worse for me as far as falling asleep goes, with the past two nights being around 4:00 a.m. before I’m able to get to sleep.
I’m not sure what the change is, except for the fact that I’m now at home and back from vacation. You would think that being at home would allow me to sleep better — but it seems it’s the opposite.
The problem is also that I wake up extra early, and then can’t fall back to sleep. This morning I was awake at around 7:00 a.m. (yes, after falling asleep at 4, it wasn’t very pleasant).
I don’t ever remember being able to sleep well. Even when I was a little kid, I had trouble sleeping, and would often wake up in the night, unable to fall back to sleep. But lately, my sleeplessness has reached a whole new level.
I’m not sure what’s causing the sleeplessness, but it usually goes something like this. I lie in bed, almost asleep — until I get a strong sensation of movement that startles me completely out of my state of almost-sleep.
It’s strong enough that I actually lie in bed, muscles tensed, wondering if I did actually move — even though I know that I really didn’t. This is coupled with a second feeling, where I am actually sleeping, and then wake up because I’ve rolled over — and then get the sensation that I just keep going.
Today’s one of those strange days where I woke up really tired, and then as I went out and did some stuff during the day, I actually felt quite good. My usual ugly morning imbalance usually fades away during the day anyway, but today took a bit longer to go away.
I spent quite a bit of time outside today, mostly potting some plants that I bought. It was a nice day (around 20 degrees Celsius and sunny), so it was great to be able to spend the time outside (I did some walking too near the lake, which was also nice). I also had an iced coffee, which is unusual for me (I quit drinking coffee when I had my first episode of vertigo).
And then this evening the imbalance hit me. As soon as I had dinner (which as usual, is a low fat, low sodium dinner), then I really started to feel the tiredness and imbalance (the two usually go together for me).
Well, I had my caloric testing done this week, and the results were a little odd. I first did a hearing test, after which the tester informed me that the results were completely normal — I was happy about that, because I don’t particularly feel like losing my hearing.
I then did a test where I had to watch a red light move back and forth, both vertically and horizontally. I didn’t find it particularly dizziness-inducing, I was more dizzy just having to lie on an incline.
We then did the caloric testing, starting with warm water in the left ear. I had thought before that the caloric testing would be one quick squirt of water, not a continuous jet of water into your ear. The warm water in the left ear made me quite dizzy, which the tester informed me was actually normal.
I’ve implemented ‘dofollow’ as a bit of a reward system for people who leave a comment here and have a website — if you you’re kind enough to leave a comment, you’ll get a real live link back to the site you leave in the URL field.
To accomplish this, I’ve used the WordPress Do Follow plugin, which basically removes the ‘no follow’ attribute that Google and other search engines use to determine what to index and what not to index (funny enough, I’ve noticed that Google seems to index links marked even with ‘nofollow’ however).
So anyway, to make a long story short, leave a comment here with a URL, and you’ll get a nice link back to your own site. Just my way of saying thanks for your comment.
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.
I felt pretty good yesterday — barely any imbalance, and I went out and got lots of stuff done (including some shopping that I had been putting off for a really long time). I came home, put a bookshelf together, reorganized things at home, and generally felt pretty good.
Then I woke up this morning and felt like I was right back to where I was before when I had caught the cold I haven’t been able to get over. I felt stuffed up and had a headache, and felt extremely off balance.
However, the circus festival was here today, and I forced myself to go out and check out the festival. I went and took some really good pictures, and generally felt much better that I hadn’t decided to retreat back home where I could feel sick.
I’m due to start vestibular rehabilitation therapy (VRT) very soon, and I’m very hopeful that it’s going to allow me to feel better. I know I probably should have started it after my initial episode of severe vertigo three years ago, but I didn’t really know about it then. I just hope it’s not too late to start it now.
I’m also a big fan of gaming on the Nintendo Wii, and I’m excited for the Wii Fit to come out in North America on May 21st — in case you haven’t seen or heard of the Wii Fit, here’s a short video explaining what it is and what it can do:
