If you suffer from any sort of balance disorder, you’ve probably come to realize that stress plays a big part in how good (or bad) you feel. For me personally, it’s taken me quite a while to realize the intimate connection between these two forces, but once I came to recognize it, it allowed me to better control when and where I feel dizzy.

As I said in my last post, I took a great vacation, and was able to unwind for a few days. I felt tremendously better (I did have my usual daily dizziness, but it was actually much better than usual). The lack of work-related stress really seemed to have a positive impact on how I felt.

I find exercise has the same stress-relieving effect — and it usually lasts for several hours after I exercise. And alcohol, while it certainly relieves stress in the short term, actually makes me feel more stressed in the longer term.

So while alcohol may be a quick fix for stress, it has a negative cumulative effect, and can often leave you feeling more stressed later in the day or the next day. Not to mention that alcohol is usually a motivation-killer as well.

As I’ve told myself many times, I need to avoid alcohol more, eat better and exercise more regularly (good advice for anyone, balance disorder or not). But for me (and anyone else with balance issues), the effects of not doing these things are not just felt in 10 or 20 years, but instead almost immediately.

I mentioned before that the meclizine was really helping things. It would seem however, that for some reason, it’s no longer really helping very much at all.

I’ve frequently been waking up with very dizzy, falling sensations. It’s especially bad in the morning when I wake up — and it’s starting to drive me a little nuts.

It’s tough to deal with, especially when I thought I had somewhat of a solution with the meclizine. I’m still taking it, and it seems to keep things from getting overwhelmingly dizzy, but it’s not doing nearly what it was before.

The comment about these being referred to as “drop attacks” is right on the money. That’s exactly like what they feel like — one minute I’m sitting or standing comfortably doing something, the next I feel like I’m tumbling through space.

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I thought a good way to start out here would be to describe my first experience with severe vertigo. It happened 3 years ago, when I was studying in graduate school.

I was under a great deal of stress, in my job, my relationship and at school — with the added pressure that I now was graduating and needed to find a permanent job. When I think back on it now, it was an incredibly difficult period in my life.

At the time, I was drinking what I would say is an above average amount of alcohol to deal with the stress, smoking too much, not to mention eating poorly and not getting any exercise. My lifestyle had really hit rock bottom, and I was rewarded with an upper respiratory infection that lasted over a month.

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