I'm now up and running with my new treatment protocol, vestibular therapy. Indeed, I'm going against much of it right now by sitting in a non-ergonomic manner and keying this… apparently my neck has more than a minor role in the whole dizziness/balance mess. And as others have attacked my ears with jets of water, my eyes with blindness goggles and hectic little red lights, I now have another crowd who are going after my neck with a vengeance.
My first visit out there to see my new BFF Vince in Wadsworth, they (Vince and one of many assistants) put me through the paces to see just how piss-poor I am at balancing. Turns out I can stand with my feet heel to toe and my arms folded, eyes closed, for something like a whopping 5-6 seconds before toppling over sideways. I think this is pretty bad. (Try it yourself and see how you do, but do it next to a bed or something in case you fall.) Also, they kept making me sit in a chair and turn my head extremely far to the right. Then they had me wrap a hand towel around my shoulders like a cape, and use one end of it to pull my chin and cheek even more insanely far to the right. Never the left! They were very stern on this point. I also got yelled at one time for bending my head way forward, as all the far-right stuff was making my neck sore. They pretty much screamed and dove at me to make me stop.
They gave me a series of exercises to do at home twice a day– the towels, ten times, a thing where you roll up the same towel and put it under your neck while you down and tuck your chin in way too far, repeatedly; ankle exercises with a giant rubber band; and walking up and down the hall, heel to toe, while touching my finger to the wall. Right now I only do that one forwards, with my eyes open, and it makes me very dizzy. But when I get good at it, I'm supposed to add doing it backwards, and then I guess the PhD level is doing it forwards and backwards with your eyes closed. I'm a long way from there. lord knows. Now after a couple visits, they discovered this little spot behind my right ear that if rubbed will make me dizzy. So– you guessed it– I'm supposed to rub it! I think sometimes they missed the memo that I really, really don't LIKE being dizzy.
Among the strange neck things they have done is taping it. I mean, just applying medical tape to my neck, following the neck muscles down the front to my collar bone and then horizontally all down the back of my neck from my hairline to my collar. When I first asked for an explanation, the young lady taping me said (erroneously) it was diagnostic– to see if it would make me dizzy. I was supposed to wear it for 24 hours (please note: it was not flattering nor comfortable). I thought, all in all, it would be easier and take less time if we focussed on the things that do NOT make me dizzy, rather than those that do. But I didn't make a fuss. I wore the stupid tape, which felt unpleasant in many ways, the rest of that evening and all the next day. It did make me dizzy, and seemed like a lot to deal with on top of normal life (which makes me dizzy).
The day after that, I went in to see them again, and they seemed depressed and hurt that I did not like the tape. Vince said, "Well, let's give it another try. Maybe it will help– you've got to give it a chance!" I of course am game for whatever may help, but this really puzzled me. I asked another young lady, a new one taping my neck, what the deal was with it. She explained, "Well, there are a lot of [unintelligible]s in your neck, and we've found that if you stimulate the [unintelligible]s, sometimes it helps RELIEVE your dizziness. It gives your neck a better sense of where you are in space"
I said, "What is that WORD that everyone keeps saying?" It really was driving me crazy. Something receptors?
She said, "Proprioceptors … they are in all your joints and they help you orient yourself in space. Your neck is full of them, so the tape helps them stay grounded in space, and often can help you balance."
Okay… I submitted to the tape again, and this time… well. I noticed towards the end of the day a strange sense of security provided by the tape. It felt comforting somehow. I'm not sure if it was all a placebo effect, but I did sort of grow fond of it. Still, when my 24 hours were up I peeled it right off. And this time, unfortunately, I had a bad reaction to it– to the glue or the tape I don't know. But in any case my neck got some big puffy hives on it, and those turned into blisters which then burst. I got the creepy crawlies all over my back and head and had to take a benadryl to make it stop. Now I look like a vampire has bitten me… oh well! So lovely! I'm seeing an allergist in a couple weeks and I'll mention it. Soon I will be just one walking ball of afflictions.
Anyway, after making me stand on wobbling boards and twist my neck all over the place and making me ill with these horrible shoe-like things that have rocker bottoms, they decided to really attack my neck big time. No more pussy-footing around. They covered it with goo and slapped on these little fabric pads attached to ominous-looking wires. Then they wrapped the whole mess in a huge freezing cold neck brace type thing. Once I was laying down like this, the lady began to turn a knob that caused my neck to be repeatedly and persistently electrocuted. She said, "We want it strong but not painful." I allowed that it was strong but not painful, although really it was just inside the line. She put a washcloth over my eyes and said, "Just pretend you're at the spa." And we chuckled about that. I had plenty of time to think it over, as I had to lie there having my neck simultaneously frozen and electrocuted for a full 20 minutes.
Afterwards I had to sit still for a while to get the dizziness under control in order to drive home. I have heard from my peeps in the Dizzy Lounge that vestibular therapy makes you feels worse before it makes you feel better, but that it's really very worth doing. So I'm hanging in there. I'm doing all my homework and trying to get an A. The next two weeks, though, the schedule is nearly impossible– the kids have crazy schedules at school as they phase in to their new classes (we started today and all went well), all the babysitters I had over the summer are back in school, and of course there's the schedule of the therapy place itself, which is packed. So between it all I may not get back to the spa until after Labor Day. Vince is prepared for that. Although it stands to reason that not going as much as I'm supposed to be going will drag the whole thing out longer.
I do like the idea of, okay, my inner ear is injured and will take time to heal. But meanwhile there are other parts of the balancing process that we can actually improve, thus making my overall experience of balance and dizziness less of a major problem. Is it working? Maybe. Now and then I have a moment where I expect to be dizzy– like walking up a slope in the yard last night at sunset– and I find myself thinking, "hey.. I'm NOT dizzy!" Then it passes. But, still, this is a step in the right direction, it really is.