Hello! Im a 19 year old female, 20 later this year, and I’ve been dealing with dizziness since I was 11 years old. It first started in 5th grade when I was laying flat down on the floor at school and all of a sudden the entire room was spinning. It only got worse from then.
At least once a month, I would have prolonged and severe dizzy spells that would sometimes last for weeks at a time. It was horrible, as I couldn’t sleep, move my head, or walk, without everything spinning.
In middle school I regularly saw doctors and specialists and had a bunch of tests done on me, including MRIs, but the doctors could not find anything specifically wrong with me.
The only help I had were some few prescriptions that could ease my symptoms and Dramamine.
Luckily once I hit high school my dizzy spells started appearing less often and less severe, only a few times a year now and only usually lasting 2 days at most, and my official diagnosis was vestibular migraine.
We started treating my spells like migraines but it still feels like it’s not helping. I’m good at catching when my dizzy spells are about to happen, but still not sure how I can prevent them better, my only relief over the years was just being lucky they aren’t as severe anymore.
Some of my triggers are:
-Laying completely flat on my back
-Typical migraine triggers (loud noises, bright/flashing lights, etc)
-Intense motion, like rides that spin super fast. I was on a spinning ride a couple years back and I was left dizzy for about 3 days.
-and sometimes it would just happen with no trigger at all, out of the blue.
Is this really just vestibular migraine like my doctor diagnosed me with? Could it be anything else? If it is vestibular migraine, what helps you guys prevent them?
Thank you for reading!
(Currently writing this in a mild dizzy spell 😭)