Ptsd And Vertigo?

[Justmehere]

Can anxiety from triggers cause vertigo? Does anyone else experience this?

 

[fly away home]

I get vertigo in certain situations. Not sure if it's connected to triggers. Will have to think on that.

 

[billie]

Only when I was prescribed SNRIs with side effects. I think I only reconised it though because I dangle off cliffs a lot (in the physical sense).

 

[bluedressinggown]

I've had vertigo/ dizziness and sickness ever since this nightmare of mine happened. It seems to be getting worse. Dr has investigated loads of serious problems, but I'm fine apparently, so all I can blame it on is PTSD. I think it's a kind of panic attack because I feel like i'm dying when it happens. One day I woke up with vertigo, I didn't even get a chance to get out of bed, just opened my eyes and the room was spinning, like a massive hangover. Another time I was reading a quite traumatic paragraph in a book about child abuse and the room started spinning. This is wierd because my trauma has NOTHING to do with child abuse, but a car accident. I tend to avoid all traumatic horrible things, so maybe I'm just more susceptible to awful stories/ideas.

 

[Justmehere]

I'm sorry you all deal with vertigo too. It's hard to function when the world is spinning.

@billie - good luck with dangling off the side of cliffs! (rock climber?) I have been wondering if it is a side effects of meds myself.
@bluedressinggown - I have become more susceptible to images and more sensitive to pain and life in general. All kinds of things can trigger my PTSD to come up. It feels a lot like a massive hangover for me too.

My vertigo got so bad this weekend I tripped and fell, several times, and tore holes in my jeans. Thankfully I'm ok. Then the vertigo stopped, with a flood of emotion... which is what happens for me when I get dissociative. I'm still confused about it all. For now, it seems to be mostly gone, and in it's place are tears and lots of feelings I wasn't feeling when so dizzy. So weird what PTSD can do.

 

[billie]

@Justmehere yeah rock climber, but taking a month off.

 

[Echo]

@Justmehere - I got vertigo really bad when I had CFS for three years. Actually, I feel that was a precursor to the PTSD. The one thing that was left over for some while was vertigo. It is very alarming, comes on very suddenly, and I could never find any way of dealing with it. I just had to avoid anything that might set it off and hold on for dear life if it started. I haven't put myself in any kind of situation yet where it might be triggered again since the PTSD started in this full-blown way.

I was told at the time of the CFS that I had labyrinthitis to start with, then benign positional vertigo, when the labyrinthitis went on for too long, and then they gave up on diagnosing me, because I didn't fall into any of their criteria (yay, I'm a mystery to science!!), and it meant that I got no treatment or support for any of it. In one sense, I'm glad because I had to heal myself and go down the alternative route, and I made great strides forward. It might be worth seeing if this is something separate from the PTSD, something to do with your inner ears and thus balance, or any meds you might be on.

I also found that it was associated with a great deal of fear when each episode happened and the classic feeling of wanting to go with it and throw myself off the tall place I found myself, though with no feelings of suicidal intent. It is very frightening when your body starts doing weird things and vertigo is one of the weirdest I've experienced. Hope you get it resolved.

 

[greenleaf]

Hi @Justmehere, I've been trying to figure out what is up with some dizziness/vertigo that started a few months ago.

The physical therapists have been treating it like benign positional vertigo, which it mimics and could be. However I also have bizarrely tense deep neck muscles with long names.

The one instance where I actually felt a connection with ptsd stuff, I had a 2-second sort of memory of ducking my head away from blows, and my neck muscles got really tight in just that area, and I had the same dizziness really badly. Maybe some muscles can pull on the eye muscles? Certain eye muscles are connected in with our balance system, I was reading. I bet there is zero research on this stuff as connected with ptsd though.

I haven't had those memories exactly back again though since but the dizziness stays there if I move wrong. I am very good at squashing unpleasant memories -- dissociating -- but still "functioning". However I am thinking of trying more meditative yoga and other things to work on allowing feelings, because I have a sense that the tenseness and dizziness will not vanish until I deal with more stuff. How's that for vague... Just had an impulse to go eat chocolate...