Labyrinthitis, anyone got experience?

Wondering if anyone has experience of suffering from the above they can share? Have been diagnosed with it after being hospitalized last Wed with a suspected sub-arachnoid haemmorage. Basically feel really dizzy most of the time unless I’m flat on my back. Hasn’t really improved over the last week. I’m taking proclorperazine but only a low dose as the higher dose I was given just made me drowsy to the point of coma.
Getting really down about it now, can’t drive, work, walk the dog yet to look at me I seem perfectly well. Has anyone else suffered from this? If do, how did you cope? How long did it last?
I work for a very small company and my absence is losing us money. I cannot do my job if I can’t stand up! My boss has been understanding but with a weekend coming up that my not being there for would cost is a couple of grand I’m a bit scared he may be less than sympathetic if I can’t work.
Getting myself stressed is counterproductive I know but I just feel so down about it…

Family member had it, was bad and stayed bad for a while, but it eventually went away

My son had it at 6 which was extremely rare due to his age. It sounds funny now, but at the time we just couldn’t understand why he kept falling over. He constantly said he was dizzy and felt sick, again due to his age no meds were administered and he improved over a couple of weeks. No lasting effects but was referred for an eye test. No sign of it recurring over the last 18 months!

My wife had it, I had never heard of it before. With medication it mostly went after a week but she can still bring it on if she looks to the extreme left or right. hope you get better quickly!

It effects everyone differently. My dad has had it for over a year now and still gets the dizziness. He was initially extremely bad and couldn’t walk or stand for about 10 days. He is somewhat better but still struggles to do certain things like walking backwards, stare up at the sky or ground for very long etc. The illness really sucks and you really have to battle it. You have to accept that you won’t be able to do certain stuff for a while and that you will eventually get better.. but that time scale is a total unknown. It could be weeks.. it could be months. Chin up dude .. you are going to have to dig deep and stay positive. There are some strange head tilting exercises that you can do to help get the chalk particles out of your middle ear. I’ll have a check with my dad and see if I can find a link. There is also a forum called dizzytimes or something like that for fellow headspinners.

I had it 6 years ago. The first few days were the worst with the dizziness and nausea being terrible. The doctor prescribed medication for the nausea which helped and the symptoms receded after a while. I’ve had two or three relapses since then but none as bad as the first time. The main issue I had for many months after was being unable to tolerate crowds with lots of talking at the same time; it was like having my head in a bucket and someone hitting it with a big stick. From a riding perspective I now struggle with very tight singletrack being unable to keep a good line but then I wasn’t that good before!

I hadn’t heard about it before getting it for 3 days about 4 years ago, luckily it went away with medication (can’t remember the name of it, basically strong anti-nausea tablets). I still sometimes get it for a few minutes if I’m lying in bed and turn over too quickly, or look down at a certain angle for too long like looking over a bridge into a river.

Its really nasty, so I sympathise with you having it for so long. Have a talk to your boss, explain properly whats going on and hopefully he’ll be ok with it. If he isn’t then there’s no way you could work with it so try not to worry about – I hope it goes away of its own accord as soon as poss 🙂

Hey mattbee, just wondering if you’re any better now (as I see this thread is a month old). I’ve been diagnosed by the doc today as having this. Came on really suddenly this morning – everything was spinning (even lying down staring up at the circular light fitting – it looked like a spinning disco ball!) and I was actually sick. Horrid.
Doctor gave me some Prochlorpherazine tablets (one, three times a day) but while the nausea and spinning has mostly gone, I’m left feeling utterly done in and fatigued by them.

We were supposed to be heading down to the south to see friends for a biking weekend tomorrow, but have had to cancel that as I either seem to be feeling dizzy/unbalanced/sick or on the verge of being fast asleep 🙁

What worries me is that it sounds like it could last weeks, months even years and even potentially leave you with balance problems. I’ve only fairly recently been Jedi’d and was just starting to get a bit good!!

I had this a couple of years ago, i was at work getting on with my usual duties and all of a sudden i started spinning out and threw up, next thing i know im sitting in the staff room crying my eyes out with no idea why, i was laughing cos i couldnt stop crying.

It was really bizarre.I put that bit down to shock.

An ambulance was called, they done the usual checks then i went home and to the doctors. took about a week before i regained my balance properly.

Yes a sufferer here and for about 6 yrs now. I believe mostly brought on for me with fatigue and stress weirdly and onslaught of illness. It is the silent illness, as you do look normal. I always carry Stemetil tablets, which help me loads when I have a bad turn.It is a very unpleasant thing to have, but I try and keep stress and fatigue ( basically poor or lack of sleep) to a minimum. Went to Lapland for 4 days with the kids and I collapsed, not just because of the tiring time we had, but the lack of daylight and time changes completely screwed me up. Finish nurses were fine mind you…………… 😯

Matt

Will give you a call tomorrow dude, text me your number as I have a new phone….. Jo had it and you do recover…but it will take a while..

A

EDIT// just realised you had it over a month ago.. how u feeling?

You still got this? Been 5 weeks for me now. Going to try a proper bike ride tomorrow, managed to get up the road outside the house without too much wobbling yesterday. It’s damn frustrating.

Redwoods still isn’t 100% yet and still not back on the bike.

That’s bad, just seems to be all about waiting for it to go.

A few years ago i got severe dizzy spells with associated symptoms (hearing loss, tinnitus, ear pressure etc)…possible Menieres disease (although this has since been discounted)

One attack at work saw me lying on the floor vomiting into my bin in front of all work colleagues, then being ferried off in an ambulance (scared the crap out of the designated first aider in the office).

For 6 months or so, i was getting regular dizzy attacks that would last all day (only thing i could do would be to lie on my back with my eyes closed)!

It has since died down and I get mini head spins every now and then (although the tinnitus is permanent and the hearing loss fluctuates).

One thing I’ve found useful is Buccastem, it’s an over the counter medicine with prochlorperazine (about half the dose of the stuff that gets prescribed for dizzyness). You pop the pill under your lip and let it gradually disolve, it’s meant to counteract dizzy spells and get into your bloodstream quicker than if you swallow it.

You can only buy 2 boxes at a time, and some pharmacists will not give it to you if you tell them it’s not for migraines (the box says migraines).

Actually saw a menieres specialist a month or so ago who told me he thinks i suffer from a form of migraines (hence menieres being discounted).

I have it to a mild degree – no treatment

I seem to have spells of a week or so where it hits me when I roll over or get up, then it goes away for a few weeks. It stopped me working at heights, it happened a few times on ladders and I just had to hang on tight and trust my eyes till it went away [10-15s]

I had it back in 2007, sudden white flash across my eyes, followed very quickly (so that it was almost instant) by nystagmus causing a sudden spinning sensation that was so violent I jumped out of my chair…..then I’d go really weak….drop down to the floor…..this was then usually followed by a feeling that I was skydiving and being spun around more gently. This all happened in a split second.

Anyway, this kept on repeating itself and I ended up being put in Leicester’s neurology ward. The jumps (they looked like ticks apparently) and visual disturbances meant that the various doctors I saw suspected anything from meningitis to myoclonic epilepsy. Turns out it was just my ear lol!

Worst time of my life because I thought I had a brain tumour or something but it does get better.

Jota that’s not an inner ear infection like the OP has, it sounds like you have Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo.

it sounds like you have Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo.

Reading about it, it sounds more likely TBH

I have pretty much recovered now. After 4 weeks or so of it being quite bad I had a few weeks of being mainly ok with the odd extremely dizzy spell, gradually reducing in frequency and severity. Now I just find that if I turn my head too quickly, or get up too fast that I feel really unsteady. I also find that dark and/or enclosed spaces can make me feel a little unsteady but I’d sy 99% of the time I am fine. In fact, my riding mates seem to think my balance on the bike is better now than it ever was!

I also suffer from migraine and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some sort of a link between the two. Unfortunately I have odd reactions to prochlorperazine/buccastem so I can’t take it. (muscle twitching and cramps, extreme drowsiness…) Serc seemed to really help my labyrinthitis though.

that was my first thought piemonster (well, kind of, just not that character).

Mattbee, the more you stand up and move around the quicker and better your recovery will be.

Mattbee, depending on the severity of your occasional problems and the provoking situations you may want to ask your GP to send you for vestibular rehab.

There are some pretty simple exercises to do to help you finish the recovery that your body has mostly done by itself. You will most likely get there yourself but VRT can speed things up for you.