Saturday, November 3, 2012

And they all fall down

I know most people have never experienced vertigo in their lives. I know most people who have experienced the effect have been drunk when it happened and therefore might have missed out on some of the finer points of the condition. I know that most people don't think of vertigo as one of those things that happens on a normal day to day basis.

I am not normal people.

Off and on in my life I have experienced bouts of vertigo. I will admit a few of them have been while inebriated. No I am not afraid to say that knowing my mother will read this, she was there for at least one of those nights. Mostly though my vertigo is experienced in conjunction with a moving vehicle.

Yes that is right I get motion sick. I can get motion sick in an office chair, and have. Repeatedly. My motion sickness is probably a topic my mother could lament to you all about for days and days. Traveling with me as a kid was a challenge to say the least.

Sometimes though I experience bouts of vertigo when there is no motion involved or alcohol for that matter. Not even movies or video games that trigger my vertigo are involved. Sometimes the world just moves on its own.

Vertigo is a very bizarre feeling. It is this strange disorienting sensation that the world is moving around you while you are standing still. It is this strange whooshing motion around your head. It is this weird sensation that the ground is dropping out from under your feet when you are not moving. It makes you sick to the stomach and sort of want to fall on your face.

I have done both of those things.

Today was one of those days. There I was at the jewelery counter in our shop at faire. I am in my corset and skirts, I have on my cute elf like hat, I am all ready to attack the day, when I realize if I m ove my head to fast I am making a desperate grab for the counter so as not to fall over. I have vertigo.

I ended up sitting very still in front of the register for most of the day while I attempted to acclimate to whatever was causing the condition. I wondered if being sick had damaged my ears, but I had no pain or hearing problems. I wondered if maybe there was some sort of pressure system moving in with the rain clouds, but it wasn't that big of a storm. I just couldn't figure out what it was.

Then it truck me. The feeling only hit me when I moved my head to fast, therefore it was linked to my vision. Last week when I was wretchedly ill, and spending hours with my head in the toilet, I managed to damage my left eye.

Wow going back and reading that it sounds bad. Let me explain, and this is totally TMI. I threw up so hard that aside from bruising all of my ribs, I burst a few blood vessels in my left eye and could swear I tore my tear duct. I don't know if one can tear a tear duct, but the feeling was one of tearing and the area effected was my tear duct. There was a throbbing headache over my eye for a few days, and any time my eye watered it felt like someone had poured sunscreen in the duct. Not fun.

Now I noticed on Wednesday after I was able to pull my head out of the toilet and curl up on the couch that I could not watch TV or get online as it gave  me vertigo. By late Wednesday night I seemed to have adjusted enough to watch things move. I really didn't do much of getting up and moving the next two days, and I certainly was going nowhere fast.

Today was the first day I had been up and moving since the event. Basically my left eye was not tracking as quickly as my right eye and it was causing a minute delay in my vision. This in the end caused me to have vertigo most of the day.

By days end my eye seems to have finally begun to compensate or adjust or something, as I can now move around without fearing falling over or slamming into a wall.

It really is the small things.

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