Watch these videos, and then save them in a safe place on your computer. Just sayin'.....



...because you never know when vertigo, (otherwise known as Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo or BPPV, will hit YOU, like it hit my Paul this week!

Early on Wednesday morning, out of the blue, he got it. He had never had vertigo before in his entire life.

I have had it a few times myself, and it was so annoying and uncomfortable that I went ahead and found a self-treatment for it and that treatment worked for me right away. I have never had it since then.

But Paul was helpless! He doesn't do computers so he relies on me to solve puzzles. So when I told him about my experience with vertigo (he hadn't even noticed that I was going through it, even though I know I mentioned it to him - it wasn't on his radar), and he wanted me to help him do the maneuvers that seemed to "cure" me of it.

There are various different arrangements of the maneuvers, like in a song, so you just have to pick one and see if it works.

The reason I chose the video above for you is that what Dr. Foster says at the beginning made the most sense to me, scientifically. I am not a scientist but I've worked in the medical field most of my life, and what she said made sense to me.

Actually we tried two techniques on Paul. The first technique was not the one above but this one:



This second technique is the one we used, for his "left" ear only. We did it, waiting the long 2 minutes required in between movements, which seemed like forever. We did this on the sofa in the living room which was not an ideal spot. A firm bed would be better. But we put the pillow under his back and his head hung off the pillow a bit and we followed this man's directions to the letter.

By some miracle, when he sat up at the end of it, he told me that one side of his head, his right side, had cleared up - he had had a "grainy, buzzing" sensation in that side and it was now all gone! His left side was not so bad as before, too.

They recommended that the patient wait between maneuvers. So we waited 15 minutes before trying the second one, which was the one Dr. Foster did in the first video, or the "Half-Somersault" as she calls it.

Paul did this on the living room floor with a pillow under his legs because they were uncomfortable sitting like she was sitting. He tilted his head back (and got a little spinning) and then swooshed his head down to the floor, like he was going to do a somersault, and tucked in his chin and we counted... he was a little dizzy then but it eased off... and then he went part way back up like she does, and then all the way up.

I don't think much changed with that technique but I think the first technique we tried worked the best, at least that's what he says. But there is something about her explanation of having to empty the canal of the "crystals" that were displaced and causing the spinning sensation that I liked.

Paul wanted to try it again, for the other side, later on in the evening, but I had heard someone say that it's better to do these maneuvers early in the day so the patient will be upright for a longer period of time, rather than going right to bed and lying flat just after it's been done.

That made sense to me.

So I said we would do it again in the morning, and he agreed.

I also told him that I wanted to sleep for the whole night please, so if he needed to go to the hospital, he was to call for a cab and leave me a note!

In the morning, after I got to sleep for most of the night (what a luxury), he came in and woke me to say he was "better!"

Hallelujah!

He didn't even ask to do the maneuver again. He has gone over to check his boat, he has gone to the store to get some things I'd forgotten the other day, and now he is down at the harbor selling lobsters! He went beachcombing earlier and found 7 of his traps washed up on the beaches, and after he sells, he's going over to Steve Willard's place to get the 8 traps of Paul's that Steve found on another beach - all washed up from the storms we've had.

That's a lot of coming and going for a guy who could barely move without spinning only a day ago.

I think the maneuvers helped a lot.

Actually, this was the technique I used a few years ago when I had it, and it worked great for me:



So if you ever find yourself spinning out of control up in your head, there is help!

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Paul has an appointment on Monday to see his GP and we'll see what he has to say about his tests done while in the hospital.

A big THANK YOU to you all for your thoughts and prayers.

I just feel like we have our boring old lives back, which is all I really want!

Cheers,

Bex & Paul

"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education."

~~ Charlotte Bronte ~~

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