I was diagnosed with MAV a month ago by my neurologist. I had suffered my first bout in September 2011 which lasted for 2 weeks. Very server instability when walking. Always felt like the room was rocking/moving. Would just feel like I was going to fall over and had some awful headaches. I couldnt make sense of why I felt so dizzy. Ended up in ER and they said I was either going to die or had vertigo. Super helpful! After the symptoms went, away on their own, it didn’t return until March 2012. For the whole month I again felt drunk and swimmy and every movement I made felt weird like I just wasn’t normal, so yes constant vertigo. Had some gnarley headaches that time as well. April I was vertigo free and then at the end of May 2012 it came on again and it still present right now. So like I said I saw the neurologist for the first time at the beginning of July and he immediately was like you have mirgraine related vertigo. He gave me .5 mg Clonazepam and told me to halve them and take one .25mg at night. I did and from the get go it never really made me all that tired but during the following day I would feel sluggish. About 3 weeks in that wore off and the vertigo seemed to have lessened but obviously isn’t 100% better, maybe 55-60%. So since I have been on this medicine I seem to not be getting as good of sleep as I was and it feels like I’m more tired during the day than I need to be. Hell I have fallen asleep during the day quicker than I can at night. So my question is has anyone else felt this way? Are there any people out there who take this medicine when they wake up and function during the day and find themselves getting tired at bedtime and get good sleep? I’m only going to take this once a day. And the tiredness has been making my vertigo much worse so that’s the only reason I am questioning moving it to the morning. So I can get sleep. Because it feels like when I take it at 8/9 pm I can’t fall asleep or if I do stay asleep long. But come 10/11am I’m the most tired person on the planet I could fall asleep just about anywhere.
So again has anyone felt like me with their vertigo swimmy, drunk, floor moving, standing still feels like your rocking or moving, and when you’re moving it feels exaggerated Or like you are going to fall over or just plain dizzy, and periods of headaches that are brain crushing to mild but still annoying and always cause a bit of nausea. I feel like mine go between tension and migraine and just plain mild. And has anyone been able to successfully take Clonazepam in the morning and have a good day (like funxtioning because i am beginning a new job as abteacher and i need to be more alert than i have come to be now duing the day) and sleep at night without taking another dose. Thanks. Just nice with this “disease” to feel like someone else can relate. Because when I called the doctors nurse (he was out of town) about this she said she had never ever heard of someone not being able to fall and stay asleep on Clonazepam when taken before bed at night.
Hello Carol
Sorry to hear about all your troubles - I think clonazapam is a benzo which are usually precribed to get you through the initial trauma of mav while trialling a migraine preventative.
Your description of vertigo sounds very familiar to me - I had all those symptoms. I think you need something more than a good night’s sleep to get rid of those awful symptoms. Did your neuro suggest trialling a preventative? Suggest your find the latest list of migtaine preventatives posted on this forum, print it off and take it with you to your nxt doc appt. I’m taking Dothep 110mg + Ativan (.5mg on difficult days which I take in the morning it doesn’t make me sleepy - just calms my brain down! I get a good night’s sleep with the Dothep but am thinking of adding another preventative to get rid of the visual vertigo I still have.
Good luck & keep us posted
Barb