Does this sound like MAV or something else like BPPV?

Hello all, 14 months ago I had a viral infection. I was incredibly congested and my ears felt full. I was very dizzy and could barely stand without falling for a fortnight. The other symptoms improved but over the next year the dizziness continued.

It feels like short “swooshes” lasting seconds where I feel I’m falling. It’s worse in large spaces especially those with high shelves like supermarkets. It’s triggered by moving my head or shifting my gaze. It’s worse if I’m tired or had any alcohol.

I was seeing my GO doctor every couple of months who kept saying it was otitis and giving me eardrops. Sometimes the dizziness would improve for a few weeks then come back. Eventually I was very distressed at GP appt and she said she thought it was BPPV and tried to refer me to ENT. They wrote back refusing to see me saying it was likely MAV and suggested nortryptiline.

I’ve suffered from migraine for 5+ years and they are mostly triggered by hormones, sun exposure and cardio exercise. I’ve been taking the nortryptiline for a few months now and initially I thought things were much better. The dizziness largely went away and my migraines were less severe.

However, now it’s back again (though not so intense) and I’m unsure what’s going on. I’ve asked GP to refer again to ENT. I’ve never had any tests apart from GP looking in my ears.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? Can this still be MAV if the trigger was a viral infection?

Thanks very much.

Check out this web page:

Visual Sensitivity and Visual Dependence
http://dizziness-and-balance.com/disorders/visual/visual.htm

This is from Dr. Timothy Hain’s website. The whole website is full of good information. He also has a lot of information about MAV:

Migraine Associated Vertigo (MAV) – and the subset called Vestibular Migraine (VM)

Thank you