Vestibular rehab

Just wanted to drop a quick line to see how you guys like vestibular rehab? I went in for my eval today and she wants me to come once a week. She gave me an exercise to donthat has me turning my head side to siden while focusing on something at eye level. It makes me feel sick!! I am going to do it though!
Anyone have any experiences to share?
I read a post the other day about the person who has sort of given in to being dizzy and started to feel better. I love that and i have been feeling kind of the same way lately. I am also less anxious in general probably because my doctor finally retested my thyroid again and found out i am yet again severely hypothyroid! Even if it doesnt get rid of the dizziness, getting the rigt dose should help my mood!

I did rehab for 6 months. It was very hard and did not help, but even with that said, I did understand the theory behind it, but I think it might be most effective for people who are recovering from some type of inner ear disorder as opposed to something more central such as MAV. Since MAV symptoms fluctuate, the theory behind the VRT no longer makes sense to me.

I am happy for you that you are improving.

I’m going to be lazy and cut and paste something I just wrote under another post, as I think it’s relevant here as well:

I found VRT effective, but only once my MAV was under good control with medication. It did get rid of a lot of the residual problems I was having, e.g. I always got mild spinning vertigo on lying down until I did the VRT. It actually worked very quickly - less than a week. So VRT can be very useful for some people with MAV, but only at the appropriate time.

However, at the height of my MAV I have no doubt it would have made me worse. In fact having Epley manoeuvres done (when it was initially thought to be just BPPV) made me a lot worse, which I think was the first indicator to the consultant that I had MAV. I couldn’t tolerate any ‘messing about’ at all for several months.

I did it for 8 weeks. It can’t hurt you, so you keep an open mind. I am not sure if it was the combo of VRT, meds and time that started making me feel better or what. They also massaged my neck and that felt wonderful. Initially they told me that it would ramp up my symptoms and that was a good thing pinpointing it to migraine. Yes certain exercises made me more dizzy, but overall I began feeling a lot better. Stick with it and maybe you will see more improvement as you continue.

Hask, are you on a migraine med? Sorry, can’t remember. It seems like some benefit here from VRT, mostly when on a med though.

It can actually make some people really feel shocking and cause a set back so I’d take it slowly. :slight_smile:

Scott, according to every doctor ive seen i can’t go in any meds right now because i am nursing. The therapist definitely thought MAV was an issue. I also noticed one of the head movements I did created a bit of the visual stuff i get during migraine. Is that strange? Kinda reaffirms the whole MAV thing though!

I went to vestibular rehab for 4 months (the first 3 months I was misdiagnosed with a deficit in my left ear). I can tell you that the balancing exercises did help me, but as soon as I was diagnosed with MAV my physical therapist no longer had me doing the “eye” exercises. I found that those were the ones that really bothered me. (especially the ones where you turn your head while focusing on an X in front of you with many other letters surrounding it.) The PT said, yep, now that we know it’s migraines, you can definitely stop that one!

They also massaged my neck and that felt wonderful. Initially they told me that it would ramp up my symptoms and that was a good thing pinpointing it to migraine. ]

Hi Jen,

Did the massage or rehab ramp up your symptoms?

Thanks, K

Yeah, the one with the x really bothers me! They also said i have sime severe neck iasues going on so they want to work on that as well. Hopefully it wont hurt, right?

I usedf them, and they helped. haven’;t done them for a while. however, I felt sick as fuck this morning, and while I was waiting, headachey, dizzy, queasy, in the clinic room for my doc, did some, and they helped . . . enough.