Vertigo

Yesterday after posting my blog entry I sat in front of the computer and read some news and then played a video game through skype. All of a sudden I felt an attack of vertigo coming on. This happens to me from time to time for a mysterious reason known as meniere's disease - at least that's what my doctors (many I saw for it) thought it could be. In the end, based on their descriptions of the possibilities, I decided it was menieres.

It seems that at some point I had an inner ear infection and there is some residual damage in my ear canal. Normally I am not able to hear well in my left ear (though I don't like to tell people this and will often act as if I can hear them when I can't), and I have ringing or a loud buzzing sound, kind of like when you hold a sea shell up to your ear. But from time to time, the vertigo comes.

If I can catch it in time, I am able to pop a pill called Meclizine, which is anti-vertigo. It stops the spinning and makes me tired.

Yesterday the attack came on very suddenly. I took a meclizine but it wasn't in time. The room was spinning and I started getting sweaty, my mouth began watering and soon I was vomiting. Fortunately, I hadn't eaten much breakfast, but what I had eaten, came back up.

I tried lying down, but everything was still spinning, another attack swept over my body and again I ran to the bathroom to vomit. There was hardly anything left in my stomach.

When that settled, I thought that maybe even the meclizine that I had taken came up, so I took another half of a pill. Soon, I was vomiting that up as well.

I spent nearly an hour running back and forth to the bathroom to vomit until eventually it all calmed down and I was able to rest in bed.

I spent most of the day in bed, until 5 p.m., when I went to the living room to watch Policias in Accion, Argentina's version of Cops, and then Patito Feo - my teen soap opera.

I am still feeling very tired but am going to try going to Arabic class today. So far I do not feel dizzy, but I might take a meclizine or a non-drowsy motion sickness pill (I bought some at Walgreens at some point but have never tried them) just in case.

It looks like it is cold out (my computer says it's 6 Celsius) and it looks like it rained last night. I'd love to spend the day in bed, but am afraid if I miss an Arabic class I am really going to be lost.