Saturday, September 24, 2011

"The Pregnant Vertigo"


This week was absolute misery. Starting last Saturday, I experienced rapid spinning every time I put my head down on a pillow. It got progressively worse to the point where I couldn't tilt my head left or right or back. I would have to sit there upright on my bed and fall asleep. If you've tried doing this for consecutive nights, you'll see that the amount of sleep you actually get is quite minimal. What you end up with is neck cramps and lower back pain. Not fun.

On Tuesday Dave took me to the ER, where they gave me an IV and some meds which did nothing for me. They just kept referring to me as the "the pregnant vertigo" and left me alone in the room to rot with an IV stuck inside me. Why did I bother going to the ER? No idea. I should have taken Dave's advice and gone to see an ENT or Neurologist. Note to self: ER doctors don't do squat for you. (That is, unless you're my friend EJ.)

So on Thursday Dave took me to go see a Vertigo Specialist (ENT) who I now have a love/hate relationship with. He was great. He finally figured out what's wrong with me. I have some form of vertigo called Labrynthitis, commonly cured by steroids but me being pregnant and all, I need to lay off the steroids (dammit). He also did this maneuver on me--in what looked like some kind of psych ward--that made me SO nauseous and dizzy I threw up three times in his office.(If there's ever been a better way to avoid eating McDonald's for the rest of your life it might be to throw it back up cause I've taken a vow to avoid the golden arches forever.)

Surprisingly--or not--I've started to feel a little better after that horrific jedi move he did. Don't get me wrong, I walked out of his office like a deer in headlights hoping someone would accidentally shoot me in the head with a shot gun. But a day or two later, I'm actually able to put my head on a pillow and catch some zzz's... Wow, imagine that. I can sleep like a normal person again.

If there's one thing I wasn't prepared for in pregnancy it's got to be the vertigo. Nausea, vomiting, okay I can take that. But the uncontrollable spinning is completely unbearable. I was pretty certain that if I had to deal with this the rest of my life, I'd rather God come and take me right away. I know it all sounds very dramatic and hormonal, but in all seriousness, having vertigo is absolutely debilitating and if there's any organization out there where I can donate money to fund more research on treating pregnant vertigos, well, then sign me up.

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