Love was at the Neurologist on the 20th again to see if his increase in migraine meds helped. It hasn’t. So now the neuro isn’t even sure it is migraines and wants to try a few other things. First up is a tilt table test with a cardiologist. It was originally scheduled for last Thursday but he couldn’t leave work early two times in one week so we had to change it to this Thursday (tomorrow, August 30th.)
The idea is that he might be having some kind of circulation issue, where his blood is pooling too much in his legs and he’s not getting enough bloodflow to his brain, causing lightheadedness, vertigo, nausea, etc. He could be just shy of passing out but not really knowing it.
In the tilt table test, they change your orientation around while monitoring your vitals to see if there’s a drop in pressure and such and basically try to induce a faint. The neuro says this will be a clear yes/no test; either it tells us yes this is a problem or we can eliminate it as an issue.
If we get a no, the next thing he wants to is a vestibular physical therapy, where you work with a therapist to help you learn head movements and such to retrain your brain and get things in alignment and balance. I guess what happens is a lot of times, these crystals form in the inner ear and clump up the little hairs there that help tell your brain how and when you’re moving. If they can’t move freely though, you get conflicting signals between your ear and eye causing vertigo.
With the therapy, you can learn ways to tilt your head and such to free up and move some of those crystals while learning to re-balance and overcome that conflicting info.
But first, tomorrow we see if he has circulation problems. We already know from MRI that his brain itself is fine. He has no tumors or malfunctions or damage. We also know from the ENT that structurally, his ears also don’t appear to be damaged, and there is no constriction in blood flow there. (Also from an MRI.) So that’s good but it means we need to narrow down other issues.
Meanwhile, poor Love is dealing with multiple, daily attacks. He’s depressed and frustrated and overwhelmed with worry that he’s going to have to live the rest of his life this way. I’m trying to reassure him that we have two positive avenues to explore and hopefully, we can get some real, long-lasting relief for him as soon as we can get to the source of the problem. It’s just been a very long time now that this has been going on – going on 2 years – so I understand why he’s so defeated over it.
Anyway, I appreciate any good thoughts and positive energy you can send his way right now. I worry not only about how miserable he is because of the vertigo but how depressed he is as well. I hope we get some answers tomorrow because we really need to get to the bottom of this so he can get his life back.