Vertigo

In an effort not to be boring, I now have vertigo.

I've been dizzy off and on for a few years now, but this is much worse. Combine it with my chemical sensitivities which swell up the vagus nerve shutting down flow of blood to limbs and brain, and you get the most dramatic falling spells.

I go to the GP's office for a simple note. A visit that should have taken 3 minuets to say hello, 4 minuets to complain about my joints and 2 minuets to get a note and say good by. I know that's a minuet longer than the average 8 minuets an average physician spends with a patient in this country, but that's actually a short visit for me.

As per usual there were many scented individuals in the waiting room which triggered my MCSS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome) which combined with my dizziness so that when I stood up to check in with the receptionist, I couldn't.

The nurses made me lye down for an hour in this special room before pronouncing me well enough to walk (assisted) to the doctor's office. The doctor did the follow my finger with your eyes test and right away saw whatever was wrong. I don't know what they look for with that test but my specialist saw something starting to go wrong just over two months ago.

Vertigo is a known reaction to several of the medicines I'm on so I get to take a week off all antibiotics until I scan chat with my specialist about this. There is also the possibility that it's due to a viral infection. My theory, which none of the doctors share, is that my jaw (TMJ?) is really, really bad and making my ears hurt. Or, it could be a new symptom of the Lyme or a co-infection.

If it's the first, then the vertigo should be gone in less than two weeks. If the second, gone in just over three weeks. If the third or fourth option, then, well, who knows.

Anyway, I've taken to walking around with a cane when I go out of the house. It's funny, I don't mind using a cane when my knee requires it, but having a cane just because I'm dizzy and scared of falling over and cracking my skull open makes me a little embarrassed. I don't know why this is.

The rapid downslide of my health over the last two months had my GP reviewing my diagnosis. My doctor when over my test results from before I started treatment to see what new light recent research sheds on the diagnosis. It seems that my GP is even more confident that Lyme (and co-infections) is an accurate diagnosis. Pity that, as we had both silently hoped we were wrong.

It may be that my GP and I are just frustrated in the recent decline of my health, but we both feel that I'm approaching a crossroads in my treatment. In a few months, I will have to decide whether to increase the treatment and possibly go to IV antibiotics (where in Canada one can get IV antibiotics for Lyme I'll never know) or go on a more mild antibiotic regiment that is even heavier on the natural medicine.

The downturn in my health could ether be that I'm not treating the infection aggressive enough or I'm treating it too aggressively. Some of the doses are quite high for my body size. Also, I've had the biggest improvement in health by changing my diet and environment. It also shows that I have the discipline to follow the more strict regime of natural healing rather than the 'take this pill and do everything else the same' point of view of most patients. On top of all that, the effect that chemical exposure has had on me the last few months has been drastic which says to me just how much improvement changing my environment has had on my health.

Maybe it's the logistics of managing my health that has sent my head spinning.