JusJoJan — A Question of Balance

Fandango

The word for today’s Just Jot It January prompt from Linda G. Hill was suggested by JP the Wide-Eyed Wanderer. JP gave us the word “balance.”

247022af-5d0f-4156-b0df-702799d7c073I’m going to fight my inclination to write about the album from The Moody Blues titled “A Question of Balance.” It’s one of my favorite albums, but I’m not even going to mention it in this post.

I’m also not going to talk about the balance we all seek in our lives. How we strive to strike a balance between work and play, between job and family, between the blogosphere and the real world, between sanity and insanity. Nope, that’s not that’s not what this post is about either.

The balance I am going to focus on is the balance that allows us to function in our activities of daily living. The physical sense of balance.2b931054-c9c1-4b52-8333-a082ae344857I have generally been healthy throughout most of my life, with no major maladies. But I do suffer from two chronic, mostly just annoying conditions. One is tinnitus, or ringing in the ears. The other is something that is officially named Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV). That means that I get dizzy if I put my head in certain positions. Because people with BPPV often feel dizzy or unsteady when they tip their heads back in order to look up, sometimes BPPV is called “top shelf vertigo.”

BPPV is thought to be due to debris that has collected within a part of the inner ear. This debris can be thought of as “ear rocks,” although the formal name is “otoconia.” However, no one is really sure what causes these “ear rocks” to form or to accumulate and to bring about the sensation of vertigo. I once asked a doctor what was causing my vertigo, and his response was, “It could be a million things. It could be a brain tumor.” That sure helped ease my concerns. Well, at least he didn’t tell me that it’s because I have rocks in my head!

Learning to live with vertigo is challenging because when it hits, it is debilitating. Everything is spinning. Sometimes I feel like I’m spinning. Other times I feel like everything but me is spinning. And when I get vertigo, it affects my sense of balance, and often causes nausea and vomiting.

Since this type of vertigo is triggered by the position of my head, I avoid putting my head in those triggering positions. For the most part, that works to help me avoid too many instances of vertigo. But when it does happen, my only recourse is to get in bed and try to sleep it off until the episode has passed.

So thank you, JP, for giving me the opportunity to share my balance challenge with everyone. Maybe at another time I’ll write a post about work/life balance or about the “A Question of Balance” album. But not today.

18 thoughts on “JusJoJan — A Question of Balance”

  1. Sadje January 25, 2019 / 3:19 am

    Balance is vital and vertigo can be a challenge when going about your daily life.

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  2. Paula Light January 25, 2019 / 5:55 am

    I suffer from both of these too. The BPPV goes dormant for months if I’m careful and then suddenly returns (like this week). Annoying.

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    • Fandango January 25, 2019 / 7:28 am

      I, too, try to be very careful, but sometimes I tilt my head the wrong way and WHAMMY, I’m out for the count.

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      • Paula Light January 25, 2019 / 7:36 am

        Same. It sucks. When I go to the hairdresser, I have to get my hair washed facing forward like a weirdo because I can’t tilt my head backwards into the sink.

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        • Fandango January 25, 2019 / 7:43 am

          When I go to the dentist, he puts a special pillow behind my head and has to do his thing standing up because he can’t put the chair down and have me lie back, so he can sit down, like he does with all of his other patients. Sheesh.

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  3. Marleen January 25, 2019 / 7:57 am

    Oooo. So sorry you have to deal with that.

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  6. rugby843 January 25, 2019 / 12:21 pm

    I only had vertigo for a few weeks, thank heavens. One of those things you do not see outwardly on a person but devastating.

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    • Fandango January 25, 2019 / 2:17 pm

      Both my tinnitus and my vertigo cannot be seen outwardly.

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  7. wideeyedwanderingspoonie January 25, 2019 / 1:22 pm

    Awesome post! Never even thought of that side of “balance”. I too suffer from vertigo, not sure the cause but the current theory is that it’s part of the “sarcoid related peripheral neuropathy”. Don’t you just LOVE big ole medical terminology. lol 😉

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  8. leigha66 February 7, 2019 / 3:10 pm

    I had a reaction to medication once that made me crazy dizzy… can’t imagine that being a reoccurring thing. My heart goes out to you!

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