One Very Dizzy Girl

I had a very strange, very odd night last night. About 3 o’clock in the morning I was awakened by a crashing sound outside my apartment window. The crash was followed by the sound of a rumbling engine. I thought it was probably the sound of the dumpster guy in the parking lot banging the dumpster around with his truck as he unloaded it. He often shows up in the dead of night. But I knew that I had possibly heard a car wreck, so I decided to go to the window and take a look.

I did not get far. As soon as I began to lift my head off the pillow the room began spinning with dizziness. I instantly dropped back onto the bed. For perhaps thirty seconds I remained there until the room quit whirling around. I then decided to try again to get out of bed. I quickly rose to the seated position, and once more the dizziness hit me and the room began spinning. I sat there until the dizziness passed; about 20 or 30 seconds. I was in no pain, but I was definitely creeped out.

I carefully came to a standing position. Everything seemed okay. I gingerly trekked into the bathroom, turned on the light, and examined my face. Everything seemed all right. I stood there in the light for several minutes. When no more dizziness came, I decided it must be a rare occurrence that probably would not happen again.

I went back into the bedroom and climbed back into bed. As I came to a laying position on my back and gazed up to the ceiling, the room again began to spin. Like before, the dizziness lasted about 30 seconds. At this point I was in an out-and-out panic. I reached over to my phone on my bedside table, and called my father. I gave him a brief, hysteria-laced version of what I was experiencing. He told me he would hurry right over.

By the time my dad arrived, about fifteen minutes later, I had calmed down some and had even gotten dressed. I discovered that the whirling sensation occurred only when my head was horizontal, and as long as I was upright, the dizziness was almost non-existent. Still, my father insisted that we go to the emergency room at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. What my father says, I generally do.

At the hospital they took my blood pressure. It was 170/110, which is dangerously high. Of course it was the middle of the night and I had just experienced about an hour of pure anxiety. So there were reasons why it would not be normal. They next hooked me up to an EKG. At least those readings were okay. Apparently my heart was healthy, if not stressed. The last test was to check the strength in my hands and legs. They were looking for signs of a stroke. I passed the exam.

 I was then given some tests concerning my dizziness. While lying on an examination table, my head was raised, lowered, and turned in to the left and right by a doctor’s hands. I experienced dizziness in every position my head was turned but one. My head could be turned to the left with very little dizziness resulting.

I was diagnosed with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. I was told that for several weeks I will have dizziness episodes similar to what I had experienced through the night, but eventually the dizziness would become less frequent and less intense. I was given a prescription for motion sickness pills and held in an examination room until my blood pressure came down to somewhere near normal. By about 6 or 6:30 I was given the all-clear and my father took me to my parent’s house where I spent most of the morning sleeping. Dad drove me to my apartment about 2 this afternoon.

I can sit upright and walk without any difficulty. I’m sure I can drive too, although I am yet to do so. When I do experience the dizziness, I have to pause and wait it out until things come back to normal. It takes about 20 to 30 seconds. It is a big relief that it is nothing really serious. At 3 this morning I was in the throes of a room-spinning panic attack simply because I had no idea why I was dizzy. I can deal with occasional vertigo, it was the not knowing that had me traumatized.