Vestibular Crystals
Jul. 10th, 2023 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseIn the late 1990s, I had a terrible inner ear infection. I was so dizzy that I literally crawled from the bedroom to the bathroom because I couldn't walk. In 2016 or 2017, I thought I had another infection, but it turned out I'd managed to dislodge some crystals in my inner ear. It took a couple of weeks of physical therapy.
Mom has been complaining of dizziness since April. It took me weeks to get her permission to make an appointment with her neurologist and her eye doctor. The eye doctor shrugged. (This makes sense because 90% of Mom's current visual issues are residual from her second stroke.) Her neurologist started to shrug, but, bless him, kept asking questions. Finally, he helped her out of her chair and I saw a penny drop. She also has the vestibular crystals, but hers, unlike most, are in the anterior canal.
We finally got her first PT appointment today, but Mom's blood pressure was too high to perform the maneuver that would help. I've been trying to get her to drink more water to lower her blood pressure, but she just makes faces. A woman who could drink a liter of wine will frown if I give her a 10 oz glass of water at bedtime. I make her drink decaf coffee -- except for Fridays -- which makes me a tyrant, but her blood pressure is generally around 150/90 rather than the 160/108 it hit today or the 205/115 (not a typo) it hit before I was able to get Sis to agree that maybe decaf was a good idea.
Mom has been complaining of dizziness since April. It took me weeks to get her permission to make an appointment with her neurologist and her eye doctor. The eye doctor shrugged. (This makes sense because 90% of Mom's current visual issues are residual from her second stroke.) Her neurologist started to shrug, but, bless him, kept asking questions. Finally, he helped her out of her chair and I saw a penny drop. She also has the vestibular crystals, but hers, unlike most, are in the anterior canal.
We finally got her first PT appointment today, but Mom's blood pressure was too high to perform the maneuver that would help. I've been trying to get her to drink more water to lower her blood pressure, but she just makes faces. A woman who could drink a liter of wine will frown if I give her a 10 oz glass of water at bedtime. I make her drink decaf coffee -- except for Fridays -- which makes me a tyrant, but her blood pressure is generally around 150/90 rather than the 160/108 it hit today or the 205/115 (not a typo) it hit before I was able to get Sis to agree that maybe decaf was a good idea.
