Dizziness for a day

In My Humble Opinion
1

Everything was fine Sunday night. When I woke up around 3AM to pee, I could barely walk to the bathroom because I was so uneasy on my feet. But I was fine walking back to bed. Same thing happened when I got up around 6:30. Then I was fine all day. When I went to bed, last (Monday) night I read for an hour then tried to lie down on my left side. The world started spinning and I was feeling nauseous. I tried turning onto my right side and everything was fine. When I got up to pee around 3, I was perhaps slightly unsteady, but again had no problem coming back to bed. I lay on my left said again and felt fine.

My wife thinks I may have had a short-term inner ear infection that I just cleared withing 24 hours. Is there any other explanation? Don’t advise to see my doctor since he retired last April and, as I have written elsewhere, there are simply no doctors taking new patients and this doesn’t seem like an emergency. In the fullness of time, the province will assign me a new doctor. I applied for one a year ago and they estimated it would take a year and a half.

2

Feeling dizzy for brief periods of time is not uncommon, but diagnosis is sometimes challenging and you would want to be skeptical of Internet advice, which does not replace being seen by a professional.

It can be associated with postural changes - people often feel dizzy if they are lying down and stand up quickly. Gravity acts on blood like anything else and veins returning blood flow to the heart lose elasticity as they age. So this could be thought of as a low blood pressure causing dizziness. The solution is to get up more slowly, stay hydrated, examine blood pressure and, if being treated for that, reconsider medications and their doses.

inner ear infections are not uncommon, and if so the problem should not recur. Benign peripheral vertigo is also common and is also affected by position.

Different diagnoses would tend to involve other symptoms like ringing in the ears, vomiting and diarrhea, a feeling of fullness in the ears, signs of dehydration or hearing loss.

Regular blood tests for electrolyte levels, and sugars can help look for dehydration, abnormalities and diabetes. Checking sitting and standing blood pressures would also be important. If peeing a lot at night a urine test and prostate exam may be helpful. In the ER, other blood tests and an EKG are usually done.

Bad things like stroke very rarely present with brief isolated dizziness, but should be looked at emergently if there are changes in speech, motor or sensory function, falls, changes in vision or significant hearing loss. Nystagmus is a useful clinical sign and there are tests that help sort out some causes. Dizziness can be a sign of heart concerns but tends to be combined with some of chest pressure, reflux, vomiting, sweating, fatigue or shortness of breath.

While not giving advice specific to you, it makes sense to be well hydrated, change position slowly, check your blood pressures, check blood sugar if you can, And to get.checked out with concerning symptoms as listed above, including dizziness lasting over a week.

3

Everything that Dr_Paprika said.
But you might also try an Epley maneuver - google it. It won’t hurt you and it may help. It’s used to treat benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV).

4

I had similar issues a couple of years ago, and learned about the Epley maneuver; it worked!

5

I have no scientific explanation for this, so I’ll just throw it out there: Whenever the Fall time shift comes along (not the Spring TS, for some reason), I get dizzy for a day. I chalk it up to different Sun position IRT time of day. I’m getting used to the sun going down a couple minutes earlier every day – BOOM! – it skips an hour; throws me for a loop. Years ago, I had a mobile home that the park manager wanted to move to a smaller lot in the MHP so they could put a double-wide where I was. The new lot location was roughly 90 degrees shifted from the old one. I was a wreck for almost a week – the sun came in different windows at different times of the day than I was used to. I’m guessing it has something to do with my Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Clarify/debunk at will.

6

Sometimes it’s fun to guess without googling: Is that the one where you lay in bed on your back and have your head hanging over the edge?

Adding: @slumtrimpet

7

Basically, yes. (Says the guy who just googled it for you.) :slight_smile:

8

I would be hesitant to recommend a single treatment for such a complex problem. ERs see a lot of weak and dizzy people and the list of causes is long.

9

Pshaw! When I had something similar happen a few years ago, the doctor (without doing any examination or testing) recommended the Epley maneuver. The strategy seemed to be similar to the standard medical advice “take two aspirins and if you’re still alive in the morning, you needn’t call again”.

10

Not saying if it is or isn’t worth a try. But it does not fix most causes of dizziness, only one, some of the time. It requires some interpretation and if the dizziness does not recur it still may or may not have been due to that problem - if the proper nystagmus wasn’t visualized. Dizziness is commonly seen in the ER and most of the time simply needs other things. I’m just not going to be the one giving definitive advice over the Internet for a patient I have not seen and know little about. Perhaps it was standard advice from someone who knew your history and medications? I am sure you can understand I will not be debating this point further. I have nothing to add to my first post except wishes for a quick recovery and benign cause.

11

I appreciate your advice. But the most striking thing was that at 11 PM, when I lay on my left side, the world was spinning and by 3 AM it wasn’t. If it recurs, then off to emergency; if it doesn’t, I will forget about it. In 11 days I will be staying with my physician DIL and I will ask her. The main reason I posted this was to seek opinions on the likelihood of a 24 hour inner ear infection.

12

Hari, are you Canadian?

The province assigns you a doctor? A 1-year waiting list for the next one? Okay, the American system has a lot of issues, but things like this aren’t among them.

13

I’m not a medical expert, but can’t loose crystals in your inner ear cause the symptoms you have w/o an active infection?

14

Yes. And then get flopped around in specific ways.
It worked for me a few times and didn’t work a few other times. Doesn’t hurt and worth a try anyway.

15

That’s what causes BPPV and the Epley maneuver is designed to (hopefully) usher those crystals back where they belong. I’ve had it for at least a decade and have learned to do the Epley maneuver on myself.
I have specific triggers, like turning my head while walking,or turning my head while bending over. I also occasionally get dizzy rolling over in bed.
Of course, you should get an ‘official’ diagnosis.

16

Yes, I am Canadian (actually binational, but live in Montreal). For some years, the province has been trying to save money by encouraging medical personnel to retire, ignoring the fact that the population is aging. There are also foreign-trained doctors driving Ubers because they are required to do an internship here to get a licence, but the province has severely limited the number of these internships, also to save money. On the other hand, I should mention that 47% of the provincial budget is spent on medicare.

Incidentally, I didn’t experience any dizziness last night. My wife once had the Epley maneuver performed on her and the doctor even tried to teach it to me, but I never practiced and have now forgotten how.

17

Here’s the first link I found regarding the Epley maneuver. It looks simple and painless.

18

I don’t mean to derail this discussion but what happens if you need medical care
while you are waiting to be assigned a physician? I’m sure that you can use
the emergency room for some things but what about something simple like a flu
shot or a general annual checkup?

I’m guessing that under the Canadian system that each physician is probably
assigned X number of patients. Do you have to wait until a patient kicks the bucket
or moves out of your area before you can be assigned a physician?

Thank you for your answers. I hope you recover soon.

  • X.L. Lent, who is from south of your border.
19

Annual checkup? Can’t get one. I did see my cardiologist last summer; that’s something. The thing I am really missing is blood tests. I take 6 different pills and a couple of them are supposed to require blood tests every 6 months for liver and kidney function. I last had them about a year ago (they were fine).

First, there is no Canadian system. Each province runs their own. And doctors decide how many patients they take. The province is trying to get them to take at least 1000 and to reduce their fees if they don’t. I know my old family doctor was already refusing to take new patients in 1995. As his patients died off (or left) he reduced his practice more and more until he retired. He was a lone wolf. Most doctors are in medical groups and the group controls how many patients they take. But I’ve called around and none are taking patients or even maintaining a wait list. So I assume they just wait for the province to assign them patients from their wait list. A dreadful system.

Some ironies: a few years ago they paid a whole lot of nurses to take early retirement. Very recently, they announced that bonuses would be paid to retired nurses to return, at least till the pandemic dies down. And I am probably repeating myself here, but there are foreign trained doctors driving Ubers because they are not allowed to practice till they do a local internship–and the province allows only a small handful every year to do that.

Hope that answers your questions.

20

I was going to guess Nova Scotia or perhaps New Brunswick but scrolled back up and see that you live in Quebec.
I guess the bureaucratic bullshit in provincial health management is rampant in more than just the Atlantic provinces.