So, a couple days ago I rolled over in bed. Unfortunately, the room kept going round even after I stopped rolling.
Damn vertigo!
Yeah, real unpleasant even in a relatively minor form, like what you get from food poisoning or too much alcohol or an ear infection.
Anyhow - that afternoon found me scoping out the anti-motion-sickness meds at my local pharmacy. Between reading the back of the boxes (always fun reading fine print when you’re dizzy) and the wonders of the internet/Wikipedia I discovered that the active ingredient of Dramamine is something called dimendyrinate, which is a combination of the venerable antihistamine diphenhydramine (a.k.a. “Benadryl”) and a mild stimulant called 8-Chlorotheophylline. But it’s apparently the diphenhydramine that does the heavy lifting to counter-act motion sickness, the 8-Chlorotheophylline is there to counteract the drowsiness side effect of the diphenhydramine.
Huh.
So… would my dizziness/nausea have been equally alleviated if I just took plain old diphenhydramine? (Of course, I’d still get drowsy).
Do all anti-histamines have an anti-dizziness/nausea effect or only some of them.?
Wow, diphenhydramine is good for your allergies, it’s used as a sleep aid, and against motion sickness… is there anything it can’t do?
It can’t stop heavy bleeding:)
Benadryl(generic) is always in my med drawer. I get itchy from ads on TV. I’m always the itch waiting to rash or vice-versa. Good stuff.
I was told to use meclizine (Antivert) for my vertigo, There was some advantage over Dramamine but I can’t remember right now. I had never heard of it but I guess it’s well-known.
It had been suggested to me in the past that I take Valium or another benzo for vertigo. I asked my neuro recently about that and he suggested meclizine over benzos, too. For me personally though, if the vertigo episode is bad enough, the tranq effect of the benzo helps with the anxiety.
The one I eventually went with was generic meclizine, too - it said it was less sedating than diphenhydramine and that seems to be the case.
But I always have diphenhydramine on hand because of my allergies, so it would be handy to know how effective that is for the purpose, since I’m more likely to have that than meclizine.
Your first paragraph describes what my wife, Pepper Mill, felt recently. Her doctor prescribed Bonine (Also known as Bonamine. The generic name is Meclizine*) for it. It works, but it makes her sleepy.
I notice that it is also sold as “Dramamine II”, despite not being that closely related to Dramamine; it’s probably because the effects are similar.
Bonine/Bonamine/Meclizine is over-the-counter medicine, so you could pick it up at your local drugstore without a prescription. I would still check with my doctor regarding using it, though.
I don’t know if they both help on the vertigo side. That piece isn’t something I have issues with. I always keep benadryl or it’s generic both at home and in the car. I’'m allergic to bee stings. It’s not bad enough I need an Epi-pen or I might die. It’s two to three days of being miserable and achy without treatment. I can reduce the misery with Benadryl but it knocks me on my ass. I usually split the difference and only take Benadryl when I can afford to be drowsy and before bed. It doesn’t help as much that way but at least I’m not a drooling idiot.
Dramamine or meclizine looks like a real option for daytime dosing the next time I get stung. That’s potentially useful.
Use whatever antihistamine works better for you, broomie. Diphenydramine is as good as meclizine, but considered to be more sedating. That’s either a bug or a feature. They damp down the symptoms somewhat for shorter attacks.
If you want something that tends to reduce the nausea more than the vertigo, go with ondansetron, promethazine, or Prochlorperazine.
If those fail, benzodiazepines may work best of all, but they have their own issues.
Back to the specific situation - my dizziness seems to have resolved over the past 48 hours (YAY!). Having now tried meclizine, it was effective and although I did experience some drowsiness it was noticeably less than diphenhydramine.
A (hopefully) minor tag-along question - my partner gets vertigo attacks and keeps a bottle of meclizine in his bag, but what options exist to banish vertigo entirely?
He’s tried the Epley maneuver a couple of times. The last time was a horrendous failure that ended with him crashing into walls while running in spirals to the bathroom to vomit. :eek:
The weird thing is that when all is happy and well in his inner ears, he can ride rollercoasters with no problem, but when things go randomly bad, just getting out of bed can knock him silly.
Diphenhydramine is sold as both allergy and a sleep aid. Often the latter is much more expensive, but the dosage is identical, the packaging is the only difference.
Epley maneuvers only work for people with otoliths, or small stones in the labyrinth. So probably not worth trying over 5 or 6 times if they never help.
For severe cases the 8th nerve can be cut, but that will cause deafness in that ear, and it only is done if the problem comes from one ear which already has significant hearing loss.
He’s been told he has BPPV and my assumption is that if trying the Epley maneuver made it worse, he does have otoliths/canaliths that were inadvertently moved to a bad spot.
It’s not been bad enough for him to bug his doctor - yet. If he can feel “the spinnies” coming on, and can get some meclizine soon enough, the attacks go away, but the meclizine leaves him a bit goofy/drowsy for a few hours.
We can blast kidney stones with lithotripsy. Too bad we can’t do the same inside the head.
I have BPPV and have discovered while doing the Eply maneuver that it matters which way I do it.
That is, if, after laying on my back, my first maneuver is to roll to my right so that my right ear is facing down and then go from there, it helps.
However, if my first roll is to the left, it doesn’t help at all and sometimes makes matters worse.
I assume it has to do with which ear is affected. Or else I’m a mutant.
