My father occasionally gets vertigo (room spinning and make him nauseated) and self-diagnosed via the internet of having ear crystals fall out of place.
Has anyone experienced this and seen a doctor? Were they able to do anything for it? Have you tried the recommended head movements at home and did they help?
I thought this was going to be about some sort of woo “crystal” fakery, but a thorough read-through changed my mind:
I occasionally experience vertigo, sometimes so bad that I need to see a doctor. One time she put me through the rotating head positions, and it did help enough that the vertigo went away within half an hour. I have had less success when I try to do it on my own, although my vertigo usually resolves in 2-4 hours anyway, so it’s hard to tell whether the head movements are really helping.
I think it’s definitely worth trying, although your father might want to do it the first time with the assistance of a doctor, who can make sure that the positions are correct.
I experienced a relatively minor bout of vertigo a couple of years ago. I wasn’t even totally sure it was vertigo, just weird and unexplained dizziness, until the doctor had me go through the head movements and it felt like I was floating away. I continued to do the exercises for the next couple weeks and it resolved itself completely (and hasn’t come back since.)
I was afraid of that! It’s something like: the crystals are there to represent gravity and which end is up, and they fall into these curved hairs that indicate motion, so you get all discombobulated. If he holds his head in any position but “level”, the room spins around.
I offered to take him in but when he knows (or is very confident he knows) what the issue is, he is a lot less likely to go in. Yesterday he rested sitting up and it resolved enough that he could lie down and nap. If anything he will try the exercises at home if that. (stubborn)
I think that the brain’s basic response is to try to correct feelings like vertigo.
I have this. The head positioning routine is called the Epley Maneuver if you want to look it up. I do it whenever necessary and it does resolve the problem, until the next time I move my head the wrong way. I’m lucky in that I never get motion sickness, but I still get bruised from bouncing off of the furniture now and then.
Last summer, I started getting vertigo spells out of nowhere (scared the daylights out of me, too. I thought it was a stroke or heart attack and wound up in the ER.) I went to an ear/nose/throat doctor who said it was Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. The Epley maneuver, the technical term for the head movements, is supposed to let the crystals sink back to where they belong.
It helped, if I was at home and could lay on the bed or sofa to do that. Wasn’t as helpful at work our out shopping. 
Luckily, the vertigo spells grew less frequent and stopped on their own after about 2 weeks.
I’ve had the treatment 2x, with great success. The doc hooked me up to a pair of dark goggles with cameras in them. The cameras recorded my eyeballs’ movement.
The doc would lay me back and roll my head while watching my 'balls react. It gave him a more objective yardstick to go with my verbal confirmation. After determining where the crystals were, he re-positioned them by moving my upper body back -then wait a sec- turn head to side. I was surprised, educated and healed that day.
When I went back the second time, they gave me the take-home instructions.
This latest time, it was either him moving his head while doing stretching exercises prior to weight exercises, or repositioning his pillow and head in the middle of the night. :smack:
Thanks to everyone for your comments!
I tried the Epley maneuver once and it made me so carsick that I had to stop in the middle to barf. I can’t say if the vertigo was uncured, or if the vertigo was cured but replaced by a motion sickness “hangover”, but I had to spend the rest of the day in bed anyway.
Yikes. He doesn’t get motion sickness much (I get it in a hammock) but this does leave him nauseated.
Instructions for Epley are available on YouTube. It’s helped both my wife and me many times.
A family member recently had vertigo and a couple times doing the Epley Maneuver did wonders.
Yeah, it caused queasiness the first time, but don’t give up just because of that.
One issue is knowing which “side” has the mis-located otoliths. If the Epley Maneuver causes queasiness, you probably have the right side.
Twelve years ago, I had it. Doctor did the maneuver; problem solved until now.
I can get carsick, and have had the occasional “excess-of-distilled-spirits” sensation - but there is no nausea to compare to crystal-induced vertigo. Lying in bed, hanging on to the bed, praying to die as soon as is reasonably possible, please.
I have been diagnosed with BPPV (as mentioned upthread) and had the Epley maneuver recommended to me for relief. First of all, it does sound like your father has BPPV from your description of the positioning of his head, but better safe than sorry. He needs to go to the doctor or a vestibular physiotherapist if he wants to be sure that’s what it is.
My first ever episode happened at the dentist; head back and down and turned to the side that the crystals are on. However, it doesn’t ALWAYS happen at the dentist because I might not happen to have crystals floating around when I go. It was frustrating to say the least. He now knows what it is and has two other patients with this issue, and he tries to work on us with our heads more upright and closer to midline as best as he can. It does help.
I have had several episodes over the past 10 years or so of crystals floating around in there, and we do the movements at home just before I go to bed because the maneuver itself gives me worse vertigo than anything! I go to sleep and wake up with no vertigo, but it can take two or three nights (or more in one particularly bad case!) of doing the maneuver before the crystals are gone far enough back into where they belong so that they don’t escape back into the canal and the vertigo doesn’t recur.
Thanks for the info. I am going to keep suggesting to him that he try the maneuver… eventually he may start to think it was his idea. 
It happened to my wife (loose rocks in your head, I joked). She went to the doctor, he did the Epley maneuver and it worked. He taught me to do it in case it recurred. It hasn’t and that was so long ago, I don’t think I would try.
MrsB (a med student) has done this to patients.
Go see your doctor.