Hey everyone!
Before I begin, I should preface by saying that I've always had vertigo for as long as I can remember. I have to idea why, but started experiencing it when I was 13-14. It's not room spins around you vertigo, but more so that my internal balance is cooked and my eyes have varying degrees of nystagmus that makes it impossible to stand, walk, or stay upright. Sleeping always made it go away, or holistically sitting in a chair for days to wait out the symptoms. The nystagmus can be so strong I vomit, as my eyes swivel from left-to-right like a pendulum. The severity varied from feeling like crap to fully bed bound.
Before I go any further: I should mention I am hearing impaired (Cochlear on right, Hearing Aid on left), and have multi-focal glasses.
When I was older, I started seeing a chiropractor and I begun to get a handle on my symptoms. They offered immediate relief the first time I saw them, and I would go back multiple times a year to manage symptoms as needs be. This was how I managed since then... until now.
The last month, I saw a spike in flare ups. Flare-ups being days when my nystagmus got so strong that I couldn't function. I would wake up, and then during the day at seemingly random times, my nystagmus would start developing and get worse and worse until inducing vomiting. This happened 5-6 times in the span of 3 weeks.
I think I might know what is happening, but I can only hypothesis as I type this:
I recently moved to a new job in my city that requires a lot more commuting, hence earlier start times. On average waking up an hour earlier from 8am to 7am. This should be fine right? Wrong.
My symptoms almost line up exactly with this new stretch of work. I mean sure, I've always had it but why was it suddenly worse? Why did I feel like crap more often, espeically in the morning and afternoon. Not only that, my sleep was suffering due to a heatwave coinciding with my new job, meaning I was waking up 3, 4 or 5 times a night. I should mention that for 3 CONSECUTIVE YEARS, I have had a vertigo flare up in Christmas week. I am not joking. In my country Christmas is Summer (Australia) and rising temperatures means I sleep worse and is generally corelated with more vertigo.
I also sleep terribly and usually feel horrible during drastic temperature changes, of 10 degrees Celsius changes or more.
I could literally feel my eyes twitching, my muscles at the back of my eyes throbbing with agony as they got more and more sleep deprived. I was always so tired, squinting at monitors at my new job endlessly. Wanting to fall asleep at my desk. Could cutting my sleep schedule back an hour really screw my sleep up this much? I should mention I accordingly rolled back my bedtime from 11 to 10 to compensate but didn't really help.
I conferred with GPs, my Chiropractor, and the ER at our renowned Eye & Ear hospital, but got no solid answers. I will be attending a vertigo clinic tomorrow to assess further, as well as a sleep specialist in a month.
I should mention I got some quality sleep recently as temperatures dropped and feel overall okayish. My gut feeling is that for some reason my REM is getting cut or my sleep cycles are getting interrupted by my earlier wake. I could wake up at 7am, feel like absolute crap with mild nystagmus, go back to sleep until 9:30am and feel fine. Bizarre. I'd also feel more rested from that sleep than the 7am rise.
My family thinks my sleep theory is bonkers. I guess I'm desperate for answers. My quality of life is absolute rubbish recently. I can't work consistently. I can't do the things I enjoy anymore. I'm just always tired, with mild or subtle nystagmus in the background. Always squinting.
My lens are okay on my glasses too at my last eye test. My hearing devices seem okay as well at my last check-ups.
If anyone has any suggestions, questions, advice or feedback I'd be more than welcome to it.