I fell asleep on my back vs. my side the other night and when I woke up I had terrible vertigo, or maybe it was dizziness; it’s been so long that I forget how to tell the difference. I felt perfectly still lying down, not off kilter or like I was moving, but when I looked at the stationary world it was moving. I turned to sleep to my side and it was gone in the morning.
I first had it in 1996, along with a spell of Bell’s Palsy. My main neurologist said it (the bell’s palsy) was idiopathic, because it affected both my forehead and mouth (I may be forgetting his facial references). My local neurologist said of course it’s MS, because (once you have an MS diagnosis nothing else fixable is ever wrong with you and) MRI showed a plaque on my pons. I had one other extended (a few days) episode of the vertigo/dizziness over the years, but it always will flash transiently if I bring my head out of extension, where I allow my neck to go only by accident.
It seems to me I concluded in the past that since falling, sleeping on my back makes my hands numb, so I never purposely do it. But the arm on the side on which I last slept always is a bit compromised after I get up.
Whether it was MS or something mechanical that compromised and atrophied my cervical cord is an argument I no longer bother having, but my cord in that state now is very vulnerable to mechanical injury. Falling in 2002 totally destroyed my life (before that I lived a fully normal life but for one or two crutches). Going hard into flexion and extension for a CT in 2006 landed me in the hospital overnight.
Could I be causing more damage when I positionally trigger these things? Would vertigo/dizziness originate in the brainstem, or occipital area? I had a suboccipetal craniectomy and laminectomy through C7, so I don’t have bones there. I figure either pressure on or stretching of my compromised cord causes these transient things. Does that seem plausible?
How cruel it is that this life robs you even of the joy of sleeping…
I first had it in 1996, along with a spell of Bell’s Palsy. My main neurologist said it (the bell’s palsy) was idiopathic, because it affected both my forehead and mouth (I may be forgetting his facial references). My local neurologist said of course it’s MS, because (once you have an MS diagnosis nothing else fixable is ever wrong with you and) MRI showed a plaque on my pons. I had one other extended (a few days) episode of the vertigo/dizziness over the years, but it always will flash transiently if I bring my head out of extension, where I allow my neck to go only by accident.
It seems to me I concluded in the past that since falling, sleeping on my back makes my hands numb, so I never purposely do it. But the arm on the side on which I last slept always is a bit compromised after I get up.
Whether it was MS or something mechanical that compromised and atrophied my cervical cord is an argument I no longer bother having, but my cord in that state now is very vulnerable to mechanical injury. Falling in 2002 totally destroyed my life (before that I lived a fully normal life but for one or two crutches). Going hard into flexion and extension for a CT in 2006 landed me in the hospital overnight.
Could I be causing more damage when I positionally trigger these things? Would vertigo/dizziness originate in the brainstem, or occipital area? I had a suboccipetal craniectomy and laminectomy through C7, so I don’t have bones there. I figure either pressure on or stretching of my compromised cord causes these transient things. Does that seem plausible?
How cruel it is that this life robs you even of the joy of sleeping…
Comment