Vertigo anyone?
 

I am now just over a month away from surgery ... a bit of doubt some days but otherwise determined to go through with the ADR procedure. However, a week ago I started getting vertigo. Any thoughts whether this could be related to my lumbar DDD?

Jonesie,

It's hard to tell. Many unusual symptoms can occur after surgery. I personally believe that some of them can be attributed to the after effects of anesthesia; but especially the IV antibiotics.

Antibiotics can create Herxheimer reactions. As well, they can kill bloodstream bugs, but after they (administration of IV or oral) stop, can allow other bugs to wake up.

I am not saying this happened, just suggesting this is a real phenomenon and well-documented. Perhaps it is more likely if you've had infections and/or antibiotics earlier in your life.

Do you experience other symptoms as well? E.g., nausea?

Thank you for the info Harrison. At this point I am still pre-op and wondering if lumbar DDD can cause vertigo. My feeling is that this is unrelated but I would not rule out a connection.

I take very few and infrequent meds. Manage pain via meditative approach and take no more than one or two Aleve per week. Flexeril on every a month for flare ups.

I had terrible vertigo caused by the DDD in my neck. This was prior to having multiple surgeries on my neck. I went to the Balance Center and had a bunch of tests done and I also saw an ear nose and throat specialist. Neither place could discover the cause of my vertigo. It wasn't until after I had surgery on my neck that the really bad vertigo went away. I still have dizziness but, it's manageable. (If you have a balance center in your city you could go and have those tests done.)

I have not heard about vertigo from the lumbar spine.

My point of telling you this is that no doctor could explain my vertigo at the time. I am of the opinion that there is a lot that doctors do not know about the spine. There is also much they don't know about the symptoms caused by toxins building up in the body.

Vertigo can be caused by many things including the ears and the eyes. In my case, the doctors did not figure it out but, once the surgeon took the pressure off my spinal cord, I got better.

Best of luck to you. I'm so sorry you are experiencing this problem :(

I didn't have any vertigo - I had issues at l5-s1.
Best wishes for surgery

I have
 

Hi Jonesie, I have had vertigo. I researched it and it can be caused by the pressure against the arteries that run through your neck. I can be brought on more often when you are looking down. I went to an ear doctor, they didn't find anything wrong there. If you work on a computer, get your monitor lifted to eye level.

Cheryl, good point. In some people, the scalene muscles and the SCM can get really tight, especially with DDD and doing computer work.

Maybe some deep tissue massages can relieve that tension, and possibly the vertigo...

Harrison & Cheryl, I started getting a therapeutic massage every 10 days starting last November. While it doesn't fix my damaged discs, I do think it helps me with my posture and managing the muscle spasms. I pay attention to my posture when I walk all the time now. I've noticed an improvement in my core strength the last four months. The massage work had helped me much more than physical therapy. Your comments made me realize that I need to pay more attention to my posture when sitting. :look: I do know that the more pain I am in, the more foggy my head feels. Also, I think the regular massage work breaks up the damaged cells in my body and clears them out. This is important for the body to heal.

Vertigo
 

I had horrible vertigo from my ruptured disks at C5-C7. I had every test to rule out other issues as well. Once I had surgery to have the fragment removed, the vertigo went away. It wasn't constant, just intermittent, but severe. The kind that made me feel like someone shut my lights off, so to speak, nauseous, and nearly wet my pants. It was frightening.

Of all negative sensations, I find nausea the first. I think I may have figured out the cause of my vertigo. Been using ear plugs to sleep going on 2 years now. Lately using one in each ear. I stopped the ear plugs a week ago and the vertigo is subsiding. :clap: