Vestibular Migraines

[Bluesmoke]

Hi Does anyone out there suffer with vestibular migraines. I get the “normal” ones with the death headache. But in the last 18 months I have begun to get violent dizziness in the night when I am asleep. It feels like my brain in spinning in my head (usually in my dream I am lying down with my head tipped right back). It’s an awful painful feeling. It wakes me up and I am desperate not to move my head. Then I usually get numbness in my arms, am sick, have diarrhoea having crawled to the bathroom. I am then completely exhausted and go back to bed. It then starts to ease off after about 8 hours sleep and my head starts to feel normal again.

I have had a vestibular assessment where they said there were no structural problems with the relevant systems. But the tests themselves put me in bed for several days due to the dizziness/nausea caused.

I feel alone in dealing with this and would love to know if anyone else is going through it. I am late 40s so I guess it could be menopause related but my hormones show I am not peri-menopausal. Am already on the mini pill to control the “normal” migraine headaches.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can share on this.

[SapatSea]

You may have developed a migraine variant (on top oft he headache migraine) such as Migraine associated Vertigo. I'd ask your GP for a referral to a Neuro-otologist. You might want to have a look through this:
www.thewaltoncentre.nhs.uk/uploadedfiles/leaflets/Migraine%20-%20A%20Comprehensive%20Guide.pdf

perhaps you need a migraine abortive to take such as sumitriptan and an anti emetic or you could try a preventative such as pizotifen, propanalol or amitriptyline to control things. My consultant says that the bulk of his new patients each week are perimenopausal women whose symptoms have become more varied and extreme.

[Bluesmoke]

Hi Sapatsea. Thank you for replying. I will have a look through the Walton Centre information. I didn’t know of neuro-otologists. I have had a couple of brain scans via a neurologist before but it always came back normal.

[Bluesmoke]

I should have said they were for the headache migraines and some numbness.