Balance Tests ...

[BorgLady]

Hi,

I have been having episodes of vertigo and I have to go and have some bablance tests at the hospital. Has anyone had these before? Can you tell me what's involved?

Thanks!

I had them a long time ago for intermittent vertigo - they weren't very strenuous, iirc, just walking with your eyes shut, balancing on one leg, possibly moving your head around until you felt dizzy. I also had ear tests to check for damage to my inner ear - apparently I have a permanently damaged right inner ear so there is nothing they could do for me apart from giving me a set of exercises to do for 10 mins 3 times a day to "confuse" my brain by making it feel dizzy, so that it stopped bothering to be dizzy.

I assume you are going to the ENT dept?

Can I also recommend to you that, if you get no satisfaction from them, you go see an osteopath or chirpractor - my problem was actually my neck being out of alignment. Once that was fixed, so was the vertigo. If my neck goes out again, the vertigo comes back.

Yes, off to the ENT department. The leaflet they gave me made it see, really scary. They old me not to wear make up and to bring spare clothes because I would get wet!

They a;so warned me not to work for the rest of the day as I may be really dizzy and to make sure I have someone to take me home.

I really don't like the sound of that!

wow. sounds like they've upped the ante a bit on the tests then! I didn't have anything like that - but it was a few years ago!

Hope someone with more recent experience comes on line for you then. Still recommend osteopathy - even physio didn't work for me, I needed to have my neck straightened to get rid of the vertigo.

Good luck with it anyway