dizziness/balance disorder

[NicoleJoy]

I have had dizziness and balance disorder for over a year now.  I fell over one day at work (was not dizzy at the time), and since then have chronic dizziness and am unable to walk unassisted outside the house ( I use a walker).  Our home is small, and I have many touch-points within each room.  Every test from specialists has come back negative: heart, ENT, endocrine, neurology...I cannot drive or work.  No doctor can figure it out.  This affects me daily--several times daily, in fact, and is often triggered by movement (my own or others') and by visual triggers (someone goes by quickly, I look up or to the left).  These triggers cause something weird to happen in my brain, and I fall to the right.  Have not actually lost conciousness for almost a year.

[deedh]

I have vertigo that started in December 2005. My spells were like yours, quick movement of the head or quickly looking to one side. I also felt off balance and would feel like I was falling. After a CT and MRI, a white spot was found on my left cerebellum. The local neurologist misdiagnosed it as a brain tumor and wanted to schedule surgery! Went to Orland Nuerosurgeon, he said I didn't have a brain tumor at all! Maybe a stroke, or prior damage to that area. Wasn't causing dizziness. Many doctors later, found a competent Neurotologist in Orlando. He did several tests and concluded my left inner ear (inner ears are not for hearing, they are for our vision/brain interactions) was not working correctly. It was Hyper-stimulated. He gave me medicine that stopped the vertigo (took 3 different ones to get it stopped). This year he said meds should have calmed it down. New theory is high blood pressure was causing pressure on area around inner ear (vestibular area) and keeping it stimulated. Put me on blood pressure meds. Only been a couple weeks. will see, but have no vertigo! there are meds, Klonopin, Meczline (less-drowsy dramamine). Find a Ear/Balance center in your area or a competent neurotologist. Good luck, this situation is very frustrating!

[jackie66tv]

I have had many years of misdiagnosis.  Due to mother suffering Munchausens syndrome by proxy --she really did lead the doctors astray.  She convinced them I was epileptic.  Many years of drugs caused cerebellar / brainstem dysfunction.  I now have truncal ataxia and extensive paralysis of my paraspinal muscles (hopefully to be investigated).
I had a comparitively recent scan on 3T scanner and they found slight cerebellar atrophy.  Blood tests discovered that I was low on vitamin E.  The lack of this vitamin causes eye problems and balance problems.   I now take 800 units a day and there has been improvement in both visual and balance.  Having said that, the ataxia still causes imbalance.
In order to find why I was so ill, I studied the subject of Neurotoxicology.  This study made me realize just how little doctors actually know about neurology.  Its quite scary

[Dr. A. Srivastava]

Welcome to Medlhelp forum. I can understand your worrying health concern about dizziness and balance disorder. Although without being able to examine you it will be quite difficult for us to give you a precise diagnosis here. Since you've had dizziness and balancing problem for so long it is unlikely to go away, but in most of the people it may still slowly improve after few years. It sounds like that you have benign positional vertigo but if you are significantly affected then I would suggest approaching a physiotherapist for treatment, He/She would like to suggest few exercises that may be of help in your condition. These exercises may help in improving vestibular nerve (Nerve involves in balance) function so the condition. In addition, I would suggest getting a neurologist opinion here as well in order to get complete neurological assessment and further approach. Hope this helps.