Post Virtigo

Last Friday I rode my Vespa to the West Coast x ray clinic. It was all round an unpleasant experience.  I was texting a doctor on my phone waiting in line and the doctor was doing that Justin Trudeau communication trick. I’d asked why did you say you start a group ‘physicians against censorship’ and when we all joined having that interest you switched the group to physicians discussing censorship.  Like Trudeau she didn’t answer my question. Further she didn’t acknowledge fault. She had essentially opened a fishing store and was only interested in selling Tupperware. Any question Trudeau is asked about his lies and failures is taken by him as an invitation to make more lies rather than ‘answer the fucking question you butt wad!!!!”  Of course these same gaslight celebrity sociopaths will express how ‘concerned ‘ they are with your ‘anger issues’.  I realized I didn’t know this person and that they were attempting to establish a marketting base to doctors and I should focus on my X-ray.

My back hurts.  I’m of an age where this is fairly normal.  It’s mostly because I’ve not delivered the Covid baby that’s now past 9 month.  I also went to a chiropractor who insisted on accessorizing with an X-ray machine saying after she took the X-ray that I’d had an old X-ray. I observed the X-ray technique (I used to do lots of X-rays in my northern and wilderness medicine days) and didn’t like it. I also didn’t like her ‘nocebo’ diagnosis.

Placebo is what we all do to heal.  When some one says ‘you’’re going to get well’ they are praying for you and assisting the natural self healing. The nocebo by contrast is the evil ‘you’re going to die’ ear wig that was made famous by Iago in Shakespeare ‘s Othello.  She was a terrible chiropractor. I’ve had the best and as well trained in manipulation.  So I never went back and have since continued to see excellent chiropractors, Dr. Stan Jung and Dr. Brian Ready at Klein Chiropractic.  I did go to an acupuncturist for the first time in London and it was really helpful. Walking on the cobblestones seemed to contribute. The fact is exercise helps.

But I wanted an X-ray to counteract the nocebo. I was beginning to worry.  Worrying is praying for evil. All shall be well is godly.  Jesus taught do not be afraid.  I was thankful that the clinic doctor just ordered one hearing my history.  

A young guy jumped the cue and went to the desk . I stepped in to object to him jumping the cue. The receptionist shouted at me to stay out and wait in line. Nothing seems to upset me more than false accusations.  I’ve suffered a lot from false accusations and despite my attempt to forgive people in authorities for their error and incompetence I don’t feel compensated only vindicated.  I’ve got to let go of past trauma.  It goes right back to childhood when someone would hit me and I’d cry out and then be told by an authority figures to stop crying out. As a doctor ‘whistle blower’ in Canada who stopped a doctor ‘s killing streak I was punished forever for ‘not being a team player’ and ….it still hurts as I see this happen.  

As it turned out the young guy was just getting a wheel chair for his friend and the receptionist was pleasant and helpful.  The X-ray experience was a factory like experience with a very fine radiologist who told me to undress and I found myself in my underwear and he was ‘ready’ for me but I’d lost a piece of jewelry , a back for a gold earring he then said I didn’t need to take off which confused me because I didn’t think I needed to but then he insisted everything then back tracked and now I was unable to find the back on the floor and the mask I was wearing was fogging my glasses.  There’s a hurry that doesn’t go well with me because I find hurrying at Customs , airports, X-ray exams really overwhelming. It’s all stressful. Of course getting up on the X-ray platform without a stool was difficult and painful. Further turning over was difficult and painful. That’s why I was there.  Then it was over and I could leave carrying my valuables and getting dressed to escape.  I felt old and vulnerable and sad.  It was all too much. I sometimes just want to die. This seemed to be my future , going to tests and doctors visits and I just didn’t want that life.  Please God. But my back hurt and I was having more and more difficulties doing little things like picking up something that dropped without a means of helping myself up.  My back was weak and painful too and didn’t seem rested after sleep but it was made worse by lying on the couch and improved by a long walk and I needed to lose weight

Outside i rode my Vespa home and became immediately light headed. I didn’t feel right and the world didn’t look right. Then suddenly I reeled around. My brain didn’t seem connected to my skull. I had instant nausea and would throw up everything I’ D eaten that day.  Several times I was head down in the porcelain.  Not a happy camper. My world was spinning and when I lay down and was very still it tool 5 to 10 minutes for the room to settle. I had ‘vertigo’. Big time.  I also felt my eyes doing the nystagmus dance and wished I’d a medical student handy to show him this sign.

The next 12 hours were horrible because any movement up or down or sideways started the room spinning but with everything emptied I at least didn’t vomited. i had to walk the dog so he could pee and poop but getting up was really difficult. I had to wait for the room to quit spinning when I sat up then when I stood up then I had to walk with a broad based gait

I’d joke later that years previously my gettting drunk had been training for this time. Also as a sailor I felt those first 12 hours were like being in my sailboat when I’d been in a hurricane.  I walked the dog around the park almost falling several times.  

The next day I could look down and up but if I turned my head in a horrizontal plane the world began to spin,

That first day I’d taken Reactine anti histamine. I had no other symptoms , maybe a mild fever.  1-3% of emergency visits are vertigo.  Obviously the vast majority are benign.   The commonest cause is labrynthitis of the ear.  Menierries syndrome was also common.  Central issues like a mini stroke are way down on the list.  I’d already catastrophised and assumed I was never going to ride my motorcycle again and was now permanently disabled. I’ve always had empathy for my disabled patients but didn’t want to be any more than they did.

When I regain the ability to look up I thanked God. I’d been praying big time and this odd discrete horizontal plane vertigo was classic for the labrytnths healing with one remaining to go. 

It cleared in the next 12 hours. From start to finish I wass 48 hours.  I woke on the next morning and had full function, fatigue and that’s persisted and I think that’d mostly in response to the anxiety.  

I say now it was a ‘flashback to 2 days in my sailboat surviving a hurricane’.  I’m a psychosomatic doctor.  I expect the whole X-ray experience made me vulnerable.  I think we are always self healing and sometimes our defences are down.  I rallied because I am blessed and I prayed.  I didn’t interfere with the healing.  

I rode my Vespa later that day to get the mail.  i was really thankful that I could do the two wheels.  It was difficult to deal with the complexity. Even next day driving the car it was more work and I was tired from a little trip to the clinic and back.  I had to sign off some forms.

Now I’m on light duties for a couple of days. Glad to be working in a chair which is no problem I was able to sit in a chair or lie in one position the whole time, Movement as the issue.  Today I’m so thankful that I can move freely. I’m so thankful not to have vertigo or nausea today. I’d fasted that first day and had lots of juice and water and even coffee.  Now I’m back to eating. I’m really grateful for my life and find things like this a wake up call. When I’m feeling that we’re doing so badly with a politician that’s downright evil and entitled running up massive debt causing inflation and making the price of gas and food outrageously high, it’s not that bad when I have my health.  Being sick taught me I really have to be more grateful and less negative.  

Thank you God for my health today.