I am not one to share my problems for the purpose of seeking pity. The reason I am blogging about my illness it is because it is therapeutic and because I want to share my experience with others who may be in the same situation that I am. Since I have been feeling this way I have met many people with similar symptoms. More importantly, I was told to keep a journal of my symptoms by doctors in Florida and Boston and report them to my family doctor. But when my family doctor told me that it was something that I would have to live with for the rest of my life, I was devastated. It was hard to believe that I would live the rest of my life being dizzy all the time and having a random part of my body tingle when I least expect it leaving me groaning in pain and having people asking me if I was alright.
When I first began to feel the dizziness I thought that it was bad. But I had no idea what it truly was to be dizzy. The first couple of times it was pretty mild. It is what in the medical field they call lightheadedness. Light headedness is exactly what the word means. It is feeling that your head is lighter than usual and a feeling of fainting that lasts a couple of seconds. This happened many times and it would happen randomly. The first occurrence I felt of actual dizziness was while I was working on my teaching internship in the fall of 2014. I was standing in the front of the room teaching my class when all of a sudden the room began to spin. I thought I was going to fall over, but I didn't. I was able to manage the feeling without looking completely dumb. But I felt drunk in this dizziness. I did not feel right, I felt sickly. And I did not want to acknowledge that there was something wrong with me, but it was too much.
Although it worried me, I also did not have insurance and could not do much about it. So instead I made myself busy working on daily tasks and tried not to concentrate on whatever was going on with me. That was a mistake. Why you may ask? It is because you cannot only ignore a problem and expect it to go away because it simply gets worse, never better. This dizziness that left me stuck where I stood or sat and left me with the feeling of falling over, was slowly taking over my life. I was afraid of driving or of falling over, even though I never did. But just because I was not falling over and fainting it did not mean that it kept me from doing the things that I loved. I relaxed and it did not stop. I began to withdraw inside my bedroom and laid in bed all day.
I complained about being dizzy often enough before this started happening, little did I know that it was actually lightheadedness, so my husband treated it as a mild everyday occurrence. Until I realized what dizziness truly was and then my complaints turned to concerns. I was given Dramamine but to no avail. Regardless of my struggles, I could not disregard the fact that my body was telling me that something was wrong. I could not do anything without having the room spin around me.
When I began to feel the tingling, I am not sure. But I do remember that I would be sitting down and that my whole body would tingle and I would be unable to move or get up from the seat. I was tingling and immovable for several minutes until it would stop and would regain my mobility. It went from that to waking up with my left side tingling for what seemed thirty or more minutes. The next time it would happen it would be on the right side. And I laid in bed until it subsided. Eventually, it turned into this feeling of having critters crawling inside me, or hundreds of needles prickling me from the inside that came and went whenever it pleased and it was not always in the same place. No, sometimes my foot would tingle; sometimes it would be in my arm, my hand, my head, hips, mouth, eyes, my stomach, and even below my core region. Along with the dizziness, the tingling sensation that stung and hurt was slowly becoming part of my life.
Several months later I am still getting dizzy. I still experience the tingling and the pain everywhere. It is not an everyday thing. It has become a routine, and my body begins to do this consistently the first two weeks of the month. And then after that, it comes and goes. But as I write this blog, the dizziness persists. The room no longer spins all around me everyday, it only happens when it wants to. Both symptoms are followed by others that I will be sharing on another blog. But as for the dizziness and the tingling, I cannot win because to calm my dizziness I need to lie down, but lying down makes the tingling get worse, especially at night. But don't get me wrong, I have my good days and I treasure those days. But knowing that it will not last puts me on edge, yet I know that this will not be the death of me even though it may feel like it.
