Eagle, I hope they can fix this for you. There is a condition called benign positional vertigo, which means that the position of your head causes vertigo. My Mom had it and I had it last year. It was awful. It's caused by the little 'stones' in the fluid in the ear canal. Mine went away by itself, but it can be fixed by manipulation of the head to re-position the stones. I was fine unless I tilted my head just a little in any direction. Horrible feeling! Here's hoping it's fixed soon.

Thanks for the info, DJ. Lots to digest there (pun intended, LOL).

It's interesting to note what your doc said about eating more protein in-between meals. Several years ago, I began doing that because of chronic fatigue. The protein helped a lot, provided good, sustainable energy. And I've pretty much kept up that protein-rich diet, until our recent trip to Europe. We were traveling and unable to eat regular meals, and I got out of the habit of eating between meals. Because it was helping my waistline, I've been maintaining THAT regime since we got home. And it's been since then that the fatigue has become so debilitating...my entire system has gone haywire.

So I started adding those protein snacks back into my diet a few days ago. But that's also when the vertigo started. But I have no idea what's connected to what anymore. Hubby's very worried. He says I'm "not looking well" (pale, weak, lethargic).

I had to laugh about you getting dizzy if anyone even touched your chair. All of my life, I've gotten motion sick if anyone rocked my chair in any way. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone else say the same thing.

Thank you Chatty and Yonuh. Chatty, I do need to eat more bananas, and there's no excuse, we always have them in the fruit basket.

Yonuh, I've heard about the crystals in the ear canal. Did you actually feel them there, or did you just know because of the vertigo? I'd suspect something like that if I didn't also feel so washed out.

Our bodies are so complex and everything is interconnected, it's difficult to know what's affecting what.

"I had to laugh about you getting dizzy if anyone even touched your chair. All of my life, I've gotten motion sick if anyone rocked my chair in any way. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone else say the same thing." Anyone who knows me knows that I can't sit still unless I'm in a rocking chair, yet I have to be in control of the motion. I've heard of the phrase "adrenals are depleted" and that was in the case of someone who also had a history of chronic fatique syndrome as well as depression. EH, I'm sure it is scary to be that dizzy.

EH
I too have never heard of anyone getting motion sick when their chair was touched! It makes me feel much better, in an odd way, to think I'm not the only one.

I think it's one of those symptoms that in the old days made doctors think women were hypochondriacs, so I only asked doctors in passing. They never had a clue to what it was about. My adult kids still like to mock me about it (such dears) by saying "stop touching my chair, you're making me dizzy!" which they heard so often.

Once in fact, I was at a movie theater -- of course, the seats in those old theaters were all connected in the row. All the movement of all the people in the row was so distracting I had to leave my companions and move waaaay over to the rh side of the theater, where I had to crane my neck to see the film but at least I wasn't made dizzy. I don't know what I told my companions but I'm sure they thought I was nuts.

EH, maybe the stress of your trip aggravated the dizziness. That used to happen to me after flying long distances.

From what I gather, the adrenal symptoms are sort of the first in the line of defense, after which comes thyroid, and possibly more endocrine system symptoms. The endocrine is the least understood system -- If I were to enter medicine, I'd study it.

Of course everyone is different. EH, when you say "it's hard to know what's affecting what" -- I actually have become so disciplined about what I'm eating, that I can practically tell you the effect on my body of everything I eat. Most people don't believe me, except my husband, because I can also predict to him what will happen if he eats certain things. I predict that future doctors will be able to give us each individual profiles about our specific body chemistry and what we each need to do to stay in equilibrium. And then, as they used to say about Chinese medicine, we'll pay doctors to keep us healthy but not when we get sick.

Well, the doctor did exactly as I expected, chalked it all down to depression and prescribed an anti-depressant (cipralex) which she tells me is also good for anxiety. So we'll see how that goes. She's also sending all the paperwork to get me into an anxiety support group, which would be wonderful, but there's about a 3-month waiting list.

I'm also going to read as much as possible on this adrenal fatigue and see how much I can do on my own (diet, exercise, etc).

DJ, do you take a multi-vitamin? I can't tolerate them very well, but now there are so many options out there that maybe it would be easier to find a more compatible one.

Hi EH, well, I am no DR so I don't get the connection between depression and vertigo. It's my understanding that you have not been on an anti depressant since that awful withdrawal episode. Maybe depression suppresses the adrenal glands from pumping the needed hormones properly? Have we talked about fibromyalgia? funny, I can't tolerate multi vitamins either, but when I was on chemo, I had a script for the pre natal vitamins, and that worked without causing any more nausea than usual. What ELSE did the DR say? How did you feel about the comments from the DR?

EH
Are you anxious and depressed? Or is that the doctor not knowing what to say?

I don't take a multi -- they make me sick too.
I take glucosamine, Osteoprime (calcium with D and other minerals), Schizandra, which is an herb that supports the adrenals and I get it from the health food store. And I eat lots of organic veggies, and not too much fruit.

I also take these two supplmements from a place in Wisconsin called Standard Process: Dessicated adrenal and pneumotrophin (which clears out my lungs because I've had some bad allergic asthma, but it's mostly cleared up).

There's a pharmacy around here that sells the dessicated adrenals -- they're quite effective. Also the chiropractor sells them.

Get this: a few years ago my husband's hair turned white and his eyebrows and even eyelashes fell out. He went to dermatologists, allergists, endocrinologists, general practitioners, hairdressers and others. They treated his thyroid for months, but the hair kept falling out. No one could figure it out. Poor man was starting to look like a cueball. His hair was snowy white, and fine, like an old woman's. It was freaky. We know an unusual woman who is a medical intuitive who told him to try the dessicated adrenals and guess what? -- his hair grew back in BLACK, healthy and thick. The hairdresser can't believe it and she's now telling all her clients who are losing their hair (she even has a guy in his 20s whose hair is flaling out in clumps, and a young woman, same thing). Everyone thinks my husband has been dying his hair. He had been having a great deal of emotional stress due to the deaths of those who he'd be very close to.

The dessicated adrenal pills only cost about $10 a bottle. I only take a half pill every few days -- they keep me awake at night otherwise. They give me energy too. My doctor had prescribed pregnenolone and DHEA which I took for the first few months after diagnosis. These probably work as well if not better.

I think fibromyalgia is related, but is a later stage.

DJ,
Thank you so much for your comments. They're very helpful and calming.

I had to repost another reply...

Princess, I was actually very disheartened after the doctor's visit. My husband came in the room with me, to make sure that I didn't minimize what's been going on. Even he was shocked that she did nothing...no blood pressure, no blood tests, nothing, especially after the severity of some of the symptoms over the past few days. Maybe she'll do it next visit (the 30th) after I've taken these AD's for 2 weeks. She was crazy-busy, and had fit me into an already tight schedule.

Anyway, it's always disheartening when everything gets automatically brushed aside under the depression label. It's one of the more silent stigmas to depression/mental illness, that once you get labelled, that's all there is to you as far as they're concerned.

I'm too tired to argue and will just go along with the AD for now. I'm sure it will help, because I have been spiralling for awhile, though I still think that this time the depression is actually a symptom of a bigger issue, a reaction to feeling so unwell for so long and becoming increasingly debilitated...no matter how depressed I've ever been, it's never manifested itself so physiologically like this before.