Posted by Katz on February 5, 2001, at 14:58:37
In reply to Re: dizziness » Katz, posted by Lycaste on February 5, 2001, at 14:41:58
Hi Lycaste,
Thankyou! That was very interesting and informative. I did a little research myself today and discovered there is also an inner ear disease called Meniere's disease. It described the exact same symptoms that I experienced during my week long bout several years ago. Meniere's is very serious and can actually lead to deafness. Coincidentally, I suffered this bout when I also had increased my thyroid to too high a level.
Whatever the cause, I stopped the amisulpride and the dizziness has completely disappeared.
Thankyou again for the information. I am downloading it for future reference.
Best wishes,
Kathy
> Hi Kathy,
>
> You might consider that an unrelated condition is causing your dizziness. The symptoms sound a lot like Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV).
>
> BPPV is believed to be cause when little ear stones that normally reside the utricle in the inner ear work their way loose and end up in the ear canals. There they create the feeling of vertigo.
>
> The reason I say that it sounds like this is what you may have is that it is very typical to experience the vertigo while lying down and for it to be worse when you move your head into certain positions. (That's where the "positional" in the condition's name comes in.) It can hit suddenly: you turn over in bed and the next thing you know the room is spinning like mad. Disconcerting, to say the least.
>
> Since the stones break down over time (or naturally move out of the canal), this condition is an intermittent kind of thing. And the good news is that a bout can often be cleared up with certain head exercises designed to move the stones out of the canal. Here is a link to a good web site:
>
> http://www.cscd.nwu.edu/public/balance/bppv.html
>
> It distinguishes between exercises that are done at the doctor's office and ones that are done at home. The ones that are supposed to be done at home take longer; being the impatient soul that I am when I last suffered a bout of BPPV, I just did the doctor's office exercises at home. It worked for me. The risk is if you are experiencing extreme vertigo, you might get very sick or fall or... If you have a friend who could play the doctor's role, that might be a good idea. I also get the impression that a doctor watches for certain involuntary eye movements that signal vertigo, so he/she knows how long to hold certain positions and when the exercises have done the trick or when they need to be repeated.
>
> Now, although I called this an "unrelated condition," personally I actually wonder about this. My last bout occurred when my thyroid medicine was too high. It seems reasonable to suppose that certain medications might speed up the turnover in the ear stones (they are constantly being broken down and recreated), which in turn might increase the likelihood of them getting loose. Or medication might give you heighted sensitivity to having them where they're not supposed to be. In other words, in this case amisulpride might not have been the original cause of the problem, but it might (and I'm saying just *might*) have made you more sensitive to it. Who knows? The body is a weird and miraculous thing. Who'd have thunk that the ear has stones, anyway?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Lycaste
>
>
>
> > >Sorry, I mispoke, I meant to say EKG's and not EEG's regarding the desipramine issue.
> >
> > I took the Bromo last night. I fell asleep but that may have just been because I was tired. I will take the Bromo again this afternoon and see what happens.
> >
> > Andrew, has anyone else ever complianed of dizziness on the amisulpride? It is not the dizziness caused by hypotenstion but the dizziness similar to that caused by in inbalance in the fluid in the ears. I had this dizziness lying down especially when I turned my head to the right. On standing, I was being pulled to the left. The dizziness seemed the worst in the morning even though I hadn't taken the amisulpride for 24 hours. The andrafinil would seem to counter the dizziness. Several years ago, I experinced something very similar and very terrifying. The only thing I had been on was armour thyroid. I awoke one night and the entire room was spinning. I had no idea what was going on. I could not get out of bed. The dizziness was so intense that it was causing me to vomit several times. The room spun for a week and I was unable to get out of bed without bouncing off walls. I could only hold my head in one direction. If I turned it the other way the dizziness became intolerable and again cause vomiting. I never knew what it was or what caused it, I only know it was damn scary. In the end, I chalked the whole thing up to an inner ear infection. The reason I mention all this is because although my dizziness on the amisulpride was nowhere near as intense, it had the same exact feel to it. Could this point to a problem in that area of my brain dealing with those dopamine receptors? Could the armour thyroid have influenced those same areas?
> >
> > One more observation about the amisulpride: It cleared up a problem that I have been having with blurred vision for the past year. Images became razor sharp and crystal clear. I stopped taking lucidril because I believed it was the cause of the blurred vision in the first place.
> >
> > Hi Andrew,
> > >
> > > I have suffered with the following for the past twenty years with no relief: dystymia (with occassional bouts of severe depression), anhadonia and social phobia. Meds have included: elavil, tofranil, prosac, paxil, wellbutrin, desprmaine, effexor, St. John's Wort, 5 HTP, tryptophan, Kava Kava, Ephedra, Deprynel, Bromocriptine, Sinemet, Reboxetine, Dexedrine, methyphenidate, phentermine, thyroid, lucidril, piracetam, hydrgeine, GHB (when it was legal), alchohol, marijuana, buspar, valium, melatonin, phenylanaline, tyrosine, choline chloride, dilantin, tegretol, andrafinil, amisulpride, S-ame, procaine,DHEA, pregnenalone, vasopressin.
> > >
> > > The AD's knocked me out. Wellbutrin did nothing but make me itch like crazy. Effexor was a drug from hell although I didn't experience alot of the negative effects of some of the others on this board. It made me very sleepy, very depressed and very fat! I stopped cold turkey after two and a half months and had severe stomach cramps. I had to go back and titrate down to ween myself off. Desipramine seemed to give the best results. I seemed to get some minor energy from it. My pdoc wanted me to have EEG's monthly while on it. I guess she just didn't understand the extent of my social phobia. I was unable to comply. I stopped the desipramine after a month and stopped seeing that doc. That was three years ago. I have not seen anyone since. The last AD I tried was Reboxetine(just before my amisulpride trial). My reaction to it is listed in my post at the top of this thread. It made me tired at first. I had to take it at night but would awake fully energized. I felt good and extremely hopeful the first two weeks on this drug. Eventually, it stopped making me sleepy and I had to start taking it morning and afternoons. I may have given up on this trial to soon. I stopped because it seemed to lose its energizing effects and I was beginning to have fleeting (30 min) bouts of occassional depression. It was disappointing also that it didn't touch my anhadonia or social phobia. Still, I think this one might be worth another try. Tegretol made my legs feel like lead, did nothing for my mood. GHB never helped my mood although in the beginning, I did get some energy when it wore off. I think it actually made me more social phobic. I found myself dosing quite often during the day and felt I was becomming mildly addicted. Lucidril (centroxophine) was one drug that I had minimal success with. I found it to me mildly stimmulating. More stimulating than andrafinil. No mood enhancing qualities, however.
> > > The star of the show and the only one that has ever reversed all my symptoms was methylphenidate. I was on 20 mg for six months. Never increased the dose and I just seemed to get better and better over time. Some others have suggested on this board that methypenidate and ritilan are two different animals. Many claim to have gotten great results with Ritilan and none with the generic. I have found the very opposite to be true. In that same vain, dexedrine was also ineffective. I can take 30 mg's and fall asleep. It may have also been making me depressed. I took 3 grams of choline chloride daily for prolonged periods of time and found that it had very good memory enhancing properties. It did nothing for any of my other symptoms however. None of the vitamin or amino acid supplements (accept the choline) has ever yielded any results. Note, the lucidril also causes choline release.
> > >
> > > Having written all this and considering what you said about the bromo, I am wondering if it really did make me sleepy. I could be confusing it with the Sinemet. I am going to take a dose tonight and see what happens. If I recall correctly, I was taking the bromo to counter the increased prolactin caused by the GHB. Let me experiment and I will get back to you on this. BTW, deprynel (liquid) never did a thing. Probably wasn't enough and wasn't taking it long enough. I did try the tablets though for about a month and they never made a difference either.
> > >
> > > I used alcohol for many years to deal with my social phobia. Realizing I was becomming an alcholic, I stopped. I have become more and more reclusive ever since. Things have deterriorated to a point where I can't even get out of bed anymore. I will not answer the door and will absolutely not go out to the mailbox. The only comfort in all of this is that I don't suffer from severe depression with suicical ideology for I certainly would have a good reason to kill myself. It seems there is no drug out there that is going to help me. It's karma! I guess I'm just paying for past sins.
> > >
> > > Finally, I have used Light and sound/binaural beat programs in an attempt to entrain the electrical activity of my brain, e.g. alpha, beta and theta rythyms. These programs have been met with minimal, if any success.
> > >
> > > Well Andrew, there you have it. I'll bet you're sorry you asked. I'm sorry to have rambled on so long but it's pretty hard to compact an entire history into one little paragraph.
> > >
> > > Question: Have you heard of pikmilone? IAS sells it. It is a gaba/niacin product promoted to sedate at small doses and stimulate at larger ones.
> > >
> > > Andrew, you have been very kind to take me under your wing. I have read many of your posts and have found you to be very bright, knowledgeable and insightful. I hope you can help me to get to the bottom of my problem.
> > >
> > > Thankyou,
> > >
> > > Kathy
> > >
> > >
> > > >Kathy,
> > > >
> > > > Sorry the amisulpride doesn't seem to work for you.
> > > >
> > > > I can give you the REQUIP dosages but I think it would be better, if you don't mind, if we step back and look over your situation first.
> > > >
> > > > Your sleepiness induced by bromocriptine is troubling. I haven't heard of that before. Bromocriptine is a D-2 agonist while Mirapex and Requip are D2/D3 agonists. Bromo. as an AD, on the occassions it works,seems to eventually poop out. It has been speculated that Mirapex's better response rate and lack of poop out (I haven't heard or read of mirapex poop out so far) is due to its D3 receptor activity. Yes, I'm wondering if Requip won't just knock you out like Bromo.
> > > >
> > > > Anyway, if you don't mind, give a history of the medications (and even recreational drugs) you've taken, your responses to them and what your symtomology is. Hopefully if I can't, somebody else on this board can make some sense of it. If you don't wish to be so public you can email me at andrewb@seanet.com.
> > > >
> > > > Without such information, our suggestions will probably be just rainbows that get your hopes up but disappear when you actually try to get to them.
> > > >
> > > > You have my sincere concern,
> > > >
> > > > AndrewB
poster:Katz
thread:53287
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010131/msgs/53359.html