Extreme dizziness

desidiabulum said:

Hi all. A quick question about dizziness – not the light-headed/faint feeling that everyone gets some time or other, but the head spinning like mad, even when lying down, can’t focus brain, goes on for hours, etc. I’ve had this twice in the last fortnight – never happened to me before. Labyrinthitis seems from internet search more to be a prolonged condition, rather than occasional attacks, but maybe I’m wrong. There’s no link to stress or infection in my case, as far as I can see.
I’ve been on Atorvastatin for a couple of months – fantastic results on bp, trigs, cholesterol levels etc – but I do note that dizziness is listed as a possible side-effect. I was just wondering whether anyone else had had this sort of thing as a side-effect, and if so, the form it tended to take in terms of nature/frequency of attacks. ‘Dizziness’ seems to be one of the vaguest symptoms around, so it’s never clear what information leaflets really mean by the term!

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Hi desidiabulum,

Could BPPV be the cause of your dizziness? http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Benign- ... ertigo.htm

I had similar "attacks" to those you describe a couple of months back, which was diagnosed as BPPV. I don't takes statins, or any diabetic meds.

I first noticed I had a problem when I turned over in bed when I was sleeping, and the dizziness woke me up! :shock: Pretty scary. I had to be very careful for a few weeks getting out of bed. From a lying position, I had to slowly sit up, swing my legs on to the floor, sit on the edge of the bed and wait for the room to stop spinning before I could stand up. I could also bring on an attack by looking up - it's often called 'top-shelf' syndrome. (as you look up to see what's on the top shelf). Going from a sitting to a standing position wasn't a problem. Does any of this sound familiar. Do you know which movements if any, bring on the dizziness?

My GP diagnosed it easily by having me lie down on the examination table and moving my head suddenly to one side, back to facing forward and then moving it suddenly to the other side, to identify which ear was affected. He watched my eyes during this procedure, and he could tell which ear was affected, because my eyes moved (rolled) towards the affected side (it also brought on the dizziness/vertigo :crazy: ) I was given no treatment and the condition cleared up of it's own accord in in a few weeks - the attacks became less frequent & less severe as time went on). I was given an information leaflet with exercises to ameliorate the dizziness, which they did - eventually! :roll: There are other "procedures" that your GP can carry out which involve you lying on tilting tables which are supposed to help, but I didn't, in the end, need that.

Hope this helps.

I had this the first time I took simvastatin it lasted about 12 hours.Next night I took the tablet just before I put my light out that worked.