I had an MRI just before Christmas in one more futile attempt to determine why I get vertigo. Well, contrary to what some of my friends predicted, the MRI proved that I do have a brain. However, there was nothing to indicate why I have vertigo. The doctors say “Live with it. Get used to it.”
I’ve always thought that something sets off the vertigo, but I haven’t been able to figure it out. Eggs? Cut those out of my diet. Nope. Milk? I’ve got celiac and lactose intolerance, so I’ve been using soy milk instead. Gluten? I’m avoiding that anyway. Much of the gluten-free food I’ve been eating has strange flours or ingredients, and most of them have soy.
Soy? Could it be the soy?
The day after Christmas, I stopped eating soy. Almond milk instead of soy milk. Throw away that cereal and those cookies, and a zillion other things that have the word “soy” on the packaging. Two weeks later, and I haven’t been dizzy. Huh. Let’s celebrate by going to that largest burger dealer in the world that I won’t name because I don’t want to be sued. The next day I’m a bit dizzy. Checked the ingredients on the web . . . Burger has no soy. Oh, the french fries are cooked in soy. The cheese? Who puts soy in cheese? They do.
Eventually I made it for 52 days without a major vertigo event. It was the soy kicking off my vertigo! I’ve been able to get back to doing the treadmill three times a week. Feel like a new man. Then yesterday we went back to that burger place again, but I only ate the actual burger and the condiments. Today I’m a mess once more — dizzy, trouble walking straight, can’t look up without the ceiling zooming around, nauseated. Perhaps someone accidentally used the french fry oil to cook the burgers. I don’t know. What I do know is that I won’t be eating there again.
Except for today (day 53), I’ve been feeling great! Got my life back.
Now I’m not saying that you are allergic to soy and that’s what is causing your vertigo. However, you may be allergic to something, and that something may be causing your vertigo. It’s as good an explanation as the doctors will give you, which is nothing.
Posted under Treatment
This post was written by Dan Ferry on February 16, 2012
Similar problem, but for some reason it only gets bad when I drink soy milk or use a fat free coffee creamer with soy in it.
I have a very similar reaction to Caffeinated coffee, yet I can drink de-caf with no problems.
My doctor swears I had a stroke, yet they can find no trace of any stroke after $50k in testing. I quit the soy milk and symptoms went away. It actually made me black out for a mili-second one time, while I was walking. It caused my entire left side to go numb/tingling and this has remained for 2 years. In the past week my wife bought a soy coffee creamer and my symptoms started all over again. numbness started to spread to my right side.