When I found out that soy gives me vertigo, I was overjoyed because I knew why I was suffering and I knew how to avoid it.  But then occasionally I still get vertigo.  What’s up with that?

Some of these attacks I can explain because I’ve eaten a food product that probably had soy in it, even though soy was not an ingredient listed on the package.  These items say “. . . made in a factory that also produces soy products . . . ” or something similar.  OK, that makes sense.  Produced on the same assembly line so the equipment may be contaminated with soy. Or there was soy in the air.  I don’t know.  I have no idea just how much soy is necessary to set off my vertigo.  Apparently not too much.

But then there are vertigo attacks for which I can determine no soy contamination. What caused these?  Some other allergen probably, and I’m in the process of trying to determine what that is.  My candidates are my chewable allergen-free vitamin pills, dairy products, and nuts.

How do I plan to determine which of these three items is the culprit?

MY PLAN:

Step 1:  Cut out all possible foods causing vertigo until I am living on just a few items.  For me that is some gluten-free cereal, almond milk, gluten-free bread, Boar’s Head lightly-browned turkey, Coca-Cola (thank God Coke doesn’t have soy in it!), applesauce, baked potato with no butter.  No vitamin pills.  Nothing else.  I could have a lot of veges and fruits I suppose, but I’ve got some other GI problems that preclude a lot of those.  Anyway, the point is that I get down to the basics where I’m OK.

Step 2:  Stay on that minimal diet for a couple weeks, hopefully experiencing no vertigo attacks.  If I have a vertigo attack, I have to go back to square one and cut out something else.

Step 3:  For one week add just one item to the minimal diet and see if I get vertigo.  This week it was my supposedly allergen-free vitamin pills.  Well, I haven’t had any vertigo this week, so I guess they’re all right.

Step 4:  Next week try adding some other suspected item to the minimal diet and see what happens.

You get the idea.  I’ll let you know what happens . . .

Posted under Causes, Treatment

I’ve been avoiding products containing soy for over a year now.  And it’s been a great year!  No more nasty vertigo attacks every week.  Granted, there have been a few episodes of bad vertigo, and a number of times when I was more-dizzy-than-I’d-like-to-be, but in most cases I’ve been able to trace the onset to some kind of surprise soy intake.  Sometimes products with labels that say “might contain soy” because the product is manufactured in a facility that also processes peanuts, soy, etc. are giving me fair warning that I should stay away from those products.  A surprising source of soy was shampoo.  Shampoo would seem like an unlikely candidate for making me dizzy, but if the shampoo has soy in it, apparently I can absorb soy through my scalp.

I don’t know if soy is causing your vertigo, Read More…

Posted under Causes, Treatment

Dizzy from vertigo? Missing too much work? Missing out on your life?

Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) is caused by microscopic pieces of calcium bouncing around in your inner ears. Vertigo can be treated with drugs that dull the sensations, but drugs don’t fix the problem.

The preferred treatment for vertigo is a set of movements (the “Epley Maneuver”) you can perform to guide those little calcium particles back into place. Many people find that the Epley Maneuver stops the vertigo attack or at least lessens the intensity. Doctors and physical therapists teach their patients the Epley Maneuver so that they can treat themselves whenever vertigo strikes.

The Vertigo Help app takes you through each step of the Epley Maneuver. And if you’re too dizzy to focus on the words, you can turn on the audio and the app will talk you through each step.

Note: you should only use this app if a medical professional has told you to use the Epley Maneuver.

Here’s the link to the app on the iPhone app store

Posted under Causes, Treatment