Have you tried cutting out the most common allergens?

I dreaded the possibility, but now I have to admit that I think dairy products can also cause me to have vertigo. A few weeks ago I ate a gluten-free, soy-free pizza, and a day later I had a pretty bad vertigo attack. (Constant reader will remember that I have celiac and that eating soy causes me to have violent vertigo attacks). I’ve previously had vertigo attacks after eating ice cream, but most ice creams contain soy (WHY?), so I attributed the vertigo to the soy.

BTW, don’t ask me why it takes a day or two for me to react. That’s one of the mysteries of my little piece of the universe. People who have peanut allergies react instantly. Working with dusty hay (we have horses) will result in me sneezing in a few minutes. A bug touching my hair will make me itch for hours or until I shower (got that particular problem from my Mom). When my GI specialist told me years ago that I had celiac, he also told me that his celiac patients reacted strangely to eating wheat/gluten. They did not have an instantaneous reaction, but would have a reaction in a couple days. He couldn’t explain it, but he knew it to be true. It probably has something to do with how long it takes the body to digest the food, or how long it takes the liver to clear it, or something similar.

Anyway, I thought shrewdly, maybe some of the other stuff that I thought was giving me vertigo really wasn’t to blame because I might also have had some butter on the same day. Not a bad theory. I bought some bags of my favorite chips, the ones that I thought had given me vertigo. For a couple weeks I was happily downing half a bag of chips at a sitting (can’t eat just one!). I was avoiding dairy products and having no problems. I was in heaven. Then I ate another bag of those chips from a different sales batch and WHAM! Vertigo attack. Therefore, I concluded that I really am allergic to one or more of the four oils that are listed as possibilities on the packaging: cottonseed oil, palm oil, sunflower oil, canola oil. How to determine which one? I don’t know. I’ll just avoid them all for now.

So the things that give me vertigo attacks are soy, dairy, one or more of those four oils. Maybe eggs? Don’t know. Hate to do the testing because of the possibility of a vertigo attack. Are these causing my vertigo because of gene manipulation, or antibiotics given to farm animals, or some other contamination of our food supplies?

What causes your vertigo? Have you tried cutting out the most common allergens? You owe it to yourself to try.

Thankfully vertigo-free for a couple weeks,
Dan

Posted under Causes

This post was written by Dan Ferry on November 7, 2014

Tags: ,

OK for weeks, then bingo, a vertigo attack.

Hi,

Sometimes I’ll go for weeks without any significant dizziness, and then out of nowhere I’ll have a vertigo attack.  Now these attacks, while difficult, are not the full-blown vertigo attacks I used to get.  No, no more upchucking (that, I’m pretty sure, came from the soy allergy) or nystagmus, but my stomach feels just short of nauseous, and it can be difficult for me to walk straight. Driving is possible, but sometimes not a good idea.  I know I shouldn’t complain, because there are many of you out there who are still having upchucking vertigo attacks. How quickly I forget.  A perfect day for me is one without dizziness of any kind. I rate my vertigo/dizziness impairment on a scale of 60% to 100%. Read More…

Posted under Symptoms

This post was written by Dan Ferry on July 5, 2014

Tags:

What is BPPV, a.k.a. Vertigo?

Wikipedia will tell you that “Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is a disorder caused by problems in the inner ear. Its symptoms are repeated episodes of positional vertigo, that is, of a spinning sensation caused by changes in the position of the head.”

The symptoms are listed as follows:

  • Vertigo: Spinning dizziness which is not light headed or off balance.
  • Short duration (Paroxysmal): Lasts only seconds to minutes
  • Positional in onset: Only can be induced by a change in position.
  • Nausea is often associated
  • Visual disturbance: It may be difficult to read or see during an attack due to the associated nystagmus.
  • Pre-Syncope (feeling faint) or Syncope (fainting) is unusual.
  • Emesis (Vomiting) is uncommon but possible.

I have problems with some of these statements: Read More…

Posted under Symptoms

This post was written by Dan Ferry on July 11, 2010

Tags: ,