Lose to miss

Sunday morning I woke up and when I opened my eyes the whole world was spinning. From right to left again, again and again. After a while it stopped. I have had this happen to me one time before a long time ago. That time I think a bad food poisoning was the reason. But this time I felt okay after the spinning had stopped. I was a bit tired as I had been up very late to keep my mother and her dog company at the veterinary. Nothing acute with the dog but best to check, and the dog is fine now. But a bit bad sleep should not be a reason for the whole world to be spinning. If I remember correctly my balance was fine when I got out of the bed. But the spinning kept coming back during the day. At its worst I had to hold on to the ground and was feeling nauseated. Fine except from not feeling well and that the world was spinning from time to time.

 

A nights sleep didn’t help either. During the night I did wake up some times with a feeling of the bed spinning around, like when you had way too much to drink. Kind of bad timing to have your balance somewhat impaired and feeling a bit hungover all the time as I have a quite exciting trip coming up. I had heard of a condition that could be what I was experiencing. BPPV, Bening Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, didn’t feel that bening to me. But I did do some self diagnosis and it seemed to be that.

The condition comes from crystals in the ear. Apparently crystals are a part of the balance organs in our ears. I did know that the balance organ had canals and some fluid to do its work. But there are crystals involved also and these crystals can dislodge and end up in the wrong place. That interferes with the balance. The solution to this is to find out which canal on which side of the body that is the problem. Then move the head in a pattern to move the crystal to a better place. Not very pleasant as you induce the symptoms on each round of the movement. So part of the improvement process is feeling worse. And you can much worse in-between the recovery sessions also as the balance system has to recalibrate. The good thing is that you know what’s the reason to the world spinning and when the movement pattern doesn’t induce vertigo anymore it is done and you just have to wait to feel better.

 

For me it took two days of doing the exercises until they stopped having effect. Then it was just waiting. One full day of nausea and feeling like I was on a boat. And a couple of nights being scared to sleep on the side where you got the crystals away from. But now I can appreciate the feeling of not being sick for a couple of days until it is forgotten. And I am ready for my trip!

 

Fitting on the topic of health. The Swedish authority of food just released a study on dementia and diet and what they found was that the usual suspects are good for protecting your brain. Vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts and vegetable oils and fish are good for the brain health also. So nothing new there. Something that’s good for overall health is good for the brain.

 

And a list stumbled over this week also relating to maintaining a good body and health. As we age the order of hard to easier to maintain is:

 1. Power & Speed (most difficult to maintain)

 2. Strength

 3. Endurance

 4. Muscle Mass

 5. Mobility (easiest to maintain)

But I’ll save that for a future topic to expand on. I have touched upon some of the parts in previous instalments but I’ve learnt that there are more to be added. Added, not removed or simplified.

 

Cheers, Rickard

 

PoD: Part of our Friday dinner. Chop up an onion and fry, when soft add spoon sambal and a bigger spoon of tomato purée some salt and pepper. Serve with nachos.