[Erin524]

oh lucky me...I woke up at about 3 or 4 this morning with vertigo.

I feel like a dreidel. (traditional Jewish haunakah toy, a spinning top)

I went back to bed, hoping it would go away. Nope. It's gotten worse.

I called my neuro, and he said if I still have it tomorrow to call him and he'll call in a Rx of oral Prednisone to the pharmacy for me. (Oh goody! I wont have to get into a car to go see him to get some steroids!)

Amazing, he wont give me steroids for optic neuritis or bone deep numbness, but tell him that the world is spinning one way while I'm spinning the other and he'll give me steroids (as long as it lasts more than 24hrs)

He was going to make me wait a COUPLE OF DAYS before he'd get the Rx pad out, but then he said if I have it 24hrs, he'd write the 'scrip.

I dont even want to have this 24hrs. I want it to stop now. I dont care if I wouldnt get any steroids, I want it to stop now!

I cant lay down, it makes it worse. Sitting is ok for a while, standing is not fun. This is the one MS symptom that will have me begging for steroids.

I feel like total crap. It's giving me a bad headache and making my eyes hurt.

At least it's not making me hurl...yet (but then I've never gotten sick like that with vertigo)

At least I have some Meclizine. Hopefully it works.

Sorry about the whining.

Anyone have any tricks or head movements or sleeping positions that they can suggest to make the vertigo stop???

It's interesting (to me at least) that last year, right about this time, I had vertigo that would hit me out of nowhere. I could be sitting and reading a book when that vertigo would hit me. Knock me onto my back for 20 minutes and then it would go away and leave me with a headache. I called it "drive-by vertigo". Last years vertigo went away after my regular doctor gave me prednisone.

I think today's vertigo isnt quite as bad as the drive-by vertigo. Sure, today it hit me out of the blue and hasnt gone away yet, but the drive-by vertigo would hit me with no warning, and I usually had no time to try to sit down if I was standing. It hit, and I would hit the floor. I could feel gravity get stronger and just suck me down.

My only worry about getting oral prednisone is that I'm worried the prednisone will make me more susceptible to getting optic neuritis. (I read the Optic Neuritis Treatment Trial) The neuro doesnt think I should worry about that. He said that he wont give steroids to people with ON who dont have a diagnosis of MS. But once they have the diagnosis of MS, he'll give oral steroids to MS patients for symptoms that he thinks warrants steroids...like vertigo.

He said the side effects of the IV steroids would be worse, and wanted to keep me from having the stronger side effects...said I'd probably do better on the oral.

Ok...enough whining, I'm going to go pop another Meclizine and see if I can go back to sleep...or at least see if laying down is any better than it was.