Meniere's disease - this is what was diagnosed on Monday this week. It comes as a relief and a surprise, after two years of waiting for a doctor to work out Why i fell and broke my hip but then kept falling (dropping) to the ground five or six times a day while trying to recover from the two hip replacements.

Whenever I asked straight out - "Can we not find out what's making me fall?" I would get answers but they were all "best guess" based on what they knew.

So falling down in the hospital after having stopped taking Aropax was put down to seratonin syndrome (ie too long a reliance on the  aropax, and falling was due to withdrawal). So they prescribed valium to replace the aropax but of course it did not make any difference, i'd still drop to the floor in a panic attack. Got myself weaned off that pdq.

Not pleasant to realise that you're flat on your back on the floor, waking up, with nurses having to tell you how to breathe!
Then one doc thought of epilepsy medication so started me on that - no difference of course. Got myself off that rubbish too.

Then DH realised I'd been put on blood pressure meds just before the fall that fractured the hip, and put that together with me coming around after a drop if I was lying flat down. SO off the  blood pressure pills 'cos of the likelihood that I was suffering Low blood pressure.

I got so pathetic that - whereas THR patients should be on their feet for toiletting and showering after three or four days - I was ordered to not even try to get to the toilet without two nurses there - or even had to have a bedpan if only one nurse was on duty!
The panic/anxiety meant that I could not relaz to fall asleep unless I could get the side frames of the bed up. I was petrified of falling - even when I was lying down in the bed. (I did manage to persuade some nurses to let me have the bed lower down, which helped a bit)

When I came home from hospital, the falls/drops were still happening.
For hip recovery, I'd been issued with a seating frame for over the loo, a showering chair, a showering stool, a wheel chair, a walking frame, a grip bar to mount beside the loo, bars to be fitted at teh back steps, bars to be fitted into the shower stall, and a gripper/grabber to pick things up from the floor. I had physiotherapy at a gym (riding in my wheelchair in the disability taxi) and she organised for me to have a treadmill in the house so I could walk everyday. Then she and acc organised me to see someone for CBT, to help me control my anxiety. All this was part of the hip recovery - the anxiety and drop attacks were considered as normal after what I'de been through.

After a year I was finished with the treadmill and gym and CBT. Symptoms slowly abated and I was able to walk around the block (about twenty minutes) on my own without panicing and sobbing. I was able to drive myself to a new exercise programme - tai chi at $2 asession, once or twice a week. I was also meditating every afternoon while I rested.

Then Stress - Son's car crash (you can read about that saga in  separate posts.
After he'd recovered and moved on, more progress for me - symptoms almost disappeared. And a small success - got myself a training contract and a couple of private clients so a nice little part-time work-from-home income. (But, client's schedule meant no chance to get back to tai chi, and no morning walk.)
But I was again active in housework and driving, shopping... and feeling so positive about my recovery. I could "keep up" almost the whole day.

I was looking at finding a part-time job, even maybe returning to lecturing... but...

Sudddenly, from nowhere, symptoms have returned. I once again now need DH or DD to walk with me to the loo, to "catch" me if I drop. DH fetched the walker frame in from the garage for me yesterday, as even with the walking stick I can't do much after about nine am.

Monday's doctor diagnosing Meniere's has answered all our questions, but left me feeling i cannot plan on anything as a commitment. To use the great nz adjective - Bugger!


O - here's a little thought to ponder - over last few weeks before the flare up of anxiety, drops-n-falls etc, I had been so "full" of life I had been playing favourite rock music at almost full blast for a couple of hours at a time. Maybe I brought this relapse on myself?
Look at what they advise for managing Meniere's - it includes "stay in the quiet", "avoid noise" ...hhhhmmm.

O again - also recommended is "avoid television and reading" - and I'd started watching csi type tele again. I couldn't watch things like that during the first major bouts of symptoms, I'd get the spooks and freak out. So why did I start watching them again? Back to the food channel, I guess, or programmes that don't overuse zoom, tilt and pan effects.