I'd be curious to see your pt sheets, sure!
I guess you read Peg's helpful,description?

Before I saw the PT I googled and found most of the exercises already.

I do the repositioning exercises when I'm having an ear-rock incident, which is usually about once a year (the last several years it has been in the springtime, but in the past it happened at other seasons). I usually start with the Epley maneuver because the acute problem is in my posterior canal, and then about when the posterior canal gets better then I have some trouble with the horizontal canal so I switch to a barbecue roll maneuver. At least, this is how it went for the last two incidents when I really understood what was going on better. In previous years I would do the Epley which would help but wouldn't take care of everything, and then I was stuck, and I would make an appointment with the ENT, and my symptoms would clear up one day before the appointment. (just too late to cancel without paying a penalty). This was the reference that finally got me to understand the geometry of my nystagmus and what that meant about which canal was involved and what maneuver I should be doing: http://www.neurology.org/content/70/22/2067.full.html

I also have some neck-related dizziness. The sensation is sort of like that moment of free fall before the room really starts spinning (with the ear rocks), only in this case the spinning never starts. And it relates to neck position instead of head position, which took me forever to find out. I just recently started doing some exercises with my neck, but it's hard to stick at them because they either hurt or make me dizzy or both, and I wasn't seeing any benefits. Then I found this method http://www.natural-solutions-for-muscle-pain.com/sternocleidomastoid-muscle.html for massaging my neck, and it seemed to make a difference in just a couple of days. It does trigger the dizziness at first but somehow it doesn't seem as bad when I'm massaging as when I'm stretching - and the improvement was more obvious in a shorter time.

I'm interested in learning more about how to analyze my own gait to understand how a particular walking problem connects to a specific dizziness problem (ear? neck? incorrect brain compensation for ear or neck?), and also figuring out what neck postures would really be helpful in the long term or whether I'm doing something that seems to help temporarily but is actually counterproductive. But the nearest VRT is 100 miles away and I have that experience of never being able to get an ENT appointment at the same time I'm actually experiencing symptoms - so I would really rather learn how to understand these things myself.

From what my PT told me, the exercises are meant to make me dizzy In Order to habituate my brain. Something like that. If a specific exercise does not make me dizzy she has me stop and do something else.
I guess a lot of it is practice too because I worked long hours today and did not get to do my exercises till later on and the dizziness which had been gone for two days is back.

Yeah, it's exactly that habituation thing that I'm curious about. For one thing, I was really seeing no sign of habituation in myself when I did neck stretching exercises - the dizziness was less scary since I was deliberately seeking it out, but less scary is not the same thing as not there. Neither the incidence nor duration of dizziness was improving, and I still would not want that level of dizziness while standing or walking or working on a ladder. Then I started doing the massage tricks instead, and within three days I saw some reduction in both incidence and duration.

So, what's the point of habituation if it doesn't make you less likely to fall over? Or, is this the wrong kind of dizziness and I'm not supposed to be trying to habituate to this particular problem? That's what I need to learn.

For my occasional BPPV I do understand how the phenomenon "fatigues" itself, so seeking out the vertigo positions makes sense there, except that you also have to be careful that you're actually moving the ear rocks in the right way to get them out of the canal instead of just going into a different canal. Apparently if they get into the anterior canal there is no good maneuver to fix that. So when you're doing the maneuvers, vertigo is one sign that you're doing it right, but it has to be the right kind of vertigo with the right direction of nystagmus. That's not really the same thing as habituation, is it?

Then once the acute BPPV is mostly gone and I'm just left with that sort of paranoia that it's going to come back, I can feel my brain doing a recalibration. There's a point when I stop avoiding the sight of ceiling fans and start watching them deliberately so my brain can figure it out - is that what habituation means?

Lots of stuff to figure out. And of course the doctor doesn't want me doing maneuvers on my own, but as long as BPPV continues to strike during travel or holiday weekends, I need to know how. Knowledge is power.

Yes. I think that's what habituation is. Letting your brain figure it out. What your brain does next is beyond me.

I've got vestibular neuronitis. Been dizzy for 9 weeks now. More light headed once the three days of big dizzy disappeared.

I started PT on Monday. Went again on Wednesday. I did the exercises she gave me more than 4 x a day.

By Thursday my 90% light headed all day went down to 10%. I felt cured. The exercises caused dizziness but I had two lovely days of NO constant light headedness.

So Saturday was a long stressful day at work for me. I came home hot and tired. I only did the exercises once. I was dizzy most of the day. It came back! I'm dizzy today. It's better but still annoying.

So now I see that stress can make this worse? Am I correct?

And by the way. I'm interchanging dizzy and lightheaded. I never get vertigo any longer just that constant light tired achy feeling behind my eyes and a swimming feeling during the exercises.

I use "lightheaded" for a head rush, vision getting dark around the edges, weak in the knees. I get this with low blood pressure (pretty rarely these days since high BP is more of a problem now), but I think the symptoms would be similar with a lot of circulatory problems. I'll probably find out in another decade or two.

Vertigo, of course, for the one with the room spinning. Very distinctive.

And I use "dizzy" for the one that's hardest to describe. For me this is the neck-related problem. If it happens while I'm standing or walking I might stagger but I haven't fallen down (yet). Mostly it just feels like everything goes sort of unreal and I don't exactly know which direction is up - but at least the direction of up isn't changing rapidly the way it does with the vertigo. No visual effects that I've noticed.

I don't have Meniere's and I don't think I have neuritis, but I imagine each has some similarities to the other problems and little tiny detailed differences that take a while to notice, so the doctor thinks you're keeping important details from him. Am I right?

I'm starting to appreciate how many different kinds of dizziness there are, and even with all of us trying to be careful about terminology, sometimes we have to fall back on the non-specific word.

I am on day 7 of my triamterene and while it may be too soon to say whether it's definitely working, I have had a lot of 'good' days lately and found I've had more confidence to go about my day to day activities and haven't had the usual bad headaches....the ENT told me it could take about two weeks before the meds really make a difference but I can certainly say my attitude and health in general has improved greatly, and a lot of it comes with having an actual diagnosis and treatment. For me, a lot of the other health issues piled on while I was trying to figure out what was going on with me, which lead to the heart palpitations, anxiety and loss of appetite. I haven't been to PT yet but that is an option if the meds don't work completely. I've read a lot of advice, and have been given advice, to keep active and move around. Easier said than done in the early stages but now I find that if I just go about my daily activities I don't focus so much on the worries like I used to. I'm not 100% yet, as I still feel the 'wobbles' when I walk sometimes and I do get the swimmy head from time to time and the feeling like there's a weight in the back of my head, but not having the headaches and level of lightheadedness and/or dizziness is a huge success for me. I go back to the ENT later this month so I will see where that leads, but in the meantime, I hope everyone in this group continues to fight whatever they have and to keep a positive attitude and outlook and don't let your mind get too busy with worries and get you in a funk. I wish I went to the ENT a lot sooner, but I started to deal with all the other stuff like MRIs and EKGs and stress tests and X-Rays and the other stuff just to rule things out. If you can rule out the worst-case scenarios, then dealing with this should be a lot easier! Best of luck, my friends!