Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gatech.CSNET Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!gatech!carter From: carter@gatech.CSNET (Carter Bullard) Newsgroups: net.med Subject: Re: Need help with dizziness and heart pounding symptoms. Message-ID: <451@gatech.CSNET> Date: Mon, 29-Apr-85 15:50:45 EDT Article-I.D.: gatech.451 Posted: Mon Apr 29 15:50:45 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 30-Apr-85 04:25:20 EDT References: <134@heurikon.UUCP> <10212@brl-tgr.ARPA> Reply-To: carter@gatech.UUCP (Carter Bullard) Organization: School of ICS, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Lines: 45 In article <10212@brl-tgr.ARPA> ron@brl-tgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie ) writes: >> I am a 41 year old female. I have been dizzy every day since >> mid February. The dizziness is mild on waking, and becomes >> progressively worse during the day. The dizziness is of the type >> where I feel as if I'm going to fall over; the room does not spin. >> I even feel as if I'm going to fall over while I'm sitting. >> >> My left ear always feels blocked >> but it checks out okay. >> >I'd go for a more complex ear examination. My mother had similar >problems. The tests included running water in your ear and testing >which way you thought you were spinning. I don't know too many >details. > >-Ron This is not really an ear examination, but rather a part of a more comprehensive neurological exam. The running water is really cold water, and is designed to stimulate the vestibular nerve. The direction that you spin in while walking in place blindfolded gives you some indication of vestibular deficit. Generally with midbrain and/or brainstem problems there are a constellation of symptoms that reflect deficits of several cranial nerves. In this situation the dizziness may be a vestibular nerve problem with the heart and blood pressure problems after eating being of vagal nerve origin, as both of these nerves are both quite close to each other in the medulla. In order to properly investigate the potential for a medullary tumor you pretty much have to do a CAT scan. My suggestion is to go back to a neurologist if he did not do a CAT series. This is what any novice neurologist would do first. If this proved to be a blind alley, the next thing would be to check for either stroke or epilepsy, involving cerebral angiography for the stroke and EEG's for the epilepsy. There are also a host of other things that could be wrong, but these would be big on any neurologists list. -- Carter Bullard School of Information and Computer Science Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, Georgia 30332 CSNet:Carter @ Gatech ARPA:Carter.Gatech @ CSNet-relay.arpa uucp:...!{akgua,allegra,amd,ihnp4,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!carter