Vertigo and time on my hands!

Chest and lungs
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As I am currently suffering a severe bout of vertigo which has had me walking into walls and all sorts, I am spending most of my waking hours visiting the thousands of copd sites that are available to us. This is my all time favourite one and the only one that I post on. It is the one where I feel 'at home' and so I usually check in regularly at least a couple of times a week to see if anyone new has posted and to keep up to date with how my 'invisible friends', Jacee and Tessa are doing.

Over the xmas /new year period I got pretty depressed and found myself silently crying for no particular reason on numerous occasions. I eventually saw the doc who gave me anti depressants (SSRI's) but I stopped taking them after a few days. I felt that the various inhalers and water tablets I am already on were more than enough to be putting into my body every day. I'm glad I stopped taking them now. I may not be full of the joys of spring but I feel better and am no longer crying. If I had been clinically depressed then I would take the tablets, but in retrospect I think that living with something like copd and the limitations it can place on you, it is perfectly reasonable to feel depressed from time to time.

As I explained to the doc, it was not the idea of being 'ill', or any fear of premature death that was getting me down, it was the practical, day to day aspects - things that must affect all of us, particularly women. Perhaps I should re think that last comment and say that it probably has slightly different aspects for men and women.

It's mostly unimportant things really, but grouped altogether they can have a pretty devastating effect. For me, its my hair being a constant mess, when it used to be my crowning glory. I only wash it once a week at most, have no energy left to blow dry it and neither the energy or funds for visits to a hairdresser. And the house is never ship shape - I struggle to keep up with laundry, shopping and cooking and can't muster the strength for anything more. So I get to feeling like I'm just a big fat mess that's sitting amidst a big fat mess, and that this is my life. Most of all I miss basic physical strength - the cliff path walks, any walks - and being able to continue as a massage therapist. Oh, and I miss my old figure big time!

For the menfolk, most probably aren't quite so fussed about the state of the house or whether they have energy for hair and make-up! But I think they feel that lack of physical strength more than we do and suffer psychologically for it.

Anyhow, over the next day or so you will probably witness a flurry of postings from me as I have little else to do until this vertigo has cleared up! Also I have come across one or two items whilst 'surfing' that might be worth passing on. I will post each in new threads as those with more knowledge or interest than myself may wish to reply or add to them.

So, bye for now, hope this finds you all well, ( i'm swimmingly well lol)

from vertigo vanessa :wink:

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Hi 'vertigo' Vanessa,

What a great post.

My Granddaughter had vertigo from a baby but we didn't know it until I took her to see a consultant at the age of 14. She would wake up some mornings with her head spinning and have to sit with her back against the wall pressing the back of her head into it. When she did PE at school she sometimes couldn't get up from the floor. Our GP gave numerous reasons for this. But the consultant pin pointed it straight away and he asked various questions about how she walked,sat, held herself etc. We thought it was part and parcel of her, but he said they were classic symptoms of vertigo. We had never had a day out once she was born because she couldn't travel. She would say her head felt sick. So I learned to drive and little by little taking her out in the car with me she improved greatly. The only time she would have to get out and walk was if the windscreen wipers were on.

Depression. I hear you loud and clear Vanessa. It is not the condition or the thought of death, but that I feel dirty because the effort of climbing over the bath to shower and wash my hair is getting less and less. Once I have done that I cannot breathe for the rest of the day. I have to sit and watch my once clean and tidy house get worse. If I have a good day I will try and do the most needed jobs, but am then laid up for a couple of days. This week, I cleaned the toilet, I used as much energy as I could with the brush and when I flushed it was sparkling white. I actually cried.

It is not being able to do the mundane, boring, ordinary things that cause the depression.

What I wouldn't give to go for a walk again, just round the houses would do. I used to walk everywhere and I miss it so.

The shopping my husband or one of my daughters .but its no good because I can't remember half of what is in the shops.

I do not live alone, my husband works long hours, my eldest daughter is unwell and not much better than me and my youngest daughter works full time and has her 9 year old daughter to look after as well as me and her sister, so that leaves her little time for cleaning.

Just getting over another infection and trying to stay positive but not doing very well.

Tessa

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Wow! Thats amazing - I had never heard of a small child having vertigo before - it makes you wonder how many others have had it in infancy because of course they can't tell you their symptoms. I well remember the guesswork involved when mine were small and unwell.

I think you were pretty brave and resourceful learning to drive at the 'Grandmother' stage of life. Funny how us mums can do and learn things we have never done before when it's for our children -well done you! I've always been a coward where drivings' concerned and never learned. My daughter thinks this is very odd, but as I told her, when I was young most wives left it to their husbands -for one thing the average family couldn't afford two cars until the seventies or eighties. Indeed the phrase 'two car family' was used to imply that someone was quite well off. Nowadays the Kids think they are hard done by if they don't have a car the moment they finish school! Oops - I'm starting to sound like a 'Grumpy Old Woman'!

Sorry to hear you have been depressed too - it really is part and parcel of this isn't it? I think we should each be prescribed a fairy godmother who would appear each morning to run us a bath, lay out clean clothes for the day, all nicely ironed , do our hair for us and a little make up if we want it and then provide our breakfast. I've just realized - that's why statistics show that men are less depressed by it than women - the wife does all that for them without even thinking about it! I really have read (I think in copd for dummies) that men find it easier to cope with on a day to day basis. It must be the reason - think about it- all the washing, ironing, cooking, shopping and housework is done for them, they don't even think about it, so don't have the guilt trip we do. If they still work then that is all they have to do, and if they have stopped work they can just concentrate on themselves and so they do have the energy to go for a stroll or whatever. Basically what we girls need is a wife! Bet we wouldn't be half as depressed then !

:lol:

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My GP won't prescribe a fairy godmother.......where can I buy one? he he he

Tessa