Dizziness, tinnitus worries

[Garrett M]

Hi All
I'm trying to figure out what could be wrong with me. I'm 48 and was in generally good health, no medications, normal weight, blood pressure fine, etc. About 3 weeks ago I started feeling dizzy/lightheaded - no vertigo/spinning just lightheaded like I might pass out. My head just felt "not right". About a week later I started developing mild tinnitus as well. It seems my vision is sometimes just a little off, but that could just be the fact that over the past 2 years I have started needing reading glasses. My vision was always 20/20 until my mid 40's when I started noticing it was getting harder to read without some grocery store quality reading glasses. I have also noticed lots of anxiety (understandable if you feel lightheaded) and my digestion has been less than perfect (a little diarrhea, tho not too bad).

I thought it was maybe too much caffeine over a long period of time, so I gave up caffeine cold turkey a week ago. The withdrawal game me 2-3 days of headaches (the only headaches I've had in the past 3 weeks) and I generally feel better now but not as much better as I had hoped. I don't feel lightheaded very much anymore, but I still feel a bit sluggish, very slightly off balance/disconnected from reality, still have mild tinnitus, just feel run down.

Went to my doctor for a physical - he examined me and didn't find anything wrong. He sent me to a heart specialist who conducted some tests but so far these have come back negative. No blood pressure issues at all. Had a blood test today (standard as part of physical) so maybe that will tell me something.

Any ideas as to what could cause this? Could it be some sort of bug or inner ear infection? I don't feel any sinus or ear or head pain, just the dizziness/sluggishness/not-quite-right/anxious feeling.

 

[rmehelba]

Update: all my heart tests (cardiac echo, carotid ultrasound, etc) came back negative. I seem to be feeling better, less lightheaded but my balance is still somewhat off and I still have tinnitus. I feel much better in many ways from having gotten off caffeine, so I'm really glad I did that, but I'm a bit surprised that whatever I have still drags on after 4 weeks. I'm expecting blood test results in a week or so.

 

[Lea E]

Hello,
I hope your blood tests comeout fine. My friend had the same problem last year and all his results came back fine.. It was eventually ruled out that he had a bit of wear and tear in his cervical spine which sometimes caused pinched nerve and headaches and dizziness...He also had tinnitus ..He was referred few exercises and lots of swimming...He has been been feeling great since then...Sometimes it could be just a simple posture or the muscle stiffness ...I hope you get better ,,,
Amber

 

[Ben E]

Hi aamber111
Thanks for that information - that actually might make sense in my case. A few years ago I was having some problems with nerve pain in my legs when driving. The doctor eventually decided that it was some possible bulging disk problems, and he recommended some physical therapy. I did that for a few weeks and things got better. What I should have done is continue doing those specific PT exercises, but of course I didn't. The leg pain came back every so often, much less this time but still enough to notice from time to time. Anyway, when I was in Hawaii before I got sick (a month ago), I was noticing lots of nerve pain in my right leg, not terrible but worse than I had experienced recently. So perhaps all this was really some sort of pinched nerve, if that can indeed cause dizziness and tinnitus. Who knew? Anyway, now I'm doing these exercises again, plus some yoga and stretching every day. That seems to help. We'll see what the blood tests reveal.
Anyway thanks again.

 

[janew]

Well guess what folks? It turns out that this was nothing more serious than a Eustachian tube blockage. All my heart and blood tests came back fine (especially fine for the doctors since it cost me a couple grand to go through all those tests and see all those doctors). Eventually I just felt a sudden surge of pressure under my ear 9in my neck) and then a sudden flushing feeling, and 90% of the symptoms went away immediately. The rest lingered for a week slowly getting better. Now I'm back to normal. It's amazing how something so benign can really screw up your life for weeks.

One thing I found that really helps is a nasal rinse. You can get this at any drug store. It feels strange to squirt so much water up your nose and have it drip out the other nostril, but it really cleans out any gunk up there and makes breathing much easier. This helped stop any residual dizziness issues I had too.