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New - Lightheadedness with Spinal Stenosis
Spine Health | Last Active: Mar 17 7:02pm | Replies (13)Comment receiving replies
Hi Jennifer - Thank you for sharing your experience. I’m not sure of all the details of my situation until I talk to the neurosurgeon. Did you have lightheadedness strictly from the rotation? I haven’t seen that mentioned in my mri report.
I feel like this is now halting my life and after three months of PT not working and trying to get appts I’m scared and frustrated. I’m starting the process to take leave from work. I work from home and for the last two months spend most the day lying down or trying to keep it together enough to be present for tele conf calls.
I have appts with a neurologist on 3/17, a neurosurgeon 3/25, and a second neurosurgeon 4/3.
The first neurosurgeon I’m seeing is affiliated with a local university and is quite reputable. I’m hopeful
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@juljul It sounds like you are on a path to a resolution. To answer your question about dizziness and vertigo, that was specifically related to when my C1 & C2 vertebrae were rotating independently, and working with my PT to straighten that out and realign the vertebrae corrected it completely, but temporarily until the next muscle spasm started things moving and rotating again. I have thoracic outlet syndrome which causes one side of my neck and shoulder muscles to be tighter which causes the rotation if those muscles are contracting more than the other side. Since my spine surgery fusion at C5/C6, the situation has calmed own and this doesn't happen anymore.
As far as imaging reports, I wouldn't expect this symptom to be listed. Reports are about physical findings that cause compression, and likely don't describe what happens if you move in a particular way. That is the job of the doctor to correlate your symptoms with the physical findings in the imaging.
I understand the anxiety. I went through it too, and when you don't know what the problem is and how it can be fixed, you start imagining that you'll be stuck like this forever. Just take it one day at a time. It helped me to write down my symptoms and how they changed over time. Even though I was scared, I had to advocate for myself going toward surgery. I had 5 surgeons refuse to help me over 2 years time as I was getting worse. I finally came to Mayo and got help there that changed my life. The other surgeons missed understanding the problem and my symptoms of having pain all over my body that confused them, and they didn't have confidence to do surgery. I went through 4 months of having panic attacks and I had to figure out how to deal with and deprogram that fear. That itself was life changing, and fear no longer controls me when I am faced with medical procedures.
You may be interested in this discussion about addressing fear.
Just Want to Talk - "How can I defeat my anxiety about medical tests and surgery?"
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/how-can-i-defeat-my-anxiety-about-medical-tests-and-surgery/
For me, the moments before a surgeon walks into the room to talk to me were some of the most intense moments because I didn't know what to expect, but this would be someone who most likely would propose surgery that scared me.
Do you have a routine to help yourself get through fearful situations?