Response to barbb about VRT: VRT is special PT aimed at balance issues. You have a primary balance system, your inner ear, but it can be damaged. In addition, your inner ear works less effectively as you age, whether or not there's additional damage. Your secondary balance system is vision, but using your eyes to balance leads to imbalance and, in many cases, dizziness and/or nausea. Every time you move your head, you lose your focal point, so using vision to balance leads to problems and increases your imbalance. You need to learn to use your third balance system, proprioception, or the information provided by your feet, ankles, knees, etc.--in other words, your body. Simply put, proprioception is what enables you to know which way and how much to lean against the wind when you're standing on an exposed point.

Hearing and balance are closely associated. The acoustic and vestibular nerves are side by side and are often twisted together; what affects one can easily affect the other, so many HOH people also have balance issues. In addition, both hearing and balance function decline as we age. I believe that all older people should learn to do some simple VRT...and do it every day. It will enable you to feel more stable, and it will also improve your eye-hand coordination (no more slicing your fingers instead of the veggies!).

Good news: VRT does work! Unlike most exercise, VRT is not difficult, doesn't require lots of special equipment. Bad news: you must do it every day for it to be effective. Once you learn proprioception, you can do VRT while you're doing something else. For example, I live on a gravel road and our mailbox is a quarter mile away. Every day, when I walk out to get the mail, I spend at least half the walk with my eyes closed, thinking about what my feet feel. I also have specific exercises, but I've learned that really concentrating on what my feet feel while I've "shut off" vision is the most effective thing I can do. If you really work on VRT every single day, you WILL see real improvement in a month or less.

I have a godawful disease, Meniere's, which takes both hearing and vision. I had my first serious problems with it about 40 years ago, in my 40s, after I quit taking birth control pills. I began to have increasingly bad crises every month within a day of the start of a period, so the connection between hormones and horrible imbalance, vomit fests, crises that each lasted 12-15 hours was obvious. It took my primary doc and me four years to stumble upon a safe, effective form of hormone replacement (HRT). At that time, there were hardly any PTs specializing in VRT, so I learned it long distance while working on publishing a book about Meniere's: the author sent me exercises via e-mail. The combination of good hormones and VRT so changed my life that I continued VRT every day. Then, over a year ago, I suddenly went bilateral, meaning my so-called "good" ear was now affected as well. Initially, the greatest problem was almost total deafness, but crises soon began, until I was forced to lie still, vomiting, for hours every day. I finally found a doc in this small town willing to prescribe HRT, and, not only did the vomiting and vertigo cease, but my hearing returned to about where it had been before I had gone bilateral! Still, I was having issues with lack of balance, so I scheduled a appt. with a VRT specialist. I felt that it would do me good to see someone who actually knew about VRT, since I really hadn't all those years ago. After less than a month of biweekly appts with lots of daily work, I had normal balance and could do active things again. At 78, I still do instream data collection for our state fisheries agency, in a small stream that cascades down a very steep canyon. Once again, I'm able to walk and wade 6.5 miles to do the basic surveys I've done for years, plus install temperature monitors to track summer temps. I can drive on curving roads without a problem, hike anywhere my old body is willing to go, and live a more than normal life for someone my age. VRT gave me my life back!

So, go to your appt. with an open mind and be willing to work every day. You will soon feel more stable, more able to do normal things, and you'll feel much better about yourself. It's well worth it!

Jump to this post