Chronic Subjective Dizziness-CSD

I feel your pain brother. I was at Mayo last nov.,and diagnosed with CSD. Mine started 27 mos. ago. I too had numerous tests and scans by a variety of specialists before heading to Mayo. They believe it first started out with migraines over a period of years. Then in March of 2010, I came down with what my pcp thought was an ear infection. I struggled the next few wks with intermitant dizziness but was still able to work. Then came the boatloads of anxiety. It came in unpredictable waves so strong that I could not drive or be driven for several mos. For the next year and a half, I was put on 10 or 12 different meds. including anti-depressants and anti-seizure types. Not one helped and often made me feel worse. I too use a small daily regimin of anxiety med (benzodiazapine). This does not cure or eradicate the symptoms, but rather settles them a little. Aside from the personal and professional ramifications, the hardest thing is to get the local doc's to take an interest in understanding this illness and the possibility of emerging treatment. Sorry to be longwinded, I was just curious if your situation was the same. Would love to hear from you or anyone else similar experience's. Best of luck.

I feel your pain brother. I was at Mayo last nov.,and diagnosed with CSD. Mine started 27 mos. ago. I too had numerous tests and scans by a variety of specialists before heading to Mayo. They believe it first started out with migraines over a period of years. Then in March of 2010, I came down with what my pcp thought was an ear infection. I struggled the next few wks with intermitant dizziness but was still able to work. Then came the boatloads of anxiety. It came in unpredictable waves so strong that I could not drive or be driven for several mos. For the next year and a half, I was put on 10 or 12 different meds. including anti-depressants and anti-seizure types. Not one helped and often made me feel worse. I too use a small daily regimin of anxiety med (benzodiazapine). This does not cure or eradicate the symptoms, but rather settles them a little. Aside from the personal and professional ramifications, the hardest thing is to get the local doc's to take an interest in understanding this illness and the possibility of emerging treatment. Sorry to be longwinded, I was just curious if your situation was the same. Would love to hear from you or anyone else similar experience's. Best of luck.

I feel your pain brother. I was at Mayo last nov.,and diagnosed with CSD. Mine started 27 mos. ago. I too had numerous tests and scans by a variety of specialists before heading to Mayo. They believe it first started out with migraines over a period of years. Then in March of 2010, I came down with what my pcp thought was an ear infection. I struggled the next few wks with intermitant dizziness but was still able to work. Then came the boatloads of anxiety. It came in unpredictable waves so strong that I could not drive or be driven for several mos. For the next year and a half, I was put on 10 or 12 different meds. including anti-depressants and anti-seizure types. Not one helped and often made me feel worse. I too use a small daily regimin of anxiety med (benzodiazapine). This does not cure or eradicate the symptoms, but rather settles them a little. Aside from the personal and professional ramifications, the hardest thing is to get the local doc's to take an interest in understanding this illness and the possibility of emerging treatment. Sorry to be longwinded, I was just curious if your situation was the same. Would love to hear from you or anyone else similar experience's. Best of luck.

Hello Dizzydude. I have had similar experiences since having a severe sinus infection in 2009. For several months I had daily dizziness and problems with visual stimuli, as well as a sensation of fluid and fullness in my left ear, and then the symptoms suddenly disappeared.

For three years symptoms were almost absent, but they returned with a vengeance, again after a sinus infection, in July 2012. I have been tested for Meniere's disease, which has been eliminated as a cause, and have seen a neurologist, who suspects migraines may be implicated. I definitely get cervicogenic headaches from time to time, but do not think the dizziness is migraine-related; migraine medications have not relieved it at all. None of the ENTs, nor the neurologist, I have seen, feel that my sinus or ear problems have much, if anything, to do with my dizziness, but I do.

I too have a history of anxiety problems and am quite aware that I get caught in a vicious circle of dizziness and anxiety feeding upon one another. Doctors have generally just told me "you need to deal with your anxiety." I see a therapist weekly, but she does not know specific techniques to help with this problem. I found Dr. Jeffrey Staab and his colleagues' research online and realized that Chronic Subjective Dizziness was exactly what I was experiencing. I am fortunate to be in MN, and am going to the psychiatry clinic at Mayo, where Dr. Staab now practices, later in the month. For the first time since last July I feel like there is some hope for a correct diagnosis and treatment that might actually help me. If you are the kind of person who is able to read such things, there are a number of articles and studies accessible online by Dr. Staab and his former colleague at Penn, Michael J. Ruckenstein, which discuss the disorder and might be enlightening for you.
http://mayoresearch.mayo.edu/mayo/research/staff/Staab_JP.cfm
I am a primarily self-employed in fine art and commercial photography, and this illness has been devastating on my professional life over the past eight months. Colleagues and even friends do not understand how debilitating this is; even on days when I do not feel dizzy the "brainfog" is usually present, and it has prevented me from being able to work at times, but also to look for work or do billing or accounting related to self-employment, so, I am now at the point where no calls for work are coming in. I do have two very part-time jobs that are very low-stress and that I have been able to continue. But it is only because I had money in savings and am a resourceful person who lives fairly simply that I am not completely impoverished after eight months of almost no work.

It helps to know about this diagnosis/condition to to read of other people who have experienced it. There have definitely been days in recent months when I simply thought I was losing my mind, and yet I felt in my gut that there was some underlying physiological issue, because this was so unlike any other symptom I had encountered in 30 years of living with anxiety.

Best of luck to you in finding an effective treatment.

I feel your pain brother. I was at Mayo last nov.,and diagnosed with CSD. Mine started 27 mos. ago. I too had numerous tests and scans by a variety of specialists before heading to Mayo. They believe it first started out with migraines over a period of years. Then in March of 2010, I came down with what my pcp thought was an ear infection. I struggled the next few wks with intermitant dizziness but was still able to work. Then came the boatloads of anxiety. It came in unpredictable waves so strong that I could not drive or be driven for several mos. For the next year and a half, I was put on 10 or 12 different meds. including anti-depressants and anti-seizure types. Not one helped and often made me feel worse. I too use a small daily regimin of anxiety med (benzodiazapine). This does not cure or eradicate the symptoms, but rather settles them a little. Aside from the personal and professional ramifications, the hardest thing is to get the local doc's to take an interest in understanding this illness and the possibility of emerging treatment. Sorry to be longwinded, I was just curious if your situation was the same. Would love to hear from you or anyone else similar experience's. Best of luck.