ENT guy swears it’s not the ears, or if it is, it’s probably neurological…etc.
OTOH on the way home, after thinking about a statement he made that the bilateral brain does rely on having input from senses in some sort of agreement…I began thinking about the time of onset of some problems, and the cataract surgery, the new reading glasses, but also the fact that, within 6 feet of me, I have astigmatism as a fairly major problem—read: I can’t see the ground I’m walking on without glasses, and the reading glasses are too short-focused. SO I took an ancient pair of driving glasses out of the overhead of the car, put them on, and it was as if my brain relaxed. Mmmm. Not dizzy, which I have been nearly continually for months.
Well, the other issue is blood pressure. Dunno if fighting vision problems can elevate your blood pressure (I’m now on very mild meds for that) but definitely blood pressure could affect the vision.
Complicating everything was the adventure with a generic thyroid med—which did affect my blood pressure.
Well. The blood pressure problem remains: I’m reducing salt a bit, watching the coffee intake, and generally trying to be good, and it is trending down…so we shall see.
I at least have some hope i am not stuck with this dizziness for the rest of my life.
DId I mention a glitch with my headphones took out my laptop mouse, keyboard, and headphones and delivered, repeatedly, the Blue Screen of Death. Was on the phone with Dell for an hour, ran diagnostics, and finally figured the keyboard wasn’t working. Nor was much else. We happened to have a usb keyboard and a usb mouse, so we got it to go to safe mode.
The problem started when the headphones glitched and the Logitech site said uninstall the ‘gaming software,’ meaning itself. Well, it glitched partway through, hence the initial Blue Screen. And I couldn’t finish the uninstall. After I got off with Dell, Jane got the brilliant idea of going up in safe mode, finishing the Logitech uninstall, doing some stalled updates caught in the mix, one of which WAS for wireless, and, ta dah! the Blue Screen gave way to proper behavior. She’s got the system running. Including the headset.
Dell was going to send me a box to ship the machine in for a reinstall of Win 7, but I think I’m going to tell them what we did and how we did it and suggest they not ship me the box for a bit, in the case we have actually fixed the hangup.
Glad to know you have tracked down a possible cause of the dizziness. With this in mind you might want to see what cataract surgery can do to relieve the problem.
I HAD the cataract surgery just before this problem started. I opted for the distance lenses without astigmatism correction, because that’s what Medicare would pay for. You have to wait for a while for your eyes to recover before getting a new glasses prescription, but I only got one for reading, not distance (astigmatism doesn’t affect me as much in the distance.) but the immediate ground under my feet is too far for reading glasses and too close for the distance lenses. The old driving glasses CAN handle that area.
Presbyopia is causing that. Personally, I tried progressives and had symptoms something like yours. Half-and-half bifocals were better, bit still needing adjusting to. You might do as I have done.
What I’ve done for years now is demand a single vision prescription, but an unusual one a former optometrist refused to make. Reading focal length = 0.5m. “Computer” focal length = 1m. Driving focal length = infinity. Pick one. “No, we can’t do business.” What I get from a different optometrist and wear for everything has a focal length of ~2m. Perfect for gardening, not quite for computer work, but close; not quite for driving, but close. (I take ’em off to read–my astigmatism isn’t that bad.)
A photographer would tell me it’s because the “half-focal length” pretty much covers both–since driving doesn’t actually require focusing on infinity.
It’s so frustrating to know what you need and what works best for you, and be thwarted by the system in your attempts to get it. Almost as frustrating is having to compromise and take unsatisfying half measures, when it would be so easy to fix something if you could just get what you need without having to jump through hoops or pay a whole lot extra.
Although they provide eye exams (by an optometrist/PA) and will measure you for glasses, until this past year, the VA did not provide glasses for all vets, just those with service connected vision problems. Going through the VA, I could get lined bifocals for free. No lines you had to pay extra for, also the photochromic lens material (that lightens and darkens to adjust to light). Lined bifocals drive me up the proverbial wall. The VA only springs for one pair of glasses a year, so no prescription sunglasses. Clip-on sunglasses are such a PITA, but I have blue eyes, and when I go outside, the bright flatlands sun (as you know) just all but knocks me to my knees. My dear sweet mom gave me money for Christmas to take care of getting just exactly what I needed — No lines bifocals, in the Transitions lenses. –I still read without my glasses, though, and always have. My right eye has an uncorrected focal depth that’s just perfect. My left eye just tunes out.
I hear you. In March I reluctantly visited the ‘local’ VA hospital 40 miles away for a left eye that would water inconveniently whenever it took a mind too. No rhyme or reason. VA couldn’t find anything wrong, but gave me a prescription for ‘dry eyes’ anyway. Also decided that my eye prescription had changed enough to warrant new glasses.
My current civilian glasses are no line, but not photochromic, since that was so much more expensive, at least a hundred dollars or more. They were practically giving the no line bifocals away at that eye store. I was astounded that the VA offered photochromic lenses, but not no line bifocals. I guess the extra $20 dollars was going to bankrupt the VA.
Anyway…. the photochromic glasses came in about two weeks in the mail. I have yet to travel back to the VA hospital to have them fitted. My bad, but I’ve gotten so used to the no line bifocals I’m afraid the new ones would drive me nuts.
My indoor glasses are no-line (AKA progressive) and my prescription sunglasses are the traditional bifocals with a line, because the tint helps hide it, and I’m usually not wearing the shades for close work. (It’s hard to get them dark enough for SoCal sunshine. I need something like Gray 5, about two steps darker than anything actually available.)
I don’t have a problem with either kind of lens, actually. They’re both quite comfortable to wear.
You’re lucky your closest VA hospital is only 40 miles away. Mine is over 100 miles away.
My face is very ‘flat’, ie, you can draw a ruler line down from my eye to my mouth, so I don’t have enough forward-territory to position bifocals well. I tried them, but between a ‘torqued’ astigmatism, that’s different at different distances, apparently—I don’t understand what they mean, but apparently it requires more than three dimensions to grind a lens that would deliver all that—and my face is so flat I can look over the top of glasses, but to look through the bottom half of the glasses requires real muscle strain. They tried and tried to get the bifocals to work for me but my face is my face and there was no way to prop them higher up, apparently. End result, I carry reading glasses, and if things do not improve, I’m going to have to carry both distance AND reading. I’m using a neck-chain retention on the reading glasses, but when it gets to two pair—I refuse to wear that much adornment all at once. I’m going to have to get a small glasses case on a clip that I can fasten to the D ring of my purse, or to a belt-loop or whatever, and just take the time to change glasses at need.
I have a case that lives in a pocket in my purse, with whichever pair I’m not wearing at the time.
My eyes started going downhill about 15 years ago; it started with astigmatism and a touch of nearsightedness. Now, as I’ve aged, the nearsightedness has mostly gone, but the astigmatism is proving to be a real pill. Reading and computer use have never been a challenge; the first place I noticed glasses improving things was for driving, but now close work is getting into the act, so I have trouble threading needles and so on. If I get all-in-ones I will need trifocals, but for the moment, my glasses requirements look like one pair for driving/distance, and one pair for detail work.
My left eye is 20/45, and my right eye is 20/”What chart?” (20/200)– yet I have crisp clear vision in my right eye from the end of my nose right up to the end of my arm. That is the eye I read with, thread needles with, do close work with. If I try to pull the focus of my left eye in for some things like reading, it puts too much “torque” on my brain for some reason. I’ve always read with my right eye even wearing glasses. My left eye just “tunes out,” unfocuses and takes a nap. I usually just take my glasses off to read. If I read for any length of time (like binge reading Foreigner books) and then stop, it takes a moment for my left eye to wake back up and until it does, it’s like half the world is gone . . . Monovision contacts worked quite well for me.
I had to go to plastic lenses because the lens for my right eye got to be so thick and heavy it pulled my glasses cattywompus on my nose — and because they quit putting Coke in glass bottles, thus making the supply of Coke bottle bottoms problematic!
Depending on what I’m doing, I may not even put my glasses on — if I’m knitting or reading. But if I’m going to be at the computer or watching TV or out and about, then they go on. My glasses are either in the case or on my face. Thankfully, I just have to have the one pair.