Constant diziness falsely related to alcohol

Alisa_88

Alisa_88

Newcomer
Hi, I am glad to finally post here. I am new to writing on the forum, but not to TMS. I have successfuly recovered myself from disabling TMS pain over the past years and am well documented on this.

I thought I became very good at recognizing and disabling symptoms, but today I have fears and doubt again.

I have been drinking a little more alcohol these past months, although I already did this over the course of my entire life. After sobering up and going for long walks, I often noticed I had a few seconds sometimes when I was unbalanced and thought I was going to fall ("like my balance was being removed for a couple of seconds). But I think I always had this and it didn't worry me at all until it seemed to become more frequent.

Then it started to be more like general diziness when walking, on and off, and the symptoms would completely disappear when I was under the influence of a few glasses of wine, but return after being sober, like 5-6 hours later. I got scared as it seemed to get worst and I couldn't function during the day (I only drank in the evening) so stoped drinking completely, thinking if was a form of withdrawal symptoms.

But now it's been 5 days it's only getting worst, like with feelings of being nauseous and general sickness as well. Now it seem to be more when I enter a place that I get dizzy, more than when I just walk. and it's not so much about feeling I am gonna fall like in the beginning. That is even more why I am thinking of this being a TMS, because symptoms are moving (the concern started around two weeks ago) and also because if started when I started to worry.

Now I am thinking that avoiding alcohol completely might make it worse, cause in case of TMS I normally do everything that would make it worse if it was a real condition, to prove myself I believe 100% it is not. So by not drinking I am feeding the idea that it's not a TMS. It's like if I had TMS pain in my stomach, I would not stop drinking coffee, to prove myself it has nothing to do with that !

Let me know what you're thinking, maybe you've been through that ?
Huge thanks,
Al
 
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Hi @Alisa_88 and welcome to the forum.

I don't have experience related to your specific situation, although PPD/PPPD (more below) is one of the symptoms that became disabling for me back in 2011 when I was having my lifetime-of-TMS-coming-to-a-head crisis at age 60. I'd had mild symptoms of the PPD for several years by then, and my doc at the time (she was my age and has since retired) said "a lot of my post-menopausal patients have dizziness". She was sympathetic, but also had nothing to offer. Looking back, I'm thankful she didn't send me down the "let's test everything" path because she did not think there was anything abnormally wrong with me. And she was right. But I digress.

Reading your post, I really think you've already answered your own questions, because I agree with your essential conclusions.

Don't forget two key things about the TMS brain mechanism:

1. Your primitive and fearful TMS brain has the power of the entire brain at its disposal, for the purpose of recreating ANY physical symptom or sensation whatsoever - because it is a neuroscientific fact that every single physiological process, symptom, and sensation comes from functions within the brain, and that includes the vestibular (inner-ear) sensations of PPD.

2. Your personal TMS brain mechanism is extremely skilled at creating a symptom that is custom-designed to distract YOU, to create doubt in YOU, and, quite often, to be just different enough that you will never be able to compare your symptom to anyone else.

This (now) really old thread about dizziness has what is deemed to be the best written resource about what is variously referred to in our world as PPD (Psycho-Physiological Dizziness) or, medically, as PPPD - (Persistent Postural Perceptual Dizziness):
Psycho-Physiological Dizziness Syndrome (PPDS) | TMS Forum (The Mindbody Syndrome) (tmswiki.org)

The associated PDF file linked frequently in this thread is all about treating PPPD as PPD - in other words, treating it as psychological, not physical. That PDF is essential reading for anyone with PPD symptoms. The entire thread is highly recommended if you're up for five pages of posts :eek: . There are some really awesome posts by members we haven't seen in a while, particularly @Gigalos and @BinLA.
 
Thanks a lot for your fast answer ! really appreciate that. And I didn't know what PPDS was that is great news wow it seem to match that !!

Then I guess now I am only wondering if I should keep drinking to tell my brain I know it's fake, or take it as an advice and try just quit it - though it would mean I believe it's not a TMS... I am facing an interesting challenge now.
 
Alisa_88 said:
Then I guess now I am only wondering if I should keep drinking to tell my brain I know it's fake, or take it as an advice
Click to expand...
Great topic for a therapeutic writing session! You said you're familiar with TMS work and recovery - does that include some form of writing, aka journaling? If not, we have easy-to-access suggestions.
 
Could that be vestibular migraine? I had that and it was horrible...lasted a few weeks at a time. I don't have this anymore -- never had another symptom ever again! Do you have any other symptoms of migraine? I know one woman whose symptom of migraine was dizziness only, but that wasn't the case for me. Good luck!!!
 
Do you feel at all conflicted about alcohol? Like you 'shouldn't' drink, or it's something you've had a problem with in the past? I've been there, if so - after being a bit of a toper in my youth, I went teetotal for nearly six years recently, and being sober became my new 'identity', and I spent hours daily on Quit Drinking sites and Sober Inspo blogs and support forums... I convinced myself that being sober would solve all my problems, and if it wasn't, I just wasn't sobering hard enough... I got on quite a high horse about it...

This year, in my ongoing quest to be a bit kinder to myself and lighten the hell up , I am coming back to having the odd glass of red wine. I had an initial flare of TMS symptoms after all those years of anti-booze conditioning - anxiety, eye symptoms, odd pains - but going forward, I am finding it so nice to be able to mellow out a little from time to time... I'm appreciating the conviviality of it, and the accompaniment to good food, and as long as I don't overdo it, I'm finding it a useful tool in my relaxation kit...

But I have had dizziness as a TMS symptom, and if this is a thing you're at all conflicted about, then sure, I can well believe it's TMS!

Cheers!
 
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