God Bless You, Web MD

I woke up one Saturday morning a few weeks back, slung my legs over the side of the bed, popped up, and immediately sat back down, hard. I was overcome with the most serious attack of vertigo I'd ever experienced. After about 10 seconds it passed, and I stood up slowly, waiting for the room to dance out from under me. Nothing happened.

It wasn't the first time I'd experienced such a thing, so I opted for my usual approach to potential health problems: ignore it. I was fine all day, and that night when I went to bed I laid back and BAM! The room spun around on a gyroscope. I closed my eyes and waited it out, pretending I was in astronaut training. Sure enough, about 10-15 seconds later it subsided. Jesus, that was weird. Whatever. I went to bed.

The next morning I'd forgotten about the incident(s), and repeated the pop-out-of-bed-get-crazy-dizzy-and-sit-back-down phenomenon. Okay, this is starting to cause me some mild concern. I mean, what the hell could it be? I tried sitting back on the bed. Nothing. I laid down...vertigo. Wow. I sat back up, very very slowly. It took a few seconds to kick in, and it didn't last as long, but it repeated itself.

For the next ten days this continued. When you're a kid a slight bout of vertigo can be fun. This was not fucking fun. I figured out that it happened any time I leaned my head to the side, leaned back, laid down, or got up from laying down. Now I consider myself the farthest thing from a hypochondriac, but this was fairly alarming. I know that dizzy spells can be a sign of something serious. Do I have a tumor? Is it gonna get worse? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?? Those thoughts were starting to fill my head more often than a 15 year old boy thinks about sex, and that simply will not do. I mean that throws a serious wrench in your day, leaving precious little time to think about sex. Unacceptable.

So, I finally broke down and made a doctor's appointment. That would be four days from now at this point. In the meantime, I thought I'd check out the Internet and see if it could earn its keep in my apartment by teaching me something. Namely, "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME, INTERNET???" I decided to start with Web MD.

After several fruitless searches wherein I learned that I might need to consult a physician in the next two weeks, I called it quits. It appeared I had a symptom that could be indicative of anything from going to a concert that was too loud to being a paranoid schizophrenic. I was not satisfied with this diagnosis. I didn't have ringing in my ears, a recent headwound, vomiting, or lightheadedness. I wasn't lightheaded or faint, just dizzy. Even that doesn't really describe it, because although I wasn't able to walk straight or look at things while the vertigo had its way with me, I never really felt dizzy. I just waited for it to pass. This should not be construed to mean that it was not extremely unpleasant. So a day later I decided to try again. This time I found some hidden path not previously revealed to me on the magical Web MD website. I discovered what I had been looking for. My ailment: Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (or BPPV).

BPPV is when you experience sudden, short episodes of intense vertigo when changing the position of your head. This HAD to be my affliction. Apparently, it's caused when miniscule crystalline calcium formations appear on the tiny bones inside your ear. They eventually break off, and when they do they fall into your ear canal.



As you shift your head around, they slide back and forth inside your ear canal, sending your brain mixed signals as to which way is up, and that doesn't go along with what your eyes are seeing. This causes momentary intense vertigo until the "debris" inside your ear settles and stops moving.

First thought: That's insane. That can't be real.

Second thought immediately following the first: OH JESUS, DOES THAT MEAN I'LL HAVE THIS FOREVER?!?! I mean, how the HELL would anyone ever get those little pieces out of there???? This is not happening. What the hell can be done about it? There has GOT to be something. Modern science must have an answer for this. Can't Dennis Quaid shrink himself and travel inside me in a rocket ship, blasting apart the debris with plasma weapon of some sort? I wonder if those maps of the stars' homes have Dennis Quaid on them? Is he even a star anymore? Was he ever, really? If I stood on his lawn screaming "Get your rocket inside me right now!", would he misinterpret that?

All this nonsense was soon rendered moot as I discovered that there were actual exercises that "your health care professional" could do that would likely eliminate the condition in ONE treatment. Not only that, but the website proceeded to tell me what those exercises were, step by step. To hell with my health care professional, I'm tryin this shit NOW.

I sat on the edge of my bed and tried the first exercise.



Tilt head 45 degrees to the left (I was totally guessing as to which ear had the condition). Done. Slowly lean over to the left until lying on the bed, feet still on the floor. Done. Nothing so far. I wonder how I'll know if this is working? Very rapidly move back up to the upright position, through that position and back down to the right. Here we go. Did it. Nothing. I still don't see how I'll know if it's OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING. At that moment I felt vertigo like I'd never felt it before. I also realized what was going on. The exercise is designed to make the pieces go around your ear canal. The fast motion holds them to the outside of your ear canal until you can flip over, then they drift downward to the other side. I couldn't literally feel the pieces falling inside my ear, but my mental state told me that was exactly what was happening. As they drifted, so did I. It was as if my entire personality, my being was falling through space. I gripped the edge of the bed as hard as I could and closed my eyes as my consciousness was spun inside a washing machine riding a tilt-a-whirl on top of a teacup ride inside the flying bobs going over Niagara Falls, which was hurtling through space. It lasted about 20 seconds, then it stopped. Sweet Jesus. One more step. Raise up slowly back to the middle upright position. I did it, picturing the debris falling harmlessly into the "bulb" end of my ear canal, where it couldn't send anymore mixed signals. I waited. Nothing. God I hope that did it.

Hesitantly at first, I got up from the bed. Then did it again, faster. Within seconds I was laying down, shooting back up, jumping on the bed, off again, tumbling. NO VERTIGO! I was giddy with normalcy.

I can't express the relief I felt. It was like pulling the largest splinter in the world out from under your fingernail. Only in your brain, and the brain splinter is huge. A railroad spike. A MIND SPIKE. It was like pulling out a fucking MIND SPIKE.

Can you imagine if you could've done this simple maneuver for someone in medieval times, or ancient Rome? They would have worshipped you like a God. Or stoned you, or burned you at the stake. Probably a combination of all three.

I've always been a fan of recreational self-medication, but Web MD takes it to new levels.

I love, love, love that website.