Doing the barbecue roll

Did you know there are physios who specialise in vertigo? I didn’t until my lovely blog follower Kerrie filled me in.

I’ve been dizzy for a few weeks, with the occasional swoon, so I finally decided to find time between vet visits for the moodle to book a physio visit for his owner.

It was a fascinating experience. I had to do lots of balance tests that involved me tottering over while walking with my eyes shut, and then wear a contraption that looked like blacked out swimming googles, which filmed my eye movements as I performed various manoeuvres.

The tests confirmed I had a mild case of Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), which causes dizziness, vertigo, unsteadiness and nausea when you move your head.

Common triggers include rolling over in bed, getting out of bed and lifting your head to look up.

One of the causes is degeneration of the vestibular system in your inner ear due to ageing. I am falling apart at age 57.

Such a degenerate!

BPPV occurs when crystals normally located in one part of the vestibular (or balance) system of your inner ear become dislodged and collect in another part of the inner ear balance system.

As your head moves, the dislodged crystals also move and incorrect messages are sent to your brain and then to your eyes.

Except it turns out that in my case they hadn’t collected in another part of my inner ear, they were caught on the hairs.

The physio could tell this was the case by the way my pupils were twitching when I rolled over on my left side and then stayed that way for a while when I rolled on my back.

Also, I was feeling pretty much constantly odd because my brain was fed up with trying to sort out all the mixed messages it was receiving.

Because the crystals were caught on my ear hairs it meant the usual treatment for BPPV – the Epley maneuver – would not be effective. Instead, the physio showed me how to do a move called the barbecue roll, which involves throwing yourself on the bed like a sausage on a barbie, staying still for about 90 seconds, then flipping onto your back for 90 seconds, flipping onto your right side for 90 seconds, flipping onto your stomach for 90 seconds and then flipping back onto your left side for 90 seconds.

I have no idea how it shook the crystals off my ear hairs and back into place, but I felt a lot better as I exited the physio 80 minutes later and $190 poorer.

I have to do the barbecue roll twice a day for the next three days and then hopefully I will be completely cured.

Now, if it could also sort out the tinnitus in my left ear I’d be delighted … but it won’t. So that’s an another problem for another day.

Song of the day: KISS “Rock and roll all nite”