The Case of M

Today I would like to tell the story of patient M. M was a healthy active young woman with a wonderful life. Two and a half years ago she went on a family vacation. The vacation turned into a nightmare when everyone on the trip got a terrible fever virus, including M. Thankfully, the family recovered from this illness and all was well, That lasted a short period of time. Poor M happened to contract the stomach flu right after the last horrible virus.

After she successfully fought the flu, the dizziness began. She felt unbalanced and had a pressure compression type of pain in her left eye and on the side of her head.  She also feels a crackling in her left ear at times.  These symptoms interfered with every aspect of her life. She struggled through work and was losing all enjoyment of life.  Every ENT, neurologist, primary care doctor, she consulted found nothing wrong with her. Eventually, she was put on an antidepressant. Then she read about VH.

I actually think M had VH her whole life from her facial structure. One eye is clearly higher than the other and she has an extreme head tilt. Her brain was able to compensate for the misalignment and fuse the images before the two severe illnesses hit her back to back. I like to use the analogy of a tripod. The legs of the tripod consist of 3 systems. We need all 3 to be strong in order to be balanced. First is the ankles, feet, core all working together. Second is our vestibular system in the inner ear and last (but not least!) is our binocular visual system. If one leg is wobbly maybe a person can function, but if two of those legs on the tripod get wobbly, the tripod can't stand. This is what I believe happened to M. Her visual system leg was always wobbly but she was able to get by, then she had some type of damage to the vestibular leg of the tripod. The two wobbly legs were too much for her brain to deal with and all the systems of vertical heterophoria emerged.

The good news is that M's symptoms are decreasing as we are aligning her eyes. It is taking some time but progress is being made. I still believe there is an inner ear issue that needs to be addressed but I am very hopeful M will be able to enjoy her life again!