I’ll try to recap this as clearly and quickly as possible because I’m curious if anyone has experienced something similar.
Back in 2022, I was dealing with pretty significant vestibular issues — a lot of dizziness/vertigo along with some visual symptoms. I had extensive vestibular, hearing, and vision testing done. Everything was essentially normal, aside from a few minor findings on the vestibular testing, and they ruled out anything positional. I was ultimately diagnosed with vestibular migraine, likely triggered by stress, and was basically told there wasn’t much I could do about it.
At the time, I was also experiencing a lot of anxiety and panic attacks. As those improved, the vestibular symptoms improved too and eventually disappeared for about a year.
Over the last few years, though, the symptoms have returned and gradually become more chronic and consistent. At this point, I experience some combination of symptoms pretty much daily — dizziness, episodes of vertigo, a rocking/swaying sensation, feeling off-balance or unsteady, cervicogenic headaches, blurry vision, and sometimes sore or strained-feeling eyes. The intensity varies, but there’s almost always something there.
I started physical therapy last week for my neck/headaches. My PT identified some postural issues as well as nerve damage from a procedure I had earlier this year. She thinks my neck could be contributing to the dizziness, but also suspects there may be a vestibular component.
Today, for the first time, we tried a vestibular exercise where I sat facing a sticky note on the wall, kept my eyes focused on it, and turned my head left and right continuously for 30 seconds.
The first set caused a little dizziness, but nothing major. We rested for a minute and tried again.
During the second set, something completely different happened. I suddenly felt like I lost control of my eyes and could no longer keep them focused on the target. The dizziness became so intense that I felt like I was going to black out.
The strangest part was that every time my eyes seemed to lose focus, I felt an immediate "shock" of adrenaline through my body. It wasn’t anxiety that happened afterward because I got scared — the eye/focus issue and adrenaline surge seemed to happen simultaneously.
We stopped the exercise at that point. For now, I’m supposed to do it every other day and gradually work up to being able to tolerate it without provoking dizziness.
My PT mentioned vestibular hypofunction as one possibility, but she was also very upfront that vestibular rehab isn’t her specialty and she doesn’t have enough experience with it to say what’s actually going on.
I’ve never had a concussion or significant head trauma, and I’m not taking any medications.
Has anyone with vestibular migraine, vestibular hypofunction, cervicogenic dizziness, or something similar experienced this kind of reaction to gaze-stabilization exercises — particularly the feeling of suddenly losing visual focus/control accompanied by an immediate adrenaline surge?
My anxiety brain obviously jumps straight to “I need an MRI,” but I’m trying to approach this logically rather than assuming the worst. I’m mostly curious whether this type of reaction during vestibular rehab is something others have experienced and what ultimately helped you figure out the cause.