Is there a medication for relief of dizziness?

Yes – if you want an OTC try bonine or dramamine. They are for motion sickness but can help with dizziness. Or call your doctor for meclizine or something stronger.

Bonine is meclizine. That works.

@Rarebear I wondered. Need some because I am going on a trip. Is the OTC the same strength or do you take more?

Dramamine works for many people but be aware it makes me personally extremely drowsy.

@janbb OTC is same strength. You can actually get generic—just ask the pharmacist.

@Rarebear Good to know. Thanks!

Try Acupressure – how to vid here is an article that explains this in more detail.

@Cruiser Acupressure is no better than placebo.

Maybe an antihistamine will help if the dizzy drugs don’t? Just a thought.

@Rarebear Your opinion belies my experience with acupressure, yoga, meditation. Go ahead and go against the grain of 3,000 plus years of treating dizziness naturally when the OP is asking for relief they can achieve this minute no meds needed. Don’t knock it until you have few or less options and try it. You might be surprised.

Rarebear is a actual doctor. Like med school and licensed.

@Cruiser Ancient wisdom fallacy and naturalistic fallacy.

I swear by Meclizine. I would have puke all over my boat if I didn’t carry it aboard. Land people who don’t take it puke all over my bloody boat. It’s an antihystamine, so if you have problems taking antihystamines, you need to go another route. Dramamine is an antihystamine as well. One sign that you shouldn’t take antihystamines is difficulty in urinating.

^^I never knew those dizzy drugs were antihistamines. Interesting. I never bothered looking them up. I took a prescription of meclizine while in the hospital when I had severe vertigo from an accident. The drug didn’t do anything for me, as far as I could tell, because my dizzy was positional, but I always wondered the mechanism of those motion sickness drugs. I assume it’s more than just being an antihistamine? I had assumed it works on the brain somehow.

^^It doesn’t work as effectively once you are already in the middle of an episode, but it might help, so hospitals give it anyway.

Scopalamine is another option, but it’s often not covered by insurance and it’s expensive.

@johnpowell He knows that.

@Rarebear I take it you are open minded about natural remedies. I use many in my life. At the earliest signs of a cold or flu I gargle with vinegar and water have not had a cold or flu in over 10 years. Aspirin is made from tree bark, Tamiflu is made from Star Anise. Use a Netti Pot and you can avoid sinus infections. I hurt my back T10/T11 MRI was negative, saw 3 Chiros over a 2 month period the whole time in excruciating with numbness below the knees and down the outside of my left arm. Started doing Yoga and in 3 weeks I was symptom and pain free. I did go see an orthopedic who reviewed my MRI and said “HOLY FUCK THEY MISSED IT! herniated disc T10 T11.

Speaking of Yoga, my wife is a highly trained yoga therapist and now Ayurvedic practitioner. A few years back a lady in her fifties came to my wife at the urging of her napropath as she had MS and came “walking” into her studio with those forearm crutches. This lady used to be a professional ballerina. After 3 months of working with my wife she was able to do a pirouette for the first time in 25 years. Next time you have nausea, chew on 5–6 fennel seeds. POOOF gone in minutes. I told my mom this who was having nausea issues with a blood med she was taking and proudly told me it worked so well she carried a small vial of seeds in her purse. Ginger, gingerale, cola and peppermint tea all work to counter nausea as well. Vinegar will heal mild burns faster than any ointment I ever tried. Tea Tree oil will clear up foot fungal problems in just a few days better than any OTC crap in the drug stores. 15 minutes of meditation and pranyama breathing and my hypertension is in normal BP range. I could go on for hours and anyone IMO who thinks accupressure is a foo foo parlor trick has not tried it.

I am agnostic for any therapy. I am only in favor of good science. Show me good science for any therapy and I will recommend it.

As Tim Minchin has said in his classic beat poem Storm:

“Do you know what they call alternative medicine that has been scientifically proven to work? Medicine.”

@Rarebear This JAMA reviewed study presents some conclusive findings of the benefits of accupressure for relief of fatigue in women under treatment for breast cancer. I am very sure there are many more studies out there.

@Espiritus_Corvus Just to support what you said, I worked with a woman who didn’t know she gets motion sickness. Her first time in a cruise, as soon as they left the port, she was sick. It was calm seas on big stabilized, big brand, cruiseship, but she was extremely uncomfortable. They gave her Dramamine, and still sick. I think they gave her the behind the ear thing too, I don’t remember. After many many hours, suddenly, she felt better. Turned out they had docked. Lol. The boat had been so steady they didn’t perceive they had stopped, except her mechanism for feeling balanced knew.

Before they left port again the ship doctor was sure to emphasize that she has to get ahead of it and drug up before the ship leaves the port. She did that, and was fine the rest of the trip.

My vertigo was position the Epley maneuver worked well. I’m annoyed ER docs aren’t trained to do it. Some probably are.

@JLeslie That only works for certain types of vertigo

@Cruiser I do not have access to the actual paper, so I can’t really comment on it. Abstracts are notorious for overstating their conclusions, whether it’s for SCAM therapy or regular therapy. There is also an overreliance on p values, and it depends on whether their measurements are valid. It also depends on the statistical power, and Bayesian prior probability. If you can find me a .pdf of the paper I’ll be happy to look at it.

I will say, though, from what I saw, that acupressure causing decrease stress in cancer patients (as any type of massage could decrease stress) has absolutely NOTHING to do with acute vestibular neuronitis or viral labyrinthitis which are the top two diagnoses in my differential to what @YARNLADY is experiencing.

I was merely attempting to provide you the skeptic JAMA reviewed studies that show evidence that acupressure works and “scientists’” have taken the time to establish and document this. Unfortunately I cannot snap my fingers and find a study that pertains to @YARNLADY‘s malady. I have done acupressure now for over 10 years and know first hand it works and provides relief quickly for many physical and mental ailments and best part it is free (no Obamacare needed) and anyone can do it.

@Rarebear I know. I’m not suggesting the OP should try the Epley, I didn’t say that anywhere, I’m talking about myself. It sounds like the OP has a very obvious cause for her dizziness, and everyone here seems to be answering her question with similar answers. I admit to diverting a little about myself, and also asking about the effective ingredients in the Dramamine.

Like I said my vertigo was positional from an accident. I think it’s the only time in my life I have screamed from something medical. I was extremely banged up, given fentanyl for pain, could barely breath immediately and for a few hours after the accident from a small pneumothorax, and the vertigo was what had me screaming it was so extreme. I suffered with the extreme vertigo for two days straight. Bed ridden. As long as I was flat in my back I was ok. I couldn’t turn on my side for an X-ray, a tech took the X-ray with me, holding me, he took the zap. I could barely move on my side to sleep. The second night hospitalized a nurse put a pillow in front of me, and tilted me slightly, and then pillows behind me concerned I hadn’t moved, and I had told her my sleeping position is on my left.

I had to wear stockings as a precaution, I actually have some bad genes for clotting, but the hospital didn’t even know that.

The hospitalist had guessed correctly the first day (this is after spending the night hospitalized) mine was BPPV, but I had to wait for an ENT to finally make a round to help me the next day. The Epley took less than 10 minutes and I could finally sit up and stand up again. What harm would it do to try the Epley if that’s the best guess? The doctor can see in your eyes when they turn your head if it’s positional. But, even if they don’t know what to look for the patient can tell you they are spinning when they tilt your head, and when it stops. If it’s not done perfectly so what. The patient can still go see a specialist. They had basically ruled out head injury for me.

Instead they were giving me drugs Meclizine and Zofran and risking bed sores (well, I wasn’t there quite long enough for that) and blood clots, and I suffered. Patients don’t like suffering unnecessarily or being basically incapacitated or taking drugs unnecessarily. People do the Epley to themselves, it doesn’t really take a specialist to do it.

Not to mention the neurologist had visited me first, my first morning there, and I think all neurologists should know the Epley! Jesus they are referred dizzy patients all the time. All he did was rule out it being neurological, but didn’t “help me. Everything pointed to BPPV.

Epley maneuvers are very effective in BPPV.

@Cruiser The study is flawed and doesn’t prove anything. All it says is that people are less stressed when they get acupressure. They don’t define “usual“care. If they were to compare it to massage, then I’m sure there would be no difference. Massage relieves symptoms of stress. Big deal.

Welcome to my world. The medical literature is filled with shit studies like this one and it’s my job to figure out what is reasonable and what is not.

That’s what I said. I didn’t suggest the Epley for the OP. Did it come across that I had? I suggested maybe an antihistime (I was guessing) I’d Dramamine didn’t work. Then I learned Dramamine is an antihistime.

Yes. I am defensive.

@JLeslie I never said that you said that it would. All I said that is that it doesn’t work for every type of vertigo. Stand down.

For those of you who want to see Storm, it’s brilliant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtYkyB35zkk

^^You said it directed to me like I didn’t know or had suggested otherwise. I’m not clear why you said it to me when I had talked about the Epley concerning my positional vertigo, and didn’t refer to it for seasickness or inflammation from an ear infection or inflammation from a cold. I feel like it was pretty clear that I understood the differences.

I didn’t say, “that stupid ship doctor should have tried the Epley.”

Yes, I’m defensive, sorry if you catch my rant from years of crap from gail, cazzie, and some others I won’t name because they weren’t and aren’t quite as bad. Jellies have been pretty shitty to me on medical Q’s, and I don’t mean just debating an answer, I mean truly horrible. You haven’t been shitty to me, I just got triggered I guess.

It does seem to me you are saying it isn’t an ER doctor’s responsibility. Is that partly what you meant?

@Rarebear I respect that…really do. But step into my world where I have been poked prodded, promises made by the Doctor elite and in the end my relief and healing was found in the simplest of ways….naturally. I am not an anti-vaccine nut job and know if and when cancer strikes I will not be in a sweat lodge praying for divine intervention but at the Mayo clinic. What was asked here was seeking a form of relief from dizziness and I with all sincerity know nausea and dizziness can be relieved naturally and with acupressure and other simple holistic efforts. I appreciate you are under constraints to prescribe and recommend solutions that have been approved by what ever it is that governs and limits what you can prescribe and is what frustrates my wife and other holistic witch doctors practitioners. We are talking about a garden variety ear infection and dizziness…simply applying pressure to a couple pressure points could very well provide relief here…why are you so threatened by such a simple thing to try?

@Cruiser Where did I even remotely imply that I was threatened? I was simply pointing out that there is no science behind the therapy for vertigo.

@JLeslie OMG. Please relax. I am sorry for poking the hornets nest.

Someone doth protest TOO much, methinks ! about science versus poultices and mustard plaster and other pseudo healing

The antihistamine I have on hand worked for me, but apparently put me to sleep. I had a two hour nap.

@YARNLADY That’s great!

@Rarebear Ok, sorry. I don’t want to discourage you from challenging or correcting an answer I give in the future. Don’t take my freak out that way. I’m chill. :)

Do you know if some ER doctors do practice the Epley? Would you agree neurologists should be able to perform it?

@Rarebear I gave you a Jama report and thought you may have access to read the whole study to get an inkling of what I already embrace as helpful. The synopsis only gave credence to what I already know….no science needed. You gave me the impression you are obligated to throw the baby out with the bath water unless some special science God (big pharma and malpractice insurance) gives it’s blessings to a procedure you can get on board with. I get it and I feel fortunate to have found other options that work outside immediate care medical facilities. Best of both worlds! :)

@Cruiser I was waiting for the “big pharma” trope. Well done. You also wrote “no science needed”. Thanks for that. Since you’re not interested in science and only interested in belief I won’t challenge you in the future. Now I know where you stand. I will only challenge you if I think something you write is medically dangerous. Acupressure is useless, but certainly harmless if you’re treating something non threatening.

@JLeslie I don’t know what ER docs and neurologists are trained to do or not. I’m sure some know how and some don’t.

@Rarebear I gave you a science backed study…I cannot force you to even give it a second thought. I understand you are handcuffed by your obligations to your medical degree that dictates you cannot do anything “they” do not approve of otherwise you will have to cover the lawsuits out of your own pocket. Pretty rough battle to have to fight on a daily basis.

@Cruiser sigh. You found me a crappy study on a google search that was published in a second-tier journal that measured the response of people who were surveyed about their feelings after getting glorified massage. Is it science? I guess. Is it good science? No, it’s terrible. I can list the problems with just the abstract but I’m writing to someone who is used to working in a data free zone.

People like you think science is this one big monolithic box. As if something is published in a paper therefore it has to be true. Nothing can actually be further from the truth. I refer you to a fantastic paper where the statistics will probably go over your head, but the corollaries are worth reading.

As to your accusations that I’m “handcuffed” and I can’t do anything “they” don’t approve of and that I have to cover lawsuits out of my own pocket. Well, fuck you. You know absolutely nothing about me or the medical profession so don’t you presume. Absolutely everything you wrote is wrong. I take care of patients based upon the best medical science available. And I’m REALLY good at it.