 Vertigo
is caused by calcium
carbonate crystals forming in the inner ear. Minerals come out of
solution
when there
is
not enough liquid to keep them dissolved. There is not
enough liquid because the body's cells are not retaining water
properly. Magnesium
regulates water in cells.
 The
short answer: To cure vertigo, drink more water and take magnesium.
The
long story
behind it:
My
father had vertigo the last few years of his life. It didn't
contribute to his death, at least not officially, but it made his last
years very unpleasant for him. So, when I got vertigo at about the same
age, I was terrified. If I was always dizzy and needing to sit down, my
life as I enjoyed it would be over. I would have to
give up riding my bicycle. I would be trapped inside the house for
the rest of
my
life. Everything I held dear would be gone.
I looked online and didn't find
any
cure, just ways to live with it. I didn't
expect anything from conventional medicine, and what I read confirmed
that there was no known cure for vertigo. I read a blog
by a Christian
lady who had the same symptoms I had. She said she had gone to
the doctor and he had told her that there was no cure but it wasn't
life-threatening and she would just have to live with it. She accepted
it thinking it was her special gift from God. Her marriage ended, she
can't leave her home and
she spends most of her time sitting in one place writing her blog. As
she says, she had to leave her life as she once knew it. I would not
have wanted that to happen to me.
I
searched the alternative medicine sites, the nutrition-based health
care on which I relied, but there was nothing. If there were a
nutrition-based answer, I didn't know how to find it.
I realized I had to figure out how to
help myself by myself. I lay
down, the room spinning around me. I asked the ether, or the universe,
or whatever passing god was out there, what would stop this dizzyness.
Then I let my mind relax and just tried to be open and wander over any
possibility. The answer came to me "Drink more water".
That seemed a reasonable answer, so I
wobbled out to the kitchen and
drank a glass of water. That felt good so I drank another. Then another
and another. I drank water and felt good about it, like I got the
feeling that this was the answer, so I started hosing the water into
me, drink after drink until my eyeballs were floating. When I couldn't
drink any more I walked out of the kitchen, not cured, but much less
wobbly than when I walked in. I knew it might take
time but this would definately cure me.
Now I went back to the
internet and
tried searching for vertigo again,
this time adding "water" to the search term.
There was one
person who said that water was the cure for
vertigo, an Indian doctor. Now there will be two.
How
Much Water Should You Drink
Drink 1/2 your
body weight of water in ounces per day. For example, if you weigh
100
pounds, half of that is 50, 50 ounces is 1 quart (32 ounces) plus 2 1/4
cups (18 ounces). If you weigh 256 pounds, half of that is 128, 128
ounces is a
gallon. Divide the amount you have to drink into 8 or 10 ounce glasses
and that's how many glasses you have to drink per day. If you do this
on a regular basis, you should add 1/4 teaspoon
of a full-array salt such as sea salt (do not use refined table salt)
for every quart of water you drink and use salt liberally with food, or
add 1/4 teaspoon of salt to each glass of water if you are not using
salt on your food, so that you do not lose salt while drinking so much
water..
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So,
I have 2 bits of good tidings to bring: First, good news for atheists:
God will give you an answer to your inquiries even if
you do not address
them directly to him, her or them and second, for all mankind, vertigo
can be cured
by rehydrating your body.
Thrilled
as I was by this discovery that I could cure vertigo in days,
I went back to the Christian lady's blog to tell her the good news, but
never received any response from her.This web-page is sort of a
response to that. I want people who are looking up
vertigo to find this site saying, "How I cured vertigo", just as I
found that site saying, "There is no cure."
And while you're drinking more
water, take magnesium.
Basically,
the balancing mechanism in your ears is like the power
steering system in your car. It relies on fluid. When you
have vertigo, you have a "leak" in your "power steering system". You
need to replenish the fluids in it. You can't pour water into the inner
ear like you can your car, so you have to re-hydrate or
over-hydrate every cell in your body to get the extra fluid up to your
ears.
Magnesium regulates fluids in the
body so you might think of taking
magnesium supplements as "repairing the leak". Just taking in enough
water will cure the vertigo, but you will get very tired of drinking a
gallon of water a day, not to mention living in the bathroom, so keep
taking magnesium with the excess water. To determine dosage, start out
with a small amount, or any amount, and keep increasing it until it
creates a laxative effect. Then reduce it a little to the amount that
was as much as you could take without it being a laxative.
And while you're at it, you may as
well take extra mineral supplements,
either as bone meal, clay, sea salt etc., because that much water is
going to wash away the minerals in your body. As a suggestion, put a
peeled, grated beet into a gallon jug. Add a tablespoon of sea salt and
the juice of a lemon. Fill with water and drink it every day. You can
re-use the grated beet as long as it keeps turning the water pink, but
replenish the sea salt with every gallon of water. The lemon is
optional, but it makes it easier to drink that much water and the
acidity helps your body use the minerals.
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To
make a magnesium-enriched beet kvass beverage:
Take a glass or
ceramic gallon jug, a beet, 1
tablespoon of sea salt, 1 teaspoon of a powdered magnesium salt source
and a lemon. Peel
the beet and cut it into quarters and put it in the containers. Add the
juice of the lemon, the sea salt and magnesium
salts and fill with water. Drink that within 12 hours. Repeat every day
until dizziness is gone. Maintain by drinking half that amount with a
teaspoon of sea salt and take a magnesium supplement.
Inorganic
powdered magnesium salts can also be added to whey, lemon
juice or vinegar. This will convert some of the inorganic magnesium in
it to its more bio-active forms of magnesium lactate,
magnesium citrate and magnesium acetate. Sources of powdered magnesium
salts include powdered dolomite, Epsom salts and magnesium carbonate,
often sold as gym chalk. Chalk is sold either as a powder or solid. If
solid, it is easily dissolved in water. See Magnesium
for more information about magnesium.
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My Vertigo Diary
Jan 28, Dizzy, nauseous, assume it's a stomach bug and it will go away
in a day. Don't eat.
Jan 29 Still dizzy and nauseous. Worried it hasn't gotten better.
Jan 30 Dizzy, loss of appetite, stomach ache. Suspect vertigo, look it
up on the web, find a blog by a lady that says there is no cure
Jan
31 Desperate. I know I will be subject to pressure to see a regular
doctor, I cannot conceal the dizziness. There is no cure from orthodox
medicine and none from
the alternative health food culture that I know of.
I ask self how to cure vertigo, Get answer "Drink more water". Drank a
gallon of water and can walk again, post to blog lady to tell her the
good news.
Feb
1 Looked up vertigo + water on net and
learned that vertigo is a magnesium deficiency disease.
Started taking 100 mgs of magnesium with every glass of water. I
continue to
be able to walk better but still a bit wobbly. I can ride my bicycle
but I have to pay attention and be careful not to throw my head around
suddenly.
Feb 4 Wrote to blog lady to tell her about magnesium
Feb.
9 Dizziness is gone but I still feel "odd" about the head. Like an echo
chamber. Decided if vertigo is based on getting water to the power
steering system, I would put my head upside down. Stood up and lowered
head until it felt full, then raised head. Improvement noticed.
Feb. 12 Continued "cerebral inversion" (for lack of a better word),
echo chamber feeling still receding.
Feb. 20, I wake up with a slight sense of sweat on my forehead
and chin. I am not hot or clammy, just a faint awareness. I suspect the
sweating is removing toxins.
Feb 21. Began taking 500 mgs. magnesium before going to bed with a
glass of
kombucha.
Feb
22, Slept 6 hours before waking up (usually I sleep 3-4 hours and then
wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.) Huh? I have
magnesium in my Home Remedies page as a cure for
"frequent urination at night" but I didn't think it applied to me or my
waking up once a night schedule. Well, well.
Feb 25 Added dolomite with 78 mgs magnesium and 130 mgs. calcium to
regimen.
Feb 26. My chest or the area of my heart now feels warmer. Or it
doesn't feel as cool as it has in the past. It feels like the furnace
has come back on.
Feb
27-28 I upped my bedtime dose of magnesium to 600 mgs and slept 8
hours straight without getting up. I didn't have any laxative effect
to the 600 mgs, so tonight I suppose I'll increase it to 700 mgs, and
look into buying more magnesium, as I will be going through it quite
quickly. Right now, I take it in pill form. I'd like to take it as
Epsom
salts, but I don't know if I would like the taste.
March
7. Another odd bit of synchronicity. Here I am writing and musing
about this strange occurrence in which I found out how to cure vertigo
by looking inward or meditating on it or praying or asking myself,
whatever the case may be, even though I didn't know the answer, and
yesterday my partner started telling me about a book he is hearing
about that is about people who realize the answer or solution to things
in desperate or life-threatening situations. He says there was
this case many years ago of a firefighter in Australia who was trapped
by a wild fire and who then realized that the only way to survive it is
to
start a fire where he is, let it burn out and when the wild fire gets
to
him he can step into the burnt-out area.*** This is common procedure
today
but
it was unheard-of at the time. He was the one who thought of it the
first time.
Anyway, apparently they found that this type of thinking is done by a
section of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, which is also the
part of the brain that is responsible for determining right from wrong,
better from best, making your own decisions.
March
12 I learned today that the medical profession
believes
that vertigo, or "benign position vertigo" as they call it, is caused
by small crystals of calcium carbonate that collect within a part of
the inner ear. No doubt that is correct.They often are very accurate
about finding
out technical stuff that they can learn from autopsies. But the most
cutting edge of
advanced western orthodox medicine still doesn't make the connection
that if
the problem is minerals coming out of solution and forming crystals,
the cure is to add more liquid. You can't put water
directly into the inner ear, of course, but by adding water to all the
cells of your body you can rehydrate the balancing mechanism cells, and
probably other dehydrated cells that you don't know about as well
March
13 I still get that "cold heart" sensation occasionally, where I
feel coolness in the left side of the chest and down my left arm
occasionally. I either take my supplements, if I haven't taken them for
the day, or take extra magnesium if I already had my regular. My
regular
supplements are: 1000 mgs vitamin C, cod liver oil, 20 mgs CoQ10, kelp,
400 iu vitamin E, 100 mgs of magnesium and a dolomite pill.
Additionally, I now take
about 1200 mgs. of magnesium.
March 15 Found out that there is also
a migraine
associated vertigo, but that's just
what triggers the vertigo, not what actually causes it to happen.
March 24 The vertigo is long gone but I still take about 1200 mgs.
magnesium a day because I love the energy and warmth it gives me. I
ride my bicycle easily up inclines that would have had me puffing
before. I sleep better at night. Whuda thunk? There are occasional
slight laxative effects, nothing major, but it's not inconvenient and
even if it were,
the benefits would far outweigh it.
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Updates
*1) I have since learned that
calcium carbonate also
comes out of solution when there is a deficiency of magnesium, so the
magnesium supplementation is necessary for more than just repairing the
"leak" in the inner ear balancing mechanism, although the end results
stay the same.
(**2) Epsom salts also contain magnesium, but they taste terrible and
also contain an excessive amount of sulfate.
(***3) I found the story about
the guy who learned from an unknown source how to save his life in a
fire. He was from Montana and it was an article
in the New Yorker entitled "The
Eureka Hunt" by Jonah Lehrer.
Effects of Calcium in relation to Magnesium
Calcium can also build up in the body if there is a deficiency of
either sodium, potassium or vitamin D, as well as magnesium. Sodium
deficiencies are very unlikely in any western, developed countries
where salt is abundant in our food. Consider adding potassium and/or
vitamin D to your regimen of supplements if you suffer from any
disorder involving calcium being deposited where it should not be.
Effects of Iodine in relation to Magnesium
Iodine
and magnesium form a hard, insoluble crystal that will be passed
out of the body unused. If you take iodine, which is a good thing to
do, and have experienced mild vertigo, it is possible that it is being
caused by the iodine. Nevertheless, I would still recommend taking more
magnesium rather than discontinuing the iodine, because your body
needs both.
Using powdered magnesium sources in pack-your-own capsules.
If
you choose to buy minerals in bulk and pack into your own capsules, I
have found the most cost-efficient capsule size to be "00",
even though it is a little smaller than the only size that is bigger
("000"). You can pack them by hand or by machine. If you choose to get
a capsule packing machine, make sure that the capsule size that the
machine is designed for is the same size as the capsules you are
going to use.
Magnesium Oxide
I
used magnesium oxide to cure vertigo. I ordered it online. It was the
cheapest and, at the time, I didn't know any other criteria with which
to judge it and I was in a hurry. If any magnesium doesn't say
what kind of magnesium it is, it is magnesium oxide. It worked fine for
me as a cure for vertigo, but I later learned that it was not good to
use magnesium oxide for the long term and that it is better to use a
chelated form of the mineral. I experimented with several kinds and
making my own, and I would now recommend magnesium citrate or magnesium
chloride if you are
buying it, or making your own. My
experience using magnesium oxide
Update:
1 year later.
Well,
it's been about a year since I wrote this so I thought I should
post a follow-up. First off, I'm deeply flattered with how popular this
page has become, so thank you for reading. I'm still doing fine. Having
had vertigo a year ago is just a dim memory. I continue to take
magnesium every day, plus a whole other bunch of minerals. I make my
own magnesium citrate by mixing garden fertilizer grade epsom salts
with citric acid and then packing them into gelatine capsules. I also
take lots of other minerals, too, about a 1-ounce shot glass full per
day. Because of my experience with vertigo I learned that many diseases
have
some mineral deficiency component, which has made me a bit of
a "reformed sinner" on the subject of taking minerals. I push minerals
on
a lot of my pages. (See my page on Minerals).
I have since learned that the doctor who also says that water is the cure for
vertigo is an Iranian, not an Indian as I originally believed. He was
imprisoned in Iran during the time of the Shah and didn't have any
medicine to help treat his fellow prisoners except water and that's how
he learned all the things that water could treat. His name is Fereydoon
Batmanghelidj and he wrote the book "Your Body's Many Cries for Water" (sited below).
In
my experience, it only took a few days to get over the worst part of
the vertigo and a few weeks after that before I felt cured. Of course, I
began taking the cure only days after my first symptom. I don't know
how long it would take for someone who has been experiencing vertigo for
much longer. Crystals take time to grow and they take time to dissolve.
I also occasionally wonder if perhaps it would be a good idea to take a
few days of high magnesium with high acid instead of high alkaline
(minerals). Although that would be bad for health in the long run
because acids deplete the body of minerals, it might be that a few days
of high acidic liquid would help to get the crystals in the ear to start
dissolving faster, that is, you would want to deplete your body of
some particular minerals. But I'm not going to induce vertigo to find
out, so someone who comes after me will have to be the one to test that
hypothesis.
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How I Cured Vertigo
by Andrew W. Saul
by Raymond
Dextreit. 
