How I Cured Vertigo

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 definitely 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, and your water is not taken directly from the ground, you should add 1/2 teaspoon of a full-array salt such as sea salt (do not use refined table salt) or 1/2 teaspoon of other mixed mineral salts and a pinch of sea salt
for every quart of water that you drink and use salt liberally with food so that you do not lose minerals and salt while drinking so much water. See Water (Issues) for more information on retaining minerals while drinking a lot of water.

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 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.
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.
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.
*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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