Ask Dr. Yo: why is my anxiety getting WORSE during chronic dizziness recovery? (and what to do) 

What I learned from you about chronic dizziness I didn't learn from any other doctor. Never stop doing what you do. You change people's lives... You heal them! It's been six months I'm symptoms-free. Happy holidays ❤

I also identify 100% with the idea that we had this but dizziness was so extreme that we didn’t notice other symptoms. I believe that in my case for lots of symptoms.

I never took naps before my chronic dizziness. I begin to enjoy taking naps throughout the day every time I got dizzy.

Oh reason # 3 works for me too! I was thinking this but nice to see it normalized.

As my dizziness symptoms subside. I have symptom drift for sure, including some “old friends” that haven’t surfaced for years. But what I am noticing is that the baseline - the underlying feeling/anxiety/fear is the same, no matter what the symptom is. And I love the iceberg analogy. That’s super helpful! Thank you!!!

Crazy how much it feels like it applies. Been dissociative for 1 1/2 years straight after some trauma or chronic stress. Then I tried EFT, had a huge emotional release, was connected to my body (senses and emotions) again for 2 days, and then went back to dissociation due to stress. Since then, I go back and forth. Mostly dissociative, but sometimes back in my body. But when I am, I feel all the underlying anxiety, my nervous system goes into alarm mode, and I become dizzy / brain foggy again. My window of tolerance for experiencing senses and emotions shrinked to the size of a pea. Also, when I am back in my body, I constantly check myself and have lots of fear and mental loops, to become worse again. And I also had moments of grief, realizing what I had been deprived of all this time, not being connected to my body. But I am positive it is only a matter of time. Like you said, to weather this 😁 Especially interesting, that you mention the secondary gain some people can get due to being sick. I thought of it as well, and my therapist asked me about it. Whether having persistent symptoms maybe gives me some benefits I hold onto. I am not sure if I do. But if I am dizzy / dissociative / mentally zoned out, I can use it as an excuse if I fail a university exam. I do not have to think or have other people think I am insufficient by nature.

Your channel is incredible and was very instrumental in helping me heal from PPPD. I've been experiencing anxiety since healing from my symptoms and couldn't understand why. Thank you for this video and for all that you do on this channel. It is truly life-changing for those of us who experience chronic dizziness.

Thank you so much! I have been making progress since following your channel. Emotions have been surfacing with many ups and downs, symptom drift etc. I definitely have been feeling grief, guilt, and self blame for time and money lost the past 4-5 years for not figuring this out sooner. When you mentioned grief over lost time, I could totally relate. It felt a sense of relief hearing that this is normal for some people during the healing process. Again, thank you so much! You are a blessing!

Thank you! You explain everything so well, why I’m feeling this way… I’m getting better though! I hope everyone here heals ❤️

Your videos give me so much relief thank you ❤

Merry Christmas Dr Yo , an truely thanks for your help 😁🇦🇺🎄

You are so amazing! Happy Holidays!

Holyyy crapppp …. What you said about emotions blew me away ….. I found your channel today thank you for caring about us out here trying to cope and understand what is happening to us I appreciate you .

I totally concur Dr Yo.. my god how much knowledge u have about this topic .. i was just thinking a couple of days ago that if my symptoms go down i have to become the perfect busy mom wife and professional i was and thats so hard...

I am learning something new about myself in all your videos! The explanation about the iceberg was so great! And the exercise in the end about why the symptoms are still there was awesome! Thank you!! 🫶

Amazing insights. It is a vicious loop that the body keeps us in and being aware is the next best thing - thank you Dr. Arthur for bringing this facet to life

Merry Christmas thank you for all the work you do

Im so glad I found your channel. I was diagnosed with this pppd and basically no doctors here know what to do... i will watch all these contents and get myself better!

My Genesis of my TMS symptoms was 20 months ago after my mom dying unexpectedly and getting covid just tipped my cup over so to speak. But dizziness and light headedness is the new flavor for the last 6 weeks. And its co insidious with my anxiety,😢 I want so bad to be done with this its threatening my job and I'm the bread Winner full Time and I'm doing everything I know not to respond to the dizziness when Triggered by my eyes or anxiety. I don't think I have a secondary gain from my symptoms but I do wonder if letting go of the symptoms means letting go of my mom and accepting the permanents of her being gone forever. The worst part is every time I try and do emotional deep dive or work my lightheadedness and dizziness kicks up as if to protect the unconscious emotion from becoming conscious.

Oh my, in addition to your ability to heal, you are so intuitive. Everything in this video was spot on for me. Thank you for all you do. Unmeasurable ❤

Another great vid! Particularly appreciate you flagging up how subconscious ‘achiever’ perfectionist patterns maintain and perpetuate symptoms. And how the psyche is doing this under the wire at a deeper level to keep us ‘safe’ (obviously this is mostly a phantom from unresolved past events and adaptations which are no longer required). Thus the symptoms are serving a very real evolutionary imperative. Namely that of survival in an apparently still dangerous environment. It really can be so subtle too. As I know from personal and professional experience! Identifying and resolving these old pattern (habits) at the root, to fully extinguish the fire is as you say essential. Otherwise the smoke may still keep coming in the form of these and other NS imperatives/drift. Yonit knows her stuff! ❤

Wow, brilliant video. Thankyou

I chalked it up to the constant distress and fatigue from the severe synptoms just building up and finally rhe brain can't take it anymore

Dr. Yo I can’t tell you how much you are helping my healing era after 4 years of chronic symptoms. I found you in July and I’m slowly but surely healing. 🙏 What would help me tremendously is advice on symptoms while traveling and on vacation! My symptoms flare significantly. Thank you Dr. Yo and Happy New Year to you. Thank you for helping me and so many others in our healing journeys. ❤️‍🩹

Thanks You. Your videos help so much to fight this. Am so much better. Took a 400 km bike tour. Couldn’t have done it couple of months back. Thank you so much.

I wanna thank you with all my heart Dr Yonit Arthur i was sick for 2weeks bec of vertigo attack now i saw your channel and i did your video exercises for 3weeks i stopped this week and i felt better ,i got healed my balancing is ok now ,before i used to be drowsy and somewhat shaking ,giggly wobbly but now i can move normally in fact i’m now or had started doing routines like exercises before getting out of bed ,exercises to start your day omy i ‘m nowfree of vertigo thanks a million ,i can’t forget you in fact i shared the video with my friend who also had vertigo !Thank you once again you’re God sent !Take care!

The pressure to return to the office to work is a big one for me, and I have a lot of anxiety around that to where I have developed some agoraphobia. I don't really worry too much about the dizziness itself anymore. Thank you Dr Yo, you have been such a valued help to me this year.

Thank you for talking about #4. Definitely experienced that. Sometimes it's just that all the stuff you've had to neglect has piled up and become overwhelming

I had to cut out caffeine and alcohol, and started doing mindfulness from a little book called 30 Days to Reduce Anxiety by Harper Daniels. It's helping.

Wow doctor thanks so much , last part or last question just made me realize that when I don't have symptoms I kind of, don't give my self attention, love , self compassion , as much as when I have symptoms thats something i just brought out. Out of the good things of dizziness even if the symptoms are awful sometimes 😅 we can still have good benefits from it !! wow u always bring something new to people that helps us towards the healing ❤️ 🙏🏿 gracias

This does make a lot of sense on what's going on! Psych DR's I've met, don't seem to understand how the dizziness can be related to trauma / depression / DPDR etc etc. (I don't know if it's actually in the DSM, that I can find). I've been looking into meditation in hopes that it will help. (I'm really treatment resistant). What is really weird is though, there have been occasions where I've felt better! Starting on thyroid medicine, for the first 3 hours or so, I felt completely 'normal'. No symptoms or anything. (I can't say it was placebo because, I was terrified of how I would react to the medicine, for the first time). Really weird because, I never felt good again on it. Watching this video, does make sense how doctors try and push seeing a counselor / therapy though. I have done that for usually 2 -3 times a week but, never noticed any benefit from it personally. (Idk. I guess this comment is a partial rant. lol.) I wish it did help me a lot like it does for most people. I'm just frustrated in not being able to feel better.

I love this! (reason 1) It made me laugh. Our brains are as confused as we are!

Hi! I’ve recently discovered your channel and maybe you can help me out to throw some light regarding my recent balance/dizziness problem. I’m 39 years old and in November this year I had my 1st vertigo episode in the middle of the night. It only lasted for a few seconds but it was intense. The problem is that since that night I have been suffering from let’s say “subtle” balance/dizziness disorder. It mainly affects me when standing still or sitting talking to people while following their faces with my eyes,etc . I can also feel it while walking at home, changing direction, focusing on different objects. However there are things in which I feel perfectly normal like: - Driving (only when stopping in roundabouts and when focusing on passing cars I can feel imbalance) - Running and walking in a focused direction - And the most funny one is when using Virtual Reality Headsets. I like to play ping pong and I’m a flight simulation fan and when doing these activities I don’t feel any balance or dizziness issues whatsoever. During this time I have visited an ENT (after the vertigo attack) who checked my hearing and also checked if I still was positive in Vertigo but everything was OK and hearing was perfect. Also I visited a Neurologist who thought my dizziness could be a residual part of the Vertigo aftermath. A Brain MR was performed and everything brain related seems to be OK . I also visited an ophthalmologist and again everything was fine. So far nothing looks like it is off (but something is definitely off…)

Dr Yonit, my symptoms are getting less. After 3.5 years. By doing the sonatic tracking. However, in the night my sleep gets worse🥺i am having more and more restless Dreams, or wake up and feel restless, scary Dreams, Dreams about normal life and feeling the anxious thoughts i used to feel about a lot of situations in the day. Now, because of not sleeping relaxed, my symptoms in the day, especially the delayed processing while going trough life, is a bit more again😢...would you be able to explain a bit about this?🙏❤

Dear Dr.Yo, thank you for your videos. I am suffering from brain fog, vision snow now 12 years ago, it started with migraine and anxiety. Do you think is it possible to heal after these long times? Thank you in advance

At work, spinning right now. Been since i got here. I think this place is a major trigger...

Where do i start with your videos on dizziness? There are many and not sure where to start

Hi Dr. I understand imaging needs to be done, but do you notice any distinct differences between people that have what you are describing and imbalance that comes from MS for idiopathic intracranial hypertension?

Hi doc . Does an abnormal caloric test mean an issue with the inner ear , or could it also signify an issue with the eyes ?

Hi, would you be able to make a video on the effects of the menstrual cycle on dizziness? I have been diagnosed with a vestibular migraine which is present 100% of the time. The symptoms differ greatly between stages of my cycle. Pms week and period week I can’t get out of bed and the brain fog and dizziness is disabling. A week after my period however, even though I still have symptoms I’m able to go out, do things for myself and even a little exercise. Nothing crazy but a big improvement. I just wondered if you know anything about this and what can be done because i dread having pms and my period now because I know my life will become extremely limited for 2-3 weeks at a time. Thanks!

I have a pineal cyst detected in an MRI scan. Allegedly, it's small, 6 mm. I've had symptoms of PPPD and MDDS for several years. Do you have any experience with the possibility that a pineal cyst could be causing these symptoms?

Been dealing with PPPD for eight months now. Though I was getting better but lately I been dealing with increased fatigue wonder if this is part of recovery

Do you have a patrion account or anything similar? Your content needs appraisal and I would like to contribute.... Good luck and thank you so much...

My anxiety is through the roof.

Can I have bad head pains with my derealixation

Recovering well , just feeling quite fatigued is that just from the hard knock our bodies has taken on this journey ?

Dr.Yo if there will be one advice which you like to give to all the Chronic Dizziness sufferers, what would it be? And, What is that one thing which is absolutely necessary for complete recovery?