Vertigo Returns

I suffer from vertigo, we have our weekly staff meetings in a room called vertigo, and I just saw the movie Vertigo (a must see) last week. I hope this is the last time I write about it.

I woke up last night after a four hour nap and noticed the room was spinning.. again. Argh. Although it isn't near as severe as it was a few weeks ago, it is still _very_ annoying. I can't find any patterns or pre-vertigo symptoms other than severe soreness in my back. I worked out my lats yesterday so I just figured the soreness was a result of that. And since the aching was pretty severe I went ahead and popped a couple advils. Now lets see, both occurences of vertigo occurred after strenuous exercise. The initial case occurred after waking up from the first nap whereas this one occurred two naps later. I can't recall I took ibuprofen before the first occurence. Instead of rambling, let's list all possible causes:

a. stress - Yeah I'm pretty damn stressed right now because of this painful project at work and upcoming finals on these two classes I'm taking.
b. ibuprofen - I pop a couple advil approximately 1-2 times a week. There doesn't appear to be a direct correlation between ibuprofen and the vertigo.
c. overstrenuous excercise - There may be some relation to excercise and dizzness but I seriously doubt this connection is direct.
d. allergy related - What I believe may be regular allergies may be a slight flu or cold (I can never tell the difference). It's possible that the flonase is suppressing many of its typical symptoms such as (runny nose, coughing etc.
e. too much drinking - Yeah... you wish. I drink a lot.. when I drink.
f. ear infection - I can feel hollowness in my right ear. I can't tell if its in the outer or inner ear. I'm applying cortisol ear drops 2-3 times daily. I could possibly be exacerbating the problem... or I just haven't been taking it routinely.

I ain't no doctor (although I did aspire to become one at one time) but here's my diagnosis and treatment suggestion.

Diagnosis: The problem is a combination of possible factors d, f, a (in that order). It's allergy season and flownase just isn't enough. My sinuses are currently getting overpowered by allergens and it is causing excess fluid to enter the eustachian tube. This excess fluid is causing the balance and vertigo problems as evidenced by different levels of spinning sensations depending on how my head it tilted. In addition, this minor ear infection is worsening the problems too. Either I don't really have an ear infection any more and these drops are entering the eustachian tube from the outside or the ear infection is serious and I'm not appying the medicine frequently enough to eliminate the problem. On top of all that the stress has weakened my immune system so I'm more suseptible to all of these problem.

Treatment: Meclizine (for vertigo relief), Sudafed (to help clear the eustachian tube), Light excercise and good diet. I think the last doctor said the same exact thing. Shit.

If you're a brilliant doctor who's reading this and thinks they know what's up hit me up: suntzu at gmail dot com.