After beginning my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu journey 5 Years ago it is hard to think that for the past 2 my life has been overshadowed by BPV (Benign Positional Vertigo) or so I thought...
I had never even heard of this before. As far as I knew Vertigo was a fear of heights. Unfortunately, I have come to find that it is far more than that.
One night after training in August 2015 I was driving home at night when suddenly I lost my equilibrium. The road that I saw ahead of me was not at the same angle that my mind was telling me. Adding to this, my right arm went numb and my legs started to shake as if I was horribly low on sugar. Luckily, I was able to pull into a nearby Volcom store where they were able to look through previous employee records to find a friends number to come and get me. At this point I couldn't even stand. I had no idea what was happening to me or why. This was the first of many moments like this to come.
It's now two years on and I still don't have a decisive answer as to why. For the majority of this time I was unable to drive for fear of reoccurrence of simply because it was happening from morning until night. In the first six months it was at its worst and the last six months it has been at its best. I have slowly begun to drive longer distances and I have not had a severe "attack" since April of this year, when I decided to enter a NAGA competition as a challenge to myself and the seemingly dissipating Vertigo symptoms .
So what was the cause? I still don't know for sure. I have been to many doctors had many tests and taken advice from everyone and anyone that has had similar symptoms. Some said it was something to do with my neck, others suggested that it could be stress, protein sources, migraines, vision, exhaustion, etc. The closest thing that I would now believe it to be is black mold. We discovered at the end of last year (Dec 2016) that we had black mold growing in the walls of our house. As a graphic designer I was working indoors all the time while the other members of my family were at work or school. It wasn't until I spoke to my neighbors (that also lived in the building) that they were suffering some terrible symptoms of their own. When we discovered the mold we all moved out immediately. 6 weeks after I began to see a noticeable change in my vertigo. 6 months after it is pretty much non-existant.
I know that this blog doesn't directly refer to my BJJ journey in the training but in truth it has has a great deal of impact on my Jiu Jitsu in many ways. As most of you can imagine some people were jumping to the conclusion that Jiu Jitsu must be the cause. I insisted time and again that it wasn't. I am greatly relieved to find that it was not!
Feeling frustrated and depressed at the idea that this Vertigo may just end up being a part of my life forever, it really was the looking forward to training that got me through. As I couldn't drive my coach and training partners were truly incredible! Not only would they totally understand if I gave up top position to roll onto the mats and play from my back with my eyes closed (the only place that the equilibrium couldn't trick me) but they would give me rides to training so that I didn't miss class. I can not thank them all enough for doing this and keeping me going. Thank you ALL anyway. Seriously, Jiu Jitsu brothers and sisters are family!
Every cloud has a silver lining and that lining is not just that I am able to appreciate the small things now, like driving, for granted (which I do appreciate VERY MUCH). It's that I have absolute faith in my love for this beautiful art. There were so many times that I could have thrown in the towel because of the effects of vertigo and didn't. In fact it has taught me that my passion for Jiu Jitsu is immovable. The sport, the lifestyle, the training partners, the yearning for the mats and of course the journey itself. What can I say? I'm hooked for life!