She has vertigo now, I never got that far. For a long time she has had what doctors call panic attacks. Her heart will beat really fast, or sometimes she has a hard time breathing. I gave her a massage to see if she had any tightness in the places I had. Turns out she did. The nerves of the neck, if put under too much pressure from chronic bad posture, lack of exercise and pressure on the spine will put your body into a panic, I’m pretty sure she has this problem because I had this problem until I did an lot of therapy on my neck and shoulders and her symptoms are exactly the same as mind, it’s always worse when laying down to sleep, too.
Since this experience I’ve spent s lot of time with eastern doctors and listened to many of their patients stories. I believe most illness starts with conflicting emotions and thoughts and often makes it’s first physical manifestations in the muscles, often the back muscles. From there it can affect various parts of the body depending on which vertebrae it is affecting. I’m not certified in anything but I’ve met enough people with problems and seem how proper massage can help them with almost anything.
The medical doctors told me the same thing, I had “panic attacks” except they weren’t panic attacks they were my nerves responding to too much pressure, not only literally but actually physically.
There is something to say about how the mind and the body are interconnected. I too was told I was having panic attacks, but I knew that I was not going through any additional or unusual stressors at the time. Truth be told, I WAS having panic attacks, but not because of an anxiety disorder but because the vertigo was making me feel like I was going to pass out and/or die. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? In my case, the vertigo came first...
It is such a weird problem but I guess rather common - and it can be caused by so many different things (i.e. ear infection, head injury, dehydration) I went to a neurologist and he sent me to a physical therapist. They diagnosed me as having problems with my vestibular system. Basically, as you said, working on the neck and shoulder muscles can help. there are so many people who are chronically dehydrated too, which was partly the issue, and I now drink half caf/half decaf coffee in the morning. My physical therapist asked me if I was taking any anti-anxiety medication at the time (which I was not) because although Xanax can be a shot of bliss it ultimately will make ones vertigo worse.
Hah! Amazing! Almost the same issue. You are so lucky to have a doctor who caught this problem, many don’t, and I think it’s an extremely common undiagnosed problem. You make your own luck though ;-)
You can give yourself massages the whole neck, minus the jugular vein, so from the side to the back. The muscles that connect the neck to the shoulders too and also your shoulder blades and shoulder pressure points with a tennis or lacrosse ball. I’ve almspt fully healed this way.
I got soooo much better after I totally quit caffeine. I still indulge about once a month but I always regret it.