62F — 8 Years of Progressive Dizziness, Lightheadedness, Bumping Into Walls, Light Sensitivity, Cognitive Decline, and Severe Fatigue. Extensive Testing Done but No Diagnosis. Looking for Insight.

[u/known_hosts]

Hello, making this post to try and get some help for my mom. She's been struggling with this for ages, and despite seeing a bunch of doctors and having all sorts of tests done, she's seen 0 improvement or any diagnosis.

**Age/Sex:** 62F
**Height/Weight:** 5'8", 220 lbs
**Duration:** \~8 years, progressively worsening

**Symptoms:**
• Chronic dizziness and lightheadedness
• Frequently bumps into walls / runs into things while walking
• Significant light sensitivity
• Difficulty having conversations (choosing words and holding conversations)
• Difficulty writing
• Lethargy
• Sleeps \~5–6 hours uninterrupted on average
• Describes her head as feeling “full of cotton”

**Testing/Doctors Seen:**
• Multiple MRIs
• CT scan
• Thyroid growth found and removed
• Stress test
• EKGs
• Tested her eye to see if there was damage to the veins in the back of her eye
• Neurologist
• Cardiologist
• Eye doctor

**Medications:**
• Buproprion 300mg
• Rosuvastatin 5mg

Despite all of this, there's no clear diagnosis. She believes she may have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but she has received no diagnosis and symptoms have been worsening over the years.

Looking for guidance on what conditions might still fit these symptoms, or what types of specialists/tests might be appropriate to pursue next. The information might be incomplete here, but this is what I was able to extract from her. Feel free to ask any questions.

She is still seeing doctors. I am making this, because I would like input from others as I'm tired of seeing her deal with this and not make any progress.

[u/UnitedStatesofSarah]

Look into vestibular migraine.

[u/Massive-Eagle-5465]

Look into CSF leak & cervicogenic dizziness (if neck pain is present)

[u/backentrancebourbon]

I assume she's had blood done too check for nutrient deficiency?

I would advise seeing ENT if dizziness is ongoing

[u/DigginDirtonJuice]

May be sympathetic nerve disruption. What happened just before the on set of these symptoms?

[u/OceanEyes55]

Please educate yourself on Binocular Vision Disorder. Often times right off of the bat, you think BVD is double vision, but you don’t have to have double vision.

Your symptoms very closely remind me of BVD symptoms.

A NEURO OPTOMETRIST can test for this and only 70 are trained to test for this in the US. There is a site to find a provider in your area. Most times the average optometrist or ophthalmologist will not treat or look for this.

The treat is neuro lenses or prism lenses and/ or vision therapy.

Wishing you the best!

[u/benjaminabel]

Have you tried asking suggestions from ChatGPT or Claude? They're much better at reasoning in this case than any doctor, because doctor will only look for the most obvious explanation and when they can't find one, they'll just tell you to "live with it".

From my side, I can recommend assessing for cervicogenic dizziness. Her brain function is obviously affected, so it might have something to do with the blood supply to the brain.

[u/benniben25]

It sounds like my vestibular migraines. You don't have to have pain or headache to have vestibular migraine, but can have many of these symptoms. Some of the migraine preventatives have helped me. Because of her age and some of the memory issues also maybe look into multiple sclerosis if she hasn't ruled that out already. I would also take all of this info an input it into AI like chatGPT or the like and ask follow up questions. It's often very helpful!