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Show Dr.Talk Getting Dizzy . By DR. HAROLD LIGON If you are middle-aged, you probably recall riding on your stomach on your parents' piano stool, round and round, until you got dizzy and staggered stag-gered around the parlor. It was great fun! ; YOU COULD get theame sensation from the swing in the yard, if you twisted or wound up the rope or chains and then let it spin you around as it unwound. un-wound. If you spun around on the stool too much, or spun too much in the swing, what happened? hap-pened? You got nauseated and "threw up." What you experienced experi-enced in both cases was an episode epi-sode of motion sickness, a very common sensation which affects many people daily. IT'S OF COURSE, related to motion and can occur also when riding in boats, cars or aircraft. And dizziness on these occasions can turn a pleasant outing or trip into misery. What causes it? What happens hap-pens in your head is that this constant motion back and forth and up and down, sets into motion the fluid in the semicircular canals which are located in the inner ear area. These canals work like a gyroscope, gyro-scope, to keep the body in balance. ba-lance. WHEN THE fluid begins to rush this way and that, rapidly and abnormally, the body's equilibrium is upset, and if extreme, ex-treme, it will often produce nausea. One can also feel dizziness, diz-ziness, or even faint from the effects. ",-v,'l T dthef-formVof eqyiliBrium disturbance are Miniere's Disease Dis-ease and labrynthitis. They can also make one feel quite ill but are usually not serious. To avoid these sensations, there are several drugs on the market. THE MOST commonly used is probably Dramamine, which airline stewardesses often pass out to airsick passengers. It is an anti-histamine and is relatively rela-tively harmless. It has a tendency ten-dency to make some sleepy and therefore is, in this sense, a mild sleeping aid. |