I experienced a sudden and severe bout of vertigo recently. Eyes closed and head tilted as I washed my face, an extreme sensation of spinning overwhelmed me and I completely lost my balance. A few hours later, after regaining more of a normal orientation, I shuffled to my Mosby's nursing dictionary. My symptoms matched those of subjective vertigo, the sensation that your body is spinning in space (rather than objects spinning around you - an equally unpleasant prospect). A couple of cross-references Later, I was reading about postural vertigo, 'brought on by movement of the head to certain positions'. Apparently this is caused by a change within the otolith of the inner ear.
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