When using the Half Somersault maneuver for BPPV, do you keep your eyes open like you do during the Epley maneuver?
Both of these maneuvers are used to treat BPPV, the form of vertigo that lasts for several seconds and is set off by rolling over in bed or arising quickly. When health care providers do an Epley maneuver, they will ask you to keep your eyes open. This allows the provider to see if your eyes are moving (nystagmus). The way your eyes move helps them prove whether your vertigo is due to BPPV or to another cause. The nystagmus of the most common form of BPPV is quite violent, with the eyes appearing to “beat” upward and twisting in an arc for several seconds. If the provider sees this, they will be assured that doing an Epley maneuver has a good chance of resolving the problem. Keeping your eyes open is only for them—it doesn’t do you any good.
The Half Somersault maneuver doesn’t require a provider or assistant. You can do it all by yourself. No one needs to be looking at your eyes to see if you have nystagmus, so you can close them throughout. It’s your choice, though. You can open them, and you may see the world spinning, which is proof to you that you have nystagmus.
Closing your eyes when you have violent nystagmus helps reduce some of the dizziness and anxiety it causes. It’s quite frightening when it first happens. Your eyes are jerking out of control. The world appears to be rotating before your eyes, as if you are trapped looking out the door of a washing machine on HIGH. There is a spiraling quality. It starts off a bit slow, then accelerates to a horrid spinning before tapering off over several seconds to a minute. The more loose crystals you have in the inner ear, the more violent it is. After doing a maneuver or two, the spinning becomes slower, and it can look more like a shifting of the world rather than a continuous spin.
Closing your eyes does not stop the internal feeling of spinning. You just don’t have to watch the world going around, which makes spinning feel worse. Once the spinning has gotten down to just a slow shifting by doing maneuvers, opening your eyes and trying to focus can actually make the spinning feel slower or stop it altogether. Focusing helps suppress nystagmus, but it can only eliminate it if the nystagmus is fairly slow, so it’s most useful as your spell is going away.
Ending Vertigo Today 