Can we talk balance issues?

I'm curious about everyone's opinions on this. If you could give me your thoughts on a few balance-related questions:

What do you consider:
--slight balance problems?
--moderate balance problems?
--advanced balance problems?
(please feel free to give examples, i.e., failing the heel-toe walk or stumbling, etc.)

Do you experience any balance issues, if so, how often? How do you treat it?

I've been curious how everyone would categorize different levels of balance issues, and I thought it might be something that others were wondering, too :-)

Hope everyone is having a great Monday!
~Jess

[figuerpa]

I can't say how everyone else feels but for me the slight would be If I turn to fast and lose my balance or fall. Moderate is probably when I can't look up or down or close my eyes without almost falling over. Advanced would have to be when I am walking and fall or the "drunk walk" and I feel like everyone is looking.

[heartfelt77]

I have balance issues in the morning when my husband gets me out of bed.  I try to sit on the edge of the bed before getting into my wheelchair but when trying to sit my whole upper part of my body falls forward.  It takes me awhile to get stabize in the morning.  He stands in front of me until I can straighten up and sometimes has to push my shoulders up to get me stable that help

s also.

Take care..... I hope all balance issues get resolved.
Misty

[COBOB]

I think there are two variables:  How Severe?  How frequent?

I do not loose my balance all that often, but when I do, it has resulted in some pretty serious falls.  I really do not think that I suffer from an "inner ear" tyoe of balance issue.  Sometimes my body just gets disconnected from my brain and then I have problems like foot-drop, errors in detecting body position, etc.  Sometimes, this is just an issue when getting out of bed of up from a low couch.  

Bob

[teenyturner]

Hi,  I have a combination of cerebellar ataxia and loss of balance from myelopathy.  It's hell.

If I'm standing still and something around me is moving...person, car, swing etc ...I get so unbalanced I can just fall straight over.  On the other hand I also don't know where my feet and legs are and if I don't concentrate very very hard,  I simply fall over.

This means that I too, look like I'm drunk when I'm trying to walk.  Especially when I get that feeling on the soles of my feet as if the floor or ground is a sheet of ice.  Does anyone else get this?

I can't walk at all in the dark because I depend on my sight to provide some sense of where my body is in relation to my surroundings.  The Romberg test is a total waste of time even attempting.  My neuro doesn't even bother doing that test now.

Regards

[supermum_ms]

I wasn't sure which catagory i slotted into so I asked dh where he thought I fit. Generally i'm 'moderate' but fall into 'advanced' due to sensory or visual components, i may not like it but he's right.

I wobble standing still, its odd because all of a sudden i'll just loose my balance and i'm just standing doing nothing at all to warrent it. None of the usual visual or sensory culprets, lol i cant even blame it on my shoes so why is the mystery, its like some invisible hands shuved me lol.

When you add visual or sensory thats when my brain totally goes on holiday. I'm totally dependant on the surface i'm walking on, anything not hard, flat and smooth makes my brain fritz out and i freeze frame, fighting gravity and looking like a surfer riding the waves.

Whilst its happening theres multiple things going on and at the same time: 1) i'm fighting to stay up, arms out and flapping around trying to stop the fall. 2) Knees folding beneath me, so i'm fighting the bend by the strength of my thigh muscles. 3) I cant get either of my feet to move in any direction unless i physically lift them. 4) My left foot/ankle is bouncing rappidly up and down. 5) i'm turning to jelly, joints not locking and holding me strong.

If there isn't something to hold me up, human or inanimate object, i'm going down. I cant stop it or do anything but try to safely crumple to the ground. Even then the floor surface is whats fritzed out my brain so i need help getting back onto hard, flat and smooth or i'm not going anywhere. Once i'm able to move again, i'm doing my puppet walking, no balance and looking very very drunk.lol

Almost the exact same thing happens with visual components, though changes of light seems to freez me but if i'm moving forward when the lighting changes, its like my upper half is still traveling so I'm trying to stop the forward fall. Closing my eyes and I start falling backwards, its a very short window of about 3-5 seconds and then i start going over.

What i understand about the why of it, is that we need a minimum of 2 of the 3 senses (hearing, vision and sensory imput through your feet) to control your 'where you are in space'. I have double vision and other visual issues and because my balance is dependant on surface stucture, its logical that my sensory imput through my feet is caput too, which only leaves me with 1 (hearing) and no ones brain can work around that.

Hmmm i know the name of the balance part of the brain but for the life of me i can't get it, hmmm that'll drive me nutts until it comes back, anyone?

Cheers..........JJ

PS i can tandem walk on a hard, flat, smooth surface so does that count? lol    

[Guitar_grrrl]

I guess I would say Slight to Moderate.  I have cerebellar ataxia, and I failed my last Romberg test.  OTOH, I can still ride a bike, and I wonder how much of that is muscle memory, etc.  Balance poses in Yoga are done against the wall, for me.

[teenyturner]

Before I was diagnosed with a neuro problem, I bought a bike.  I hadn't ridden one since I was a kid.  Well, I just kept falling off.  I didn't realize it was a medical problem, I just thought I'd forgotten how to ride.

I sold that bike at a garage sale.  I put a sign on it saying there was something wrong with it because it kept falling over!  It sold for a good price anyway and I got a few laughs from the potential buyers.

[Sailorsong]

JJ,

  What you described is the same for me. Changes in lighting ( or just waking up) messes with my vision and since both feet are numb there is two out of the 3 senses missing. I think I'm in the moderate to severe range.

The only thing that I can add is that I have noticed recently that I tend to have me head tilted to the right most of the time ( watching TV, on the computer, etc.). I'm not sure what that is about!

Dennis

[lovemy6monkeys]

Thanks for all the replies!

I had considered myself to not really have any balance issues, only on the rare occasions when my vertigo acted up. Then I hit my latest relapse at the beginning of December, and ended up walking like I was drunk a lot.

I think that most the time I fall under the "slight" category. I fail the Romberg test every time, and I cannot do heel-to-toe more than 4 or 5 steps without tipping over. Lately I've started having some issues with when I change position. It is kind of hard to describe, but one example is the other night I was in bed and realized the corner of my sheet was starting to come up. I stood up with my back to my bed, made a quarter turn so I was facing the head of my bed...and I just tipped backwards. Luckily I also tipped slightly to the left so I fell back on the bed and not flat on my back on the floor like a turtle :-)

I'm always really careful to not move too quickly, so I hate that my balance seems to be getting a bit worse. The good news is it still isn't bad, and I'm progressing slowly. The other good news is it has given us an "excuse" to finally spend the money to get the family our first puppy (hopefully at some point this year, we already have a deposit in with a breeder). We will be training the dog to be a service dog for me...and also lucky for me, since I need a balance dog, it has to be a big dog, so we will be getting a newfoundland, which has always been my dream dog :-)

~Jess