Feel dizzy and unbalanced while driving on the highways

[honestmale]

I am 44 years old and being driving for years but unfortunately, for couple of years I started to feel dizzy and unbalanced while driving on the highways for long time at a speed higher than 90 km/h (55 ml/h) specially at night.  It starts by feeling flashes at my head and then the difficulty starts. This problem does not occur while driving in the city.  I visited the EN&T doctor sometimes ago and he said I do not have an inner ear infection.  I visited eye doctor and no problem too.  Then I thought of it as driving phobia and started to take anti depressant drug but unfortunately, the problem still.  This issue is irritating me and I do not know what to do?!!!

[JennyJ776]

Please do SCM trigger point massage in your neck. You can search online. I got better after the massage. I couldn't drive for over a year before. The answer could be simple. It was a miracle cure.

[Tan2789]

What is scm trigger massage? Is it acupuncture? Who do I see for it and what does scm stand for

[JennyJ776]

You can google it. SCM stands for Sternocleidomastoid Mussle.

[JennyJ776]

You can do the massage yourself after watching YouTube video. It is not a acupunture. I did massage it myself. I could drive normal after several days massage. Before I found out about it, I couldn't drive more than a year and a half with the dizziness.

[mosrite77]

Just discovered this thread after having a terrifying experience yesterday and wanted to say your comment summed up the feeling perfectly.
I started to get very sudden and immediate feelings of disorientation whilst driving around 10 years ago but they were immediate and passed. The closest thing I can describe them as is that sudden feeling when you go over a bump or a crest of a hill and your stomach ‘drops’. I rationalised it as tiredness and the feeling coming from suddenly snapping back into concentration.
Then a few months ago I had a horrible journey – I had no choice but to do this long drive at night as I had to be somewhere and as soon as I hit the larger dual carriageway road I was absolutely struck with terror. I’m 38 and I have been driving for 20 years now. I think of myself as a good driver, I drive a lot and I enjoy driving at speed and ordinarily I wouldn’t be fazed by speed or other traffic. But this one drive had me bolt upright in my seat clutching the wheel so hard my hands hurt. I was alone in the car and managed to talk myself through it and take it a little easier and I was able to continue the journey. Again, I rationalised it as being tired and stressed (both true). My car is also not great and has broken down a few times and I felt like that worry was a contributing factor also.
However, yesterday I experienced this sensation again to such a sudden and alarming degree it was almost like an out of body experience or something equally crazy sounding. I look back on it now and it’s still vivid and scary but it feels like I didn’t experience it myself if that makes sense?
I had taken a wrong turn and joined the motorway in the wrong direction which was fine, I had 3 friends with me and their sat navs were recalculating so I wasn’t stressing about the directions. I joined the slow lane of a 3 lane motorway and all of a sudden it was like I had no control over the car at all. I felt like I had no idea whether I was travelling at 5mph or 500mph. My eyes felt like they were darting between the flickering white lines of the road, the car in front and specks of dirt on the windscreen. It felt like looking through the lens of a camera as it auto focuses on different objects at different focal lengths but with extreme speed. I shot bolt upright in my seat, clenched my fists around the wheel and, for the first time since I started getting these sensations, I felt I couldn’t overcome it. It was f*cking *terrifying*. My friends were great and I was a mile away from the service station so they just talked me off the motorway and into the car park but I was shaking, couldn’t breathe and on the verge of tears. I really had no idea how we would get out of the service station. After a while I was able to contemplate carrying on and it really helped that my friends were there to talk to me and chat about anything apart from the driving itself. But I still had to come off the motorway and drive back on A roads (where I immediately felt perfectly fine).
I wanted to share some observations I have had about the times it’s happened to me. I don’t know whether these are connected or a cause or not but they might ring true with some of you.
1. I had a hangover. I had slept less than normal in an unfamiliar bed. I was stiff and tired and dehydrated. Whilst I wasn’t hungover in the other times it’s occurred, I was certainly tired and had slept somewhere other than home the night before.
2. Drinking something sugary seemed to help. I couldn’t have negotiated drinking anything while driving but pulling off the road and drinking a sugary drink helped me relax.
3. Opening the window of the car seemed to help once I got back on the road.
4. Driving one handed with the other hand on my knee or the gear lever seemed to make me relax in my seat more and lessen the symptoms
I’m going to go and see my doctor about this and one thing I noticed in this thread that had never occurred to me might be linked is mention of similar feelings in supermarkets. I had an episode of bizarre dizziness in a supermarket a few years back that took me to my doctor who felt it was a lack of Vitamin D. I’ve never had another incident like it but now I’ve read this thread and thought about it the feeling was the same as I experience whilst driving.
My gut instinct tells me it’s about a tired brain struggling with depth perception when faced with repetition and conflicting stimuli – so you’re tired, you’re groggy and you’re faced with grid-like imagery (same goes for the supermarket which is a pretty unnatural environment too) and your brain struggles to make immediate sense of what your eyes are recording. This throws you into a little momentary spasm of panic (the ‘stomach drop’ moment) and, being tired, that panic escalates as you’re driving a car at speed (or in a public place in the case of supermarkets) and it rolls into a full size panic attack.
I’ll see what my doctor says though…

[Melimorris]

I am sooo thrilled I am not alone!!!! Im going to take this thread to my neurologist and beg him to do something to help us. Someone has to study this, create a scenario via computer generated driving scenes to watch and evaluate what is happening to our bodies AND HELP US. We are all too young, with children and jobs, to lose our love and freedom that driving brings us.

[Lowerthirds]

I had these fellings since Dec 22, 2015. My neurologist has me on antiviral meds and ocular migraine meds. I think it may help little, but still have a issue driving, especially on the frwy. I feel pretty down from this and need it to stop.

[Chzanz]

Hi there,  I'm so grateful for all of you since 2008 to 2016 writing about this.  I've had the same symptoms as most people on here.  The thing that was weird for me was only when I was driving alone.  If someone else in car or me in passenger seat; it was fine.  I took the advice of another post on here; as I have had back problems and read Dr. Sarno's Healing Back Pain - The Mind-Body Connection.  I live in Australia, and until I came across this thread, had no one that could relate to me.  After reading the book; my symptoms have improved dramatically.  I wouldn't say it was solely the connecting my pain with my brain and repressed emotions; but I was open enough to accept there may have been some connection.  Thank you to the people on here that recommended it.  It's been wonderful for me to get back some control on highways. I hope this posts helps someone else.

[kev001]

hi 'couth15', I too have similar issues; feel dizzy only when driving on highways or dual carriageway but fine in city, B roads. What I have been diagnosed with is occipital neuralgia. This happen when the nerve holding your neck and shoulder become inflammed. This is caused by your driving posture and you paying too much attention (i.e. not relax, nervous, can be the glare too) and put move pressure on this nerve which makes you feel light headed and which in turn can affect your eye as well. I have a vertigo problem and it get worst when i am on a bridge. So my advise is go and see a neurologist.

[couth15]

I too have been experiencing a similar problem and its so good to know that I'm not suffering alone. I am an otherwise healthy 37 year old but have been suffering dizziness/disorientation and the feeling that I'm going to pass out whilst driving long straight fast roads for the past 5 years . It doesn't happen when driving cross country. When these episodes occur it causes me to panic (I don't believe panic is the cause of it as one doctor suggested), my heart races and I feel like I'm going to lose control of the car. If I stop the symptoms resolve but will soon recur if I join the fast road again. I like many others avoid driving on motorways or dual carriageways. I also get the same sort of feeling to a lesser extent when walking down a supermarket aisle and sometimes get to feeling that I'm going to pass out. This is becoming debilitating and is starting to get me down. I've been for an MRI, ENT referral, balance tests and ocular exam. None of them have come across this before and they don't seem to understand what I'm trying to tell them, it's very difficult to explain! I hope we all find some relief/answers soon