Friend of mine just got diagnosed with vertigo....

[FoxTwo]

... cuz he fainted suddenly at work. At the hospital they diagnosed him with vertigo.

He's kinda sad about it all, cuz now he can't really stand to look at a monitor screen. Slow scrolling text starts to make him dizzy. Watching TV and movies makes him feel like throwing up. He says he walks around the house like a drunk, and all he feels like doing is to just sleep.

So he can't play ED anymore, he can't even play most games at the moment. At best, point-and-click adventure types.

He says he's slowly recovering but it's been almost a week and he still gets dizzy watching TV (maybe it's the refresh rate - he can subconciously see 60 frames flickering?).

So... you guys with vertigo - TAKE CARE of yourselves.. don't let it become so bad until you can't even stand to look at a monitor or TV screen... take regular breaks to re-balance yourself...

ps: I have another friend who has a mild case of vertigo.. but he is kinda strange.. he has NO PROBLEMS playing FPS, cockpit-sim kind of games like ED, but... he gets dizzy playing games like GTA and Batman

 

[NW3]

... cuz he fainted suddenly at work. At the hospital they diagnosed him with vertigo.

He's kinda sad about it all, cuz now he can't really stand to look at a monitor screen. Slow scrolling text starts to make him dizzy. Watching TV and movies makes him feel like throwing up. He says he walks around the house like a drunk, and all he feels like doing is to just sleep.

He says he's slowly recovering but it's been almost a week and he still gets dizzy watching TV (maybe it's the refresh rate - he can subconciously see 60 frames flickering?).

Please tell your friend he has my sympathy. Illnesses can be life changing. (Unfortunately, I know firsthand.) Suggest that he find a new hobby, to take the place of the things he can't do right now. Personally, I took up gardening and cooking - deserts are my specialty. (If anyone wants my carrot cake recipe, just IM me. Quite a few people have told me it's the best they've ever tasted.)

It's possible it's the TV refresh rate or it might just be the camera panning. Some people are more sensitive to flickering. Back in the days of CRT monitors, I could determine the refresh rate with 100% reliability (60, 75, or 85 fps) just by looking at the screen. I was able to impress my coworkers; no one else could see the difference, but to me it was obvious. 85 was the only rate that didn't give me headaches after long use. 60 flickered visibly - nothing subconscious about it. Luckily, LCD displays don't flicker the same way as those old CRTs did.

 

[fus roh potato]

I remember the day I first tried to do 2 and a half somersaults off a 1 meter springboard from the standing position, but came up short in a way that smacked my face on the water while I was still spinning. It was the hardest I had ever taken before, including all those from 3 meter. I instantly had 2 black eyes.

A day later I remember I was at practice again, did a dive and attempted to swim back up with my eyes closed, only I never made it up. I opened my eyes and I was upsidown near the bottom headed straight for the wall. My vision was spinning and it didn't make sense, but it went away by the time I surfaced. It kept happening but I thought I was just tired.

I went to lay down in bed later that night and remembered feeling this awful sensation like I was flipping faster than I had ever flipped before. My eyes were bouncing and I couldn't see. It hit me a few other times while walking around and it knocked me off my feet.

So in my case, it ended up that there was some calcium deposits inside my ear canal that were loose and rolling around through the internal hairs that sense for balance. There was an easy solution to position the head at certain angles in a certain order, to help relocate those bits to an area where they can be absorbed. It went away after two weeks.

I don't know what kind of vertigo your friend has but it sounds like something more serious. How can a game cause vertigo?

 

[NW3]

I went to lay down in bed later that night and remembered feeling this awful sensation like I was flipping faster than I had ever flipped before. My eyes were bouncing and I couldn't see. It hit me a few other times while walking around and it knocked me off my feet.

So in my case, it ended up that there was some calcium deposits inside my ear canal that were loose and rolling around through the internal hairs that sense for balance... It went away after two weeks.

I don't know what kind of vertigo your friend has but it sounds like something more serious. How can a game cause vertigo?

Thanks for sharing.

I have a friend who can't play first-person games, because they make him nauseous. It's the disconnect between what your eyes are seeing and what your body is feeling. For many people, it's most pronounced in VR.

 

[FoxTwo]

Please tell your friend he has my sympathy. Illnesses can be life changing. (Unfortunately, I know firsthand.) Suggest that he find a new hobby, to take the place of the things he can't do right now. Personally, I took up gardening and cooking - deserts are my specialty. (If anyone wants my carrot cake recipe, just IM me. Quite a few people have told me it's the best they've ever tasted.)

Hahah yeah well we've been gamers for most of our lives... I don't even know what else he could be interested in, all we do is talk about games. He has a guitar and he plays.. maybe he could do that until he recovers...

I don't know what kind of vertigo your friend has but it sounds like something more serious. How can a game cause vertigo?

For my friend, he says it's just "looking at the monitor". It's not "the game" causing his specific vertigo, cuz he was at work when it happened. If anything he probably was looking at Word or Excel sheets If he concentrated a bit he can look, but if he just glanced at it, he immediately starts to feel dizzy. It's also very sudden, because he had never ever felt this way before he fainted at work. When the hospital told him he had vertigo he was surprised as heck. Of course we remembered those warnings before the game starts about wrist carpal syndrome and vertigo but we've never had it so we usually ignore it.

But as I said, currently that friend can't stand to look at the TV nor monitor screens. Phone and tablets are fine for him, for now. Strange to me though. They're both still LCDs and have screens but he's ok with those. Slow scrolling text (like Steam chat) make him dizzy, and I keep jibing him about it cuz now he can't sweet-talk women on the internet

For now he's got a 1-week sick leave and he's just lazing around at home sleeping most of the time. I hardly see him online, but when I whatsapp him, he replies.

ps: he's also really bummed about his VR thing... he was saving up for a VR set, now he's just spent that amount for his hospital bills and furthermore he can't use VR for ED even if he finally has the money, cuz he has vertigo.