• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of, and finding treatments for, complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia, long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Bowling ball in the head

meadowlark

Senior Member
Messages
241
Location
Toronto, Canada
I know this is a strange thread title, but bear with me. Often, when sitting up in bed or leaning down from a stand position, I have the sensation of a bowling ball rolling very heavily through my skull. If I have bent from the waist, for instance, I feel like my head will continue going forward til it clunks on the floor, just like a bowling ball dropping from my hand. (I usually grab the nearest wall for support, and straighten myself by inches.) If I'm trying to sit up, it's as though the bowling ball has hit the lane and made it halfway across my skull, then stopped, reversed directions, and whammed my head back where it started--on the pillow. I then lift my head very slowly ... maybe an inch a minute.

When doctors ask if I am dizzy, I ask if they mean that the room seems to be going round and round in a whirl, and they say yes. I tell them that no, that has never happened, even before blackouts and seizures, which always make me fall, unconscious.

Two doctors have told me that this is just one of those eccentric neurological phenomena that don't mean anything. But for the 2 months (about once a week) I've had the "bowling ball" move across my head when I simply turn it on the pillow. The heaviness rolls toward the pillow, of course, and then this "bowling ball" feels like it fall into a canyon, with me attached. While it's going on, time slows and I feel that I've been disconnected (like the astronaut cut loose by HAL in 2001, for all you Kubrick lovers). But I'm pretty suggestible on this aspect ... after all, it happens when I'm just waking up.

Has anyone exerienced this?
 

Sherlock

Boswellia for lungs and MC stabllizing
Messages
1,287
Location
k8518704 USA

meadowlark

Senior Member
Messages
241
Location
Toronto, Canada
Hello Sherlock: I'm sorry for waiting so long to reply; I was discovering how excruciating a burst eardrum can be! I have now read quite a lot about chiari malformation and will bring it up with my doctor. Thank you so much for the response!
 

Sherlock

Boswellia for lungs and MC stabllizing
Messages
1,287
Location
k8518704 USA
Glad to have been of a little help, meadowlark. Then maybe the ear condition caused all your symptoms?

If not, then something else to be ware of is the association of CM with syrinx. Good luck with how everything turns out.