<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

5) Headache is not required to make the diagnosis of MAV. As in
migraine, occasionally aura may occur without headache (acephalgic
migraine), it also follows that vertigo may occur without headache.
Benign recurrent vertigo of adults, essentially a vertiginous migraine
aura without headache, was described first by Slater (1979). It consists
of spells of vertigo, which can include tinnitus, but without hearing
loss (were hearing loss allowed, this disorder would become very
difficult to distinguish from Menieres). Vertigo lasts from minutes to
hours. Not all authors agree that BRV is caused by migraine however, and
Leliever and Barber suggested that it is caused by peripheral vestibular
lesions (Leliever WC, Barber HO. Recurrent vestibulopathy. Laryngoscope
1981:91:1-6). Another example is the Benign Paroxysmal Vertigo syndrome
of children, as described below under the heading of familial syndromes,
where headache does not occur. Cutrer and Baloh (1992) also observed
that dizziness and headaches are not necessarily closely associated. In
fact, in their 91 patients, only 5 had a consistent recurring dizziness
with headache. In 30%, dizziness was consistently independent of
headache. In most, spells sometimes occurred with and sometimes
independently.

http://www.dizziness-and-balance.com/disorders/central/migraine/mav.html

6) I haven't experienced anything of such magnitude, however, I do have
strange vision occurrances sometimes with sparkles, have lightheadedness
from time-to-time, and did have an episode of losing all feeling in my
left arm, having it just dangle and having no control. After an EEG and
exam for possible stroke, everything was normal. I would appreciate
seeing comments and conclusions from others.

7) You are describing some pretty classic migraines symptoms, and I am
shocked that the neurologist did not realize this! I am much better now,
but when I was very ill with ulcerative colitis (pre-diagnosis), I had a
lot of flashing light activity, nausea, and even a blind spot in the
center of my field of vision. It is not at all unusual for migraineurs
to suffer multiple aura symptoms (and those are only a few of them) and
not progress to the all-out pain of a migraine (I did not back then,
though have a few times since; hence I had no idea what was going on
until we got a diagnosis for my son - which of course had been
misinterpreted by many doctors as well). There are literally dozens of
books on the topic, all with slightly different and useful info. There
are many triggers, and they are, of course, individual/personal - some
people react to not getting enough sleep, others to a salty snack on an
empty stomach; there is of course the well known link with caffeine, red
wine, cheese (but note that many can tolerate all of those things but
then may react very badly to certain odors or sounds). Bright lights,
particularly the fluttery fluorescent type are well known triggers as
well. She needs to browse the triggers lists and see what she might
minimize in making a connection with the event and what else she did/ate
around that time (by the way, going too long without eating is a big
trigger). Judging from my experience (and my son, whose migraines were
largely controlled by the gf diet), it is also a reflection of poor
health in another arena - she may just be still healing from the Celiac,
or, she may need some additional supplementation to achieve that healing

8) Your sister might well be having an anaphylactic shock as the result
of an undiagnosed food allergy (perhaps as a result of the leaky gut
syndrome that plagues celiacs patients).

For example, when I was 32 I suddenly started to have strange neuralogic
events similar to your sisters (I called them "funny feelings"...became
faint, my face went beet red, I had these strange strange images popping
up in my head, and my extremities would often swell, especially if I
exercised). Then 2 years later out of the blue my funny feelings would
sometimes end in a full blown seizure. The doctors couldn't explain it
but were sure it was a brain tumor (six years of MRI's consistently
showed no tumors but they were so convinced it was a brain tumor that
they excused the lack of evidence as the result of a growing tumor that
just wasn't yet large enough to show up on the image).

Turns out (at least the speculation is that)...I had undiagnosed gluten
problems for sooo long that I had developed sever food allergies (the
leaky gut thing is suspected as the mechanism). One allergy was causing
anaphylactic shock. Anaphylactic shock, as I have learned through all of
this, is not simply a condition that causes lung collapse but in many it
causes a decrease in blood pressure. This drop in pressure if sever
enough can cause varying levels of neuralogic problems. Mine started as
mild problems that the doctors dismissed as stress then suddenly evolved
into high drama seizures (ambulances, broken bones, etc...was quite an
experience).

I ended up figuring out for myself that it was food related but had no
clue what food(s) were involved. The neuralogists dismissed the food
allergy connection so completely that I gave up on them and on my own
sought out a qualified nutritionist, experienced in counseling a patient
through an elimination diet. It worked!

Turns out I was severely allergic to beef and all things bovine based
(ie: butter and beef primarily). Also turns out I'm allergic to many
other foods but only bovine was involved in my drop in blood pressure. I
have been GF, bovine free, neuralogist free, and I'm thrilled to say,
seizure free for 2.5 years now...not even the slightest neruologic
disturbance in all that time (compared to approx 10 x's a month before).

Thus, if you think there is any similarity between my story and your
sisters, I would strongly encourage her to seek out someone who can
guide her through the elimination diet before her problems turn into
something more dramatic. P.S. I'm not big on a self guided elimination
diet...it not only takes an incredible amount of knowledge of food
allergies to do it right but it was also the hardest thing I've ever
done. My nutritionist literally allowed me to call her anytime during
her office hours for emotional support and she also gave me access to
her via email for after hours help. I definitely needed that level of
support to avoid cheating on the diet during the testing period!

I feel for your sister and I wish her all the luck in the world figuring
out what is going on.

* Please remember some posters may be WHEAT-FREE, but not GLUTEN-FREE *