r/todayilearned • u/licecrispies • 14h ago
TIL that earthquakes can trigger outbreaks of lasting vertigo in humans, which is known as Post-Earthquake Dizziness Syndrome
https://aonojournal.com/post-earthquake-dizziness-syndrome-a-scoping-review/46
u/one_is_enough 14h ago
You can get this from other activities like roller coasters, really bumpy roads, or even violently shaking your head around.
Older people can have little bits of calcium carbonate called otoliths in the inner ear, which if they stay in place, cause no symptoms. But a head movement strong enough to dislodge them and make them float around can cause them to start touching the inner ear cillia that detect head movement and position.
I’ve had this happen (just from turning my head dramatically to amuse the kid), which is why I even researched it. The article mentions it along with other psychological causes, but it sounds like it hasn’t been extensively studied yet.
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u/Narwen189 13h ago
Otolith displacement is horrendous. I struggled with it for months because doctors just gave me antiemetics that did nothing at all to help.
Guy who finally diagnosed and fixed the issue with an Epley maneuver in a single visit was also a rugby player, so he'd apparently seen it more often than most. Wish I knew his name, he was only there temporarily. I really wanted to ask him out, but didn't want to put him in an awkward situation, so he'll forever remain in my memory as Super Hot Doctor Who Fixed Me.
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u/geeoharee 14h ago
I wonder if it's the same as 'Mal de debarquement', which is being sea-sick AFTER you get off a ship.
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u/csonnich 2h ago
Had that after 2 days on a train. The train felt fine, but the ground kept moving.
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u/cydril 6h ago
You can also get this from fucking nothing at all! It's called benign paroxysmal vertigo and it blows. Nothing benign about it, it ruins your day being dizzy for no reason.
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u/bluev0lta 1h ago
Yes! Where benign=not deadly, but will make you want to die. I had it about 20 years ago and it.was.awful.
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u/gefahr 11h ago
Can I get my otoliths vacuumed out or something? My sensitivity to motion sickness got dramatically worse in the last 5-10 years (mid 40s).
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u/one_is_enough 7h ago
When that happened to me, it was vitamin D deficiency. Went away when I started daily supplements on the advice of my doctor. The otoliths are a hundred times worse. You literally can’t move your head without wanting to vomit. Moved like the mummy.
The vitamin D deficiency was making me carsick and keeping me from riding roller coasters.
But take this with a huge grain of salt because there is little/no scientific evidence of nausea being a low vitamin D symptom. So it could have been a weird coincidence. I’m just glad it’s gone.
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u/gefahr 6h ago
Huh, I need to get some bloodwork done I'll see if I can add that to the panel.
I'll take unscientific anecdotes at this point. I get motion sickness really easily some days, and don't fear it at all on other days. Glancing at my phone in an uber is enough to make me feel unwell sometimes, other times I can read the news in that scenario no problem.
Thanks for the tip.
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u/TheKnightsTippler 5h ago
Roller Coasters? I have this thing, when I try to sleep the night after a day at a theme park, I often have trouble sleeping, because I sort of feel like I'm still on the ride. It doesn't feel literally real, but it's like I'm constantly imagining my body moving about.
Is that PEDS?
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u/captkronni 12h ago
I lived through a major earthquake swarm about 7 years ago. Aftershocks continued for months.
The vertigo has nothing on the lizard-brain anxiety that comes with constant, unpredictable earthquakes. It kind of broke everyone’s brain for a while.
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u/Narwen189 12h ago
I've lived in seismic zones my whole life. Last really big one for me was in 2017. I've noticed in recent years that hearing the earthquake alarm will make me dizzy about half the time, it's sort of freaky.
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u/Ghastion 4h ago
I'm so sick of people saying lizard brain this. Lizard brain that. Like holy shit. What the hell does lizard brain even mean. What happened to monkey brain. At least that one makes more sense.
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u/fkenned1 12h ago
So, this is very random, but when I'm standing waiting for elevators, very often, I will get this strange sense of movement, almost like the ground is moving up or down. It actually makes me a tad dizzy, just for a second. I used to think the floor was physically bowing, or that there was like a microwave or something near the elevator in my office building that was fucking with my brain (lol), but then I'd feel it at other elevators too, I noticed. What I've come to understand is that my brain is anticipating the up and down motion of riding the elevator, and it's giving me a sense of movement, almost like when you're sitting in your car in the parking lot, and the car next to you backs out, but you think you're moving for a second. I wonder if going through an intense and emotional movement like an earthquake could trigger this type of effect, where your brain is almost anticipating another earthquake, but the ground isn't moving, so it gives you a slight sense of dizziness or even vertigo. That would be my theory.
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u/strangelove4564 11h ago
When I was in east Asia for a few years the bigger earthquakes I felt were all perfectly silent. That really messes with you as earthquake movies always add a bunch of rumbling. So without any cues to go off of, it's easily to be misled that an earthquake is happening when it's not.
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u/crafter2k 4h ago
experienced my first quake in august, got extremely paranoid and would randomly stop walking just to feel whether the ground is shaking sometimes
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u/justmoochingaround 10h ago
I have had this! But only for about a week, after the Kaikoura earthquake 2016
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u/No-Gas5342 11h ago
I learned about it after I got it!! It triggered all sorts of vertigo in me and although it’s been over 15 years I still can’t deal with turning in airplanes or cars.
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u/CitizenPremier 36m ago
I felt this after the big one in Osaka a few years ago. I felt dizzy all day. I also noticed some fresh vomit on the pavement by my apartment.
On another note, I've experienced earthquakes in California and Japan, and they're different. California earthquakes shake you up and down, like the world is a vibrating cell phone. Japanese earthquakes feel more like the whole island is a boat sloshing back and forth on the sea.
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u/Status-Secret-4292 14h ago
Just think how biologically disrupting it would be for even the most elite humans to spend a few months on Mars
Just like space psychosis, Mars psychosis is going to be a wild chapter in humanity while we try to figure it out while occasionally someone takes down the whole life support to a pod for no discernable reason