How can a teenager manage chronic dizziness and nausea?

Hello doctor,

I am an 18-year-old girl currently resitting year 12 levels due to anxiety and mental health complications in the year beforehand. I thought resitting the year would be the best decision for me, as it would allow me to catch up on my work and get my target grades of AAB in the level exams the following year.

However, now I am struggling to attend sixth form because of the extreme dizziness I feel daily. I would categorize my dizziness from ‘a little bit dizzy’ to ‘extremely dizzy’ - no in between. I would explain my feeling of ‘feeling a little bit dizzy’ as motion sickness. My head feels like it has been on a roller coaster, or I have been looking at my phone in a car while the car was moving; however, I have not been (I experience this standing up or walking around).

I would explain my feeling of extreme dizziness as my head feels like it is completely spinning, and I am about to vomit or pass out. Sometimes, my ears ring, I feel extremely lightheaded and weak, I feel anxious because of this, and extremely nauseated.

I get this in the classroom in sixth form, as you can imagine, this has made it very hard for me to go to school because of this. I have noticed I do not feel dizzy when I am lying in bed, whether that be on my back or side.

I feel a little bit dizzy when I stand up or walk around, and I feel the most extreme dizzy when I am sitting down for an exam, in a classroom, in a car, in bed, on the toilet, et etc. The feeling of extreme dizziness subsides whenever I lie down, and so do many other feelings being slightly dizzy. It is affecting my quality of life, my education, and my basic human functions.

The nauseated feeling has me feeling less hungry. The dizziness has me feeling anxious. It is a vicious cycle. It feels as though I am in a battle with an invisible ‘thing’ that is making me unable to function as a human being, even going to the toilet causes me to feel dizzy. I have concluded from this that I start to feel dizzy when my legs are bent.

For example, when I am lying down, I do not feel dizzy, and when I stand up, I feel a little dizzy, but when I bend or cross my legs in any way, it hits. It slowly comes as the nauseated motion sickness feeling after about five minutes of being propped up, and then it will increasingly get worse.

Obviously, if I am at home, I can lie down and fix this, but when I am in public and at sixth form, especially, it just causes panic attacks. I am unsure of when this officially began,egan but I can say it has been longer than four months. As a result of this, we have done various things to try and rule out the possible cause.

Firstly, ruling out the anxiety. I noticed I felt dizzy when I did not feel any other anxiety symptoms that would indicate that I am anxious. I have been in private therapy for six months and tried another therapy, APT, and then af,ter I felt that wasn’t working, went back to private therapy.

I now know how to manage my symptoms very well to the point I rarely feel anxious now. I can definitely say it is not anxiety's fault for this, as I now know my anxiety very well and cannot remember the last time I was anxious.

Secondly, I had a blood test done to rule out iron deficiency, anemia, thyroid problems, diabetes, and a full blood count in general, and everything came back fine.

Thirdly, Tomorrow I have a heart scan or monitor at a hospital to check my rhythm; however, I am positive it will come back negative and all will be fine.

Fourthly, I had my ear syringed a lot, so I thought it could be my inner ear, but we have ruled that out due to the evidence below.

Fifth, I had my blood pressure taken, and I do have low blood pressure (90/60). Out of curiosity, we started measuring my blood pressure on Friday when I was in a really dizzy state, vs when I was fine. I had an incredibly hard day in sixth form, resulting in the most dizz have can efeltling and then that caused a massive panic attack in the middle of my sociology lesson, and I had to leave after 10 minutes of entering.

As soon as we got home, we measured my blood pressure and took a picture - the results were 88/66 98bpm. After two hours of lying down and walking around at home, we took it again when I no longer felt dizzy, and it was 111/78, 99 bpm. Then an hour later, I sat up on my kitchen bench and started talking to my mam and felt the dizziness coming on again. We took it again, and it was 108/69 107 bpm, showing a clear correlation.

I know all this because we took pictures and logged how I was feeling. More details about the presenting complaint: Around four months of having it.

Symptoms like dizziness that can go to extreme dizziness, then that causes motion sickness and nausea, which causes lack of eating, and headaches.

Current medications: The Progesterone-only pill.

Laboratory tests performed: A blood test.

Please help me.