I recommend seeing a neurologist.

or your family physician.

I'll look into this - hadn't considered it at this stage.

I'm sorry, I'm not understanding what seeing a standard internal med doc is going to do for me. Had a physical in May with blood work and all checked out fine.

Do you swim with earplugs fitted? I get really dizzy when I swim without them, to the point where I just fall over when I come out of the water. This is worse when I swim in the sea, but nowhere near as bad in the pool. Having ear plugs has helped loads.

I'm going to try wax next time I swim. I've never used earplugs in the past. The reason I'm thinking that they won't do much is that it's not inner ear related. Today I sat on a stool, focused on a point on the wall, then rotated my body side to side while keeping my head in the same place and allowing my neck to twist. Within 30 seconds I was already disoriented, nowhere near as bad as during race days, but then again my races have been olympics.

Most likely BPV Benign Positional Vertigo, I have had it reoccur several times, it is caused by crystals in the inner ear. It is treated simply with a series of positional changes that must be done in order to move the crystals http://bppv-treatment.com/index.html
My wife is a PT and treated it successfully you can complete the exercises yourself or see a therapist, fix is immediate.

Yeah you're right. I'd stick to getting medical advice from chiropractors and random people on internet forums...

If you don't think there is value in asking a set of similar population of people if they have experienced the symptoms/condition and what they did about it, I'd love to hear what you think about sites like PatientsLikeMe. They've raised $27M and yet their entire premise is crowdsourcing symptoms, diagnoses, and treatments. A whole collection of random people on the internet speaking from experience, how about that?

Appreciate the advice.

Continue to be an asshole somewhere else if you don't have anything constructive to say.

Reading now - a lot of this does not seem like me though.

that does not look like BPPV given what the poster wrote (sitting facing the wall keeping the head steady and rotating the body), BPPV would be related to rotating the head, if the head remains stationary it should not be related.

From the OP's posts it does look like cervical vertigo and unfortunately swimming, even with a snorkel, ends up moving your neck so not sure if anything can be done

http://www.dizziness-and-balance.com/...rvical/cervical.html

unfortunately medicine has not progressed as much in treating inner ear / balance / vertigo disorders as much as others

I am an FP/urgent care doc. Try not to overthink this one. If you investigate this, you can easily blow $20,000 on tests to have a guy in a white coat just give you a fancy label, meanwhile you are still dizzy. Changes in temperature of your ears induces dizziness, I think your ear drum is going from cold to warmer, not to mention you your brain is getting mixed messages as you go from twisting and floating in water, to running on dry land. I say this. Use common sense, do what makes sense. Protect your ear drums from the cold water with ear plugs. When you exit the water, exit slowly, breathe, and walk for a minute, then run. Also, consider treating your symptoms the race morning before the swim with meclizine or a scopolamine patch. You may very well have a familial tendency for vertigo, and may be able to identify triggers.. but it comes down to what you are going to do to fix it. The Standard EPLEY maneuver to treat BPPV probably has no role here... although you can try them out for shits and giggles if you want... Cheers

Thanks. I also work for a healthcare IT startup and will ask one of the docs on the board when we catch up later this week.

The disorientation happens in the water as well, not just in the transition from swimming the running to T1. Also of note is that the disorientation I feel is up and down (e.g. I look down at my feet and the ground seems to scroll upwards. My eyes then refocus on my feet and it repeats). This lasts 5+ minutes.

I won't be going through a litany of tests. The more reasonable option is to just quit swimming and do more CX and get into crits. Due to knee injuries, I've tried to limit running as much as possible so really this takes me completely out of triathlon as I only have cycling left.

Was reading the posts because I'm having vertigo again and have had it off and on for over 20 years now.

Stress seems to play a big role in my situation. Whether it's physical or emotional stress, it's no longer surprising to get vertigo.

Yesterday finished a 70 mile bike in the heat. Went home fine and then it hit me once I laid down. This time it helps to stay perpendicular but horizontal forward or backward is a no no. Rehydrating, walking and waiting for it to wear off.

The prior week it hit at the beginning of the swim on Monday, after a weekend of hard riding in the heat again. Some hydrogen peroxide in the left ear helped and seemed to shorten the recovery cycle to where I could ride and swim by Thursday and Friday.

Several of the methods for vertigo have worked for me in the past such as BPV positioning and anti-depressants. However, nothing seems to work as well as not stressing myself physically in the first place!

Which is the opposite of what we do around here.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.