Jason Day is a much-liked, dark-haired, handsome, fit PGA Tour player from Australia with a super golf swing. He has been knocking at the door repeatedly to win his first major championship. In the third round of the U.S. Open last Saturday, he was walking on a fairway and all of a sudden he fell over, hit the ground, and his head bounced on the turf. At first he lay there rather motionless and people didn’t know what was wrong.
Jason was having an instant bout of Benign Positional Vertigo (BPV). He eventually stood up, felt nauseous, twice considered quitting, but courageously finished the round to tie for first place. Though it was difficult for him to play the next and final round yesterday, on Sunday, he was in contention to win until the closing holes and finished tied for ninth.
Jason Day has had BPV before. He suffered a bout of it while playing a PGA Tour tournament last year and had to quit and skip some tournaments. Vertigo is a severe dizziness that can come on a person instantly and cause him or her to completely lose all sense of balance and fall to the ground or floor.
There are two types of Vertigo, with one type being life-threatening. The one that is not so serious is Benign Positional Vertigo (BPV). that is the kind Jason Day has been having. But it sure seems serious to the person who has it. It is caused by micro-sized crystals in the inner ear becoming dislodged from hair follicles and moving about haphazardly, yet remaining in the ear. Often, BPV comes on a person powerfully and perhaps instantly. Usually, it lasts intermittently for a few days or weeks and goes away. But a few people have lingering BPV that ebbs and flows for years.
When you have BPV and you are standing, you should avoid bending over. That seems to shake up those inner ear crystals like stirring sugar in your ice tea. Throughout that last round, when Jason had to bend over to retrieve his ball from the hole, he was always careful to bend a lot in his knees and thus keep his upper body and head erect as much as possible. And every time he looked at his yardage book or recorded a score on the scorecard, he held them up so that they were pretty much level with his eyes, thus again keeping his head erect. After the tournament, the television broadcast showed him walking in the parking lot wearing a neck brace to keep from bending his neck and thus lowering his head.
I’ve had BPV twice in my life. When it first came on me during my mid-forties, I totally lost my balance and fell into a wall in my house. I had no idea what was wrong. Benign Positional Vertigo often happens when you get out of bed in the morning. Of course, falling over and hitting the deck can be dangerous. When you sense you are having a BPV bout, you should not be in some place where falling could result in serious injury. At the time of my first episode, I was no longer competing on the PGA Tour fulltime. A doctor gave me some pills to take. I gradually improved, and the condition lasted about three weeks.
During this time in my life, I conducted some private, three-day or five-day golf schools. When that first episode of BPV came on me, I had one of these golf schools scheduled near Austin, Texas. During these schools I would teach and demonstrate the golf swing on the practice range and play golf with participants. I told them at this particular school about my BPV episode and that I consequently would not be able to play golf with them. But during my instruction period on the range I announced, just for fun, that I would try to hit one full iron shot. I then swung at a golf ball for the first time during this BPV experience and totally wiffed the ball! That is, I totally missed it!
That is the only time I ever remember swinging at a golf ball and completely missing the ball since I first began playing golf at age 9 except for one incident in an amateur tournament when I was in my mid-teens. My ball was under a fir tree that had very low-hanging branches. I bent way down, swung, and in my backswing my iron club tangled in the branches so badly that I wiffed the ball. That’s youth for you. I wised up after that and never attempted such a shot in a tournament again.
I never had BPV again until early this year. I woke up one morning after a good night’s sleep, sensed nothing was wrong, stood up, instantly became dizzy and immediately fell into a wall of my bedroom. I then noticed that my eyes kept moving from right-to-left, and I couldn’t stop it. The entire room seemed to be moving in that direction. When you’re having BPV and lying in the supine position, such as laying on your back in bed, you should not move your from side to side. This episode declined gradually in a few days and went away. But a month later it came back on me slightly for a few more days. Whenever it has happened, I’m careful not to drive an automobile if I sense any BPV. For me, the instant episode has always occurred when I’ve been sitting or lying down and then stand up, or sometimes simply when I’ve moved my head from side by bending my neck.
You can have a doctor who specializes in the Epley maneuver do some treatments of it on you. Some U.S. hospitals provide group therapy lessons in which BPV patients learn how to treat themselves with the Epley maneuver. They also advise BPV patients to undergo Epley maneuver treatments, or do it yourself, regularly to prevent future BPV episodes. I should probably do that and haven’t yet.
Some treatments of BPV may help, such as drugs and the Epley maneuver. Concerning the latter, the patient lies in the supine position and his or her head is moved about to certain prescribed positions and rested there periodically. The object is to maneuver the crytals back into their proper position. I think the Epley maneuver helped me this year when I had BPV, read about it on the Internet, and tried it a little. But I probably need to wise up and go get some expert treatment. Jason Day does. But then, I’m not playing golf these days for the big cash that he is. I’m over the hill and he’s still climbing it, trying to get that first major win that keeps eluding him. Best to you, Jason.
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