Help! Spinning = Nausea

[taffytwelve]

I'm an adult skater that just started taking lessons for the first time since childhood, and as such, I can no longer avoid what I've most feared: spinning. I get dizzy easily and really don't handle it well, so these first two sessions working on simple two-foot spins have not been good to me. My coach gave me some advice to ease the dizziness immediately after spinning, but both days, making fifteen or twenty minutes after I've stopped spinning, I've gotten hit with crazy nausea and have had to call it quits for the day, have barely even been able to drive home. Is there anything I can do to help with this?? Please advise! I would really rather not feel this way, and I also don't want it to hold back my progress.

 

[Ic3Rabbit]

Hi and welcome. It will take awhile for you to get used to spinning and for your brain to be trained to do so. In the meantime,

Focus on a stable horizon.
Spotting AKA keeping eyes on a fixed point.
Practice regularly to train the brain, as well as, controlling breathing and core tightness.

 

[taffytwelve]

Hi and welcome. It will take awhile for you to get used to spinning and for your brain to be trained to do so. In the meantime,

Focus on a stable horizon.
Spotting AKA keeping eyes on a fixed point.
Practice regularly to train the brain, as well as, controlling breathing and core tightness.

Hi. Thank you. Would you mind elaborating on the spotting recommendation? I was of the understanding that that isn't possible in skating?

 

[Ic3Rabbit]

Hi. Thank you. Would you mind elaborating on the spotting recommendation? I was of the understanding that that isn't possible in skating?

I should have said it's not the traditional spotting that dancers are used to doing.

In figure skating, spotting isn't used during fast spins the same way it is in ballet and other forms of dance; instead, skaters train vision and vestibular system to manage dizziness, focusing on maintaining a steady gaze and using post-spin visual fixation (locking onto a spot immediately after) to reorient ourselves, as the speed makes traditional spotting unsafe and throws off our balance. In other words, we train our eyes to use a counter motion, called optokinetic nystagmus, to avoid getting super dizzy and nauseated as much as possible.

 

[Diana Delafield]

I'm an adult skater that just started taking lessons for the first time since childhood, and as such, I can no longer avoid what I've most feared: spinning. I get dizzy easily and really don't handle it well, so these first two sessions working on simple two-foot spins have not been good to me. My coach gave me some advice to ease the dizziness immediately after spinning, but both days, making fifteen or twenty minutes after I've stopped spinning, I've gotten hit with crazy nausea and have had to call it quits for the day, have barely even been able to drive home. Is there anything I can do to help with this?? Please advise! I would really rather not feel this way, and I also don't want it to hold back my progress.

As well as the specific advice for skaters that @Ic3Rabbit gave you, the delayed severe motion sickness reaction suggests the fluid in your ears is not settling down quickly after spinning and is being disturbed again by other skating moves you're doing. I'm concerned that you're having to drive like that. Motion sickness is common for a passenger, less common for a driver, and could cause an accident.

You might want to also mention this problem to your doctor and get your ears checked by an ENT specialist. A dancer in my off-ice ballet class would get dizzy practicing pirouettes. Half an hour later, she'd walk out of the building and routinely fall down the front stairs because they would bring on another attack of dizziness. She was diagnosed with a vestibular migraine problem, which was treatable. There are several medical conditions that can cause problems like that and most can be helped by medication or simple home remedies. Good luck!

 

[Query]

I do not know if this will help you. But I learned that spinning in opposite directions on alternate tries helped my dizziness.

Of course, one direction will probably work much better than the other. And for that reason, if create a program, you may not be able to successfully incorporate both spin directions into the same program.

However, my problem was much different than yours. My dizziness occurred towards the end of attempted spins, for a few seconds, not many minutes later. So I think Diana might be right: it makes sense to see a good ENT doctor. Maybe it will be something very simple, e.g., a need to use drops to clean some of the wax out of your ear every few days. Or something more complex, like an ear infection, stenosis or syncope. But there is no realistic way for us to evaluate potentially complicated medical conditions over the Internet, even if we had the training. It sounds potentially quite dangerous if untreated - especially if it turns out that not spinning won't prevent it in the long run. I hope there is a practical treatment that will completely solve the problem.

 

[honeyskates]

Hii, I dont have advice for this but I wanted to let you know you're not alone in this! I started skating this month, as an adult and I got my two foot spins as well, which left me feeling dizzy. Afterwards, only after I got home, I was dizzy for the whole day (somehow not while I was at the rink still skating?). I think the more we practice the easier it will be. I also heard someone say to practice spins daily, off ice, a little at a time, not enough to get dizzy but enough to make progress, to get used to the feeling of spinning. Keep going and I hope we both figure this out !!