No, I'm referring to our ability to stay upright. The experts all warn us that our balance decreases as we age. That's unfortunate but inevitable. Many people experience motion sickness, a temporary and nasty short-term balance problem.
However, if you are dizzy or the world seems to be whirling around you, and you feel extremely nauseous, you probably have some sort of balance problem that needs immediate medical attention. There are several possible causes of a lack of balance, some quite serious.
I follow Dana Meise on Facebook.
He's a middle-aged avid Canadian hiker who has spent chunks of time over several years walking the TransCanada Trail from the Atlantic to the Pacific and ultimately to Inuvik in the Northwest Territories on the Mackenzie River Delta, approximately 100 km from the Arctic Ocean. His trek was named Expedition of the Year by the Canadian Geographic Journal. At the moment, he's in Dawson City, Yukon sideswiped by - you guessed it - a balance problem, with accompanying dizziness, vertigo and nausea. Unfortunately, he has passed the 2015 weather/available daylight window of accessibility to the far north, so he will have to take some time to recover and try again next year. We wish him well.
Adrienne Brodeur has written an excellent article in The New York Times about balance. Not only is it well-written, but it contains some vital information as well and a reminder that it isn't necessarily a bad thing to slow down. I'd love to just copy and paste it into this blog post, but since that's a no-no, here's the link and I hope you have time to read it.
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