So, here’s the thing. Vertigo – sometimes it just gets me, most of the time it does not but I worry that it might….. Sweating, world spinning, legs go to jelly, holding onto hand rail, walking along the beams that are visible through the gratings! I hate stairs that “float” between two levels that are horizontally as well as vertically separated. I’ve just been into a works area that has just “got” me with vertigo. The last time i whent there it didn’t. I had gone up in a lift and that started it off, then couldn’t really leave the lift…..! So, I took the lift back down and managed to walk most of the way back up, which was almost OK. Later on I will go back and have another go. I’ve done a little search and come up with some “reasons” but I am interested in why sometimes and not other times. There has to be some environmental issue that does it; Heat? Plant vibration? Noise? Hearing protection? (I tend to wear in ear buds) Safety glasses and the refraction at the lower edge of the glasses? (Although I wear them all the time.) Being on my own? I have had a massive attack once in the mountains when in a “saddle” between two crests with the wind howling past me and a valley way way below – lovely view, I had to close my eyes and sit down! Much as I love the picture of the guys eating lunch on the steel works of a building in 1930’s New York I also feel slightly nervous – but I have climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge with no problems. Any thoughts, ideas to solve this would be muchly appreciated, Jim

Jim, I too have experianced this only in a mild form. Normally on very tall structures and, as you have described, it's made worse where there's grated flooring. I'm no expert in psychology but I do have a (mostly) functioning brain with over 40 years experience of living in it. Good days, bad days. I think this works for us all. Those with more significant psychological problems can relate to this so why shouldn't the rest of us with our less debilitating problems? I think your vertigo may rise and fall in the same way. Rmember we were never designed to be high up. It's not natural and there's an in-built fear response to being too high up. Some can suppress it, some can't, either way you're battling evolution/DNA/how we're made and age too. Mick

Might require drastic measures like changing your occupation and going up mountains. Seriously, you need some medical assessment / advice if you have not already done so.

I'd be curious as to whether you actually have vertigo or whether you are having a type of panic attack. Vertigo is a medical condition (not a fear of heights as commonly referred to) that can have several medical causes. However, I'd suggest from what you have described that, as you feel these symptoms only in certain situations, that it is in fact a type of panic attack. In which case psychotherapy may help to calm you. Or you can learn to control those feelings yourself by breathing techniques etc. Loads of literature on the net. Bach rescue remedy is useful to some people too.

From NHS website: The term vertigo is often incorrectly used to describe a fear of heights. The medical term for a fear of heights and the dizzy feeling associated with looking down from a high place is acrophobia.

It does indeed sound like a panic attack, but worth getting checked out for things like labyrinthitis. I would hazard a guess that most people are uncomfortable at height, especially if it is an exposed situation and the means keeping you there are minimal. As has been said, not being possessed of the power of flight, being at highly elevated positions is not a natural thing for us, and the people who can happily skip up ladders to high and precarious positions without a thought are, I think, the exception that proves the rule. It's also a case of what you get used to; if you don't access very high places on a daily basis it is difficult to overcome the fear and become accustomed to it. Might be worth investing in some therapy if it is proving a problem (or of course change your job!)

To all, many thanks, some interesting ideas - I never considered it might be some kind of panic attack. I now have some new ideas on how to sort out this annoying little problem. David Bannister, no not a diver but an ex submariner. Part of that involved rapid pressurisation and depressurisation in the escape tank, a 100' deep tank - a brilliant and exhilarating experience now sadly consigned to history. But the ear damage thing may be valid Anyway, hopefully we have all learned something new from my OP and the replies, Thanks, Jim