Random vertigo attacks for 8 years, 3 hospitals later still nothing

Let me begin by stating that I have appreciated the effort from all hospitals. Unfortunately I'm not one step closer to a solution, whichever it may be, and therefore I figured it wouldn't hurt to get some advice in this respected Subreddit.

Background

36 male, living in Belgium. 3 children, a good job, unfortunately recently divorced. I have a biscupid aortic valve, but I do not suffer negative consequences from that defect, which I have had since birth.

Symptoms

In 2019, I randomly got vertigo. I am seldom nauseous during these episodes, the world just turns around, I can't focus and the only comfortable thing I can do is lying down. The first few days into an episode, my legs also feel incredibly heavy and I feel like I'm moving slower as usual, in all aspects.

English is not my native language, so let me try to describe the tests that I have undergone as well as I can: balance tests (move your finger to your nose, making me lie down suddenly, walk over a line, ...), the typical cold and hot water tests (even in a chair that turns around!), scans of my petrous bones, and recently I even had a brain scan. There is literally nothing out of the ordinary that the doctors have found so far. Yes, I react intensively on the tests, but that can't explain my vertigo that comes and goes without any apparent reason.

So from 2019 (first hospital who checked everything) until 2024 I just lived with the episodes. Sometimes 24h, sometimes 3 weeks. I notice that my body seemingly adapts itself, because longer episodes tend to get less intense as time goes. At the end of 2024, I contacted my GP because one episode just wouldn't go away (2 months!), so he booked me an appointment in another hospital. All the tests were ran again, and by excluding all other causes, I was diagnosed with vestibular migraine. I started taking a medicine called Inderal, but that didn't do much. In March 2025 I changed to Inderal Retard, but this week I got yet another episode... But this time it is different than before.

All other episodes were during, or shortly after a viral infection. Stomach flu, meningitis, ... Everything viral would trigger it. I was sick, the symptoms disappeared, and there was the vertigo. This week however, I was not ill, and on Wednesday I woke up just fine. Fell asleep for less than 10m on the train on the way to work, and when I woke up, I immediately felt like sh*t. The damn vertigo was there again, and if I had to score all previous episodes on a scale of 10, they were 4 to 7, and right now it's an 8 or 9.

Back to the GP, who sent me to the emergency room of a hospital who hadn't treated me previously, and they sent me home after 4 hours because they couldn't find anything. They booked 5 follow-up appointments, to go through all tests again, but I'm really hopeless and I don't believe anything will come out of it...

What do I do next?!

Thanks for reading, thanks for any information you might have. When 2 hospitals and your GP tell you that they haven't seen anyone with similar episodes in careers of 30+ years... It becomes rather hopeless doesn't it?