Tim Rotanz couldn’t get out of bed without throwing up. If he managed to stand, he was overcome with dizziness. His left eye moved in a constant twitch.

On July 12, 2014, shortly after his freshman campaign as an attackman with the Terrapins men’s lacrosse team ended, Rotanz was admitted to a hospital.

After multiple tests, doctors concluded Rotanz had a virus that attacked the calcium crystals in his ears, setting his equilibrium and alignment off balance.

Rotanz had vertigo.

Fast-forward a year and a half, and Rotanz has broken into the Terps’ rotation. After struggling upon his arrival to college — the speed and on-the-field adjustments of the game would cause the rookie to “shut down” — he can now adjust on the fly. His mind is settled, and he’s become a vocal presence in practice.

Rotanz figured such familiarity would develop by his third season in College Park. He just didn’t realize it would stem from spending his sophomore year on the sidelines, wondering whether he would ever take the field again.

“It was a rough year,” Rotanz said “Made it through though.”

When Rotanz first arrived at the hospital in 2014, blood tests confirmed mononucleosis. But the doctors guessed that wasn’t all. Rotanz stayed the night and spent the next day poked and prodded as five to seven doctors streamed in and out of his room for tests.

That evening, they diagnosed him with vertigo.

“First off, I didn’t know what it was,” Rotanz said. “What made it real frustrating is I never got a timeline. Doctors never see it in athletes. It’s really in elderly.”

Instead of a timeline, doctors made Rotanz a deal: If he could eat a meal on his third day in the emergency room, he could go home.

But the bedridden three-sport high school star who started nine of his 13 games as a freshman couldn’t down the Jello, mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese on his plate. His dad, Tom, ate them for him.

Soon, Rotanz took a wheelchair ride to the car, returning to his Wading River, New York, home to spend the next three weeks sleeping. He couldn’t drive for about five weeks.

The symptoms faded with time, but when he tried to participate in fall practices, Rotanz was always lightheaded. When he turned his head too quickly or started to run, he lost his balance. Throwing, catching, even looking at a lacrosse ball, became nearly impossible.

“I really couldn’t do anything,” Rotanz said. “I couldn’t practice. I couldn’t hang out with friends. Like a lot of things got me dizzy, set my head off, just made me feel weird.”

So Rotanz experienced a new kind of shutdown.

Rehabilitation and trips to hospitals, neurologists and ear, nose and throat specialists replaced lacrosse. Rotanz estimated he saw eight to 12 doctors from Baltimore to Washington to New York.

As the effects again started to wane, the doctors gave Rotanz a target date to return to lacrosse: Jan. 8, 2015. Rotanz thought his nightmarish summer and fall might give way to a sophomore-year return.

But four days later, Rotanz was sandwiched in a hit during a scrimmage. He felt as though he had a concussion, but collisions can also trigger vertigo symptoms.

He had returned too soon. So, too, had his vertigo.

The Terps started the season while Rotanz contemplated life without lacrosse, something he wasn’t accustomed to.

His dad, who coached lacrosse at Shoreham-Wading River High School, had pulled Rotanz up to varsity as an eighth grader with intentions of having him practice and prepare for high school. A couple of days before that season, the team’s captains told the 13-year-old’s dad, Tom Rotanz, they wanted his son to start. So he did, sparking the fourth high school career in Long Island lacrosse history to finish in more than 400 points.

Rotanz also tagged along when his dad game-planned with his assistants, using cups to simulate formations on their kitchen counter. As he got older, he started to ask questions and suggest plays of his own.

But after eight months of no answers and little progress, Rotanz figured vertigo had stripped him of any more minutes and lacrosse memories.

“We were concerned that — forget lacrosse — this could be life-altering,” his dad said.

But a visit to Dr. Eric Smouha, a neurotologist and otolaryngologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, brought hope.

During spring break last year, the Terps were in the midst of a weeklong trip to California for the Pacific Coast Shootout. Rotanz, though, was in Smouha’s office.

At the appointment, Smouha had Rotanz recline before jerking his head to the left. Nausea and eye-twitching ensued. When it stopped, Smouha did the same to the right. Then Rotanz rolled to his stomach, bringing his chin to his chest. Smouha told Rotanz to repeat the exercises every three days in the coming weeks.

“Everybody else was like, ‘Take Dramamine, take steroids, take this, take that,’ and here’s a guy saying we have to trick the brain into telling it this is where everything should line up,” Tom Rotanz said. “It improved 100 percent in the course of 10 days.”

Smouha wouldn’t let Rotanz return to contact activity until July, but Rotanz was relieved. He could run and be around his teammates. He got contacts to improve his vision.

On game days, Rotanz took to helping the goalkeepers warm up. While he shot, he listened to the coaching staff’s banter, continuing to do so throughout the game.

Rotanz also adopted a new diet, based on constant hydration and low-salt foods because late last summer, he “totally forgot” to drink water and spent the next three days with vertigo symptoms.

Such adaption is nothing new for the midfielder, who converted from attackman two games into this season.

When Rotanz suffered a hand injury against Yale on Feb. 27, the Terps weren’t sure how serious it was. But his dad knew his son’s hand “would have to be cut off for him to even think about” missing time again.

So Rotanz played the next week — a California debut a year delayed — and made the switch to the second midfield line. Since then, he’s recorded six of his seven points, already more than his rookie-year contributions.

Rotanz used to rush his shots and passes. He even fell into that trap at the beginning of the season. Now he knows to take a step back, free his hands and follow through.

“He looks confident out there. He looks faster out there. He looks healthy,” coach John Tillman said after admitting Rotanz was “snake-bitten” to start the season after the layoff.

“He doesn’t look like anything’s holding him back,” Tillman said.