When his attitude indicator and altimeter became unreliable while in IMC; a C172 pilot suffered vertigo; gaining and losing altitude and deviating from his course. He eventually became VFR on top and continued to his destination.

Narrative

While climbing to my cleared Altitude; I Lost functionality of my Attitude indicator. As it began to turn; indicating I was in a Right turn I attempted to correct for the turn and discovered it was unreliable. In an attempt to regain proper attitude of the aircraft I began a spiraling rapid climb which was followed by a rapid steep descent. I began to correct for the loss in attitude by reducing power to idle and using my turn coordinator and heading indicator to level the wings. I regained control of the aircraft after losing 1000 feet of Altitude. After regaining positive control of the aircraft I advised ATC that I had lost attitude control due to malfunctioning Attitude Indicator and requested to climb to find VMC in order to diagnose the functionality of my gauges. I was cleared to find VFR over the Top but later discovered that I had a Malfunctioning Altimeter. By that time I was in clear VMC and did not want to descend back into IMC to abort the flight and return to ZZZ. I later canceled IFR and continued the flight VFR to ZZZ2 to have the aircraft inspected for full functionality.