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Vertigo and Dizziness 

Vertigo is the sensation of feeling that you are spinning, the room around you is spinning or you feel like you are moving when you are really not moving. Generally happens when you move your head or you change positions (i.e. getting in and out bed).

 

Symptoms of vertigo include:

  • Loss of balance

  • Difficulty changing positions

  • Nausea/vomiting

  • Headache

  • Abnormal eye movements

  • Sweating

  • Ringing in the ears or hearing loss

Three canals that help us maintain our balance when we have head movements up and down or side to side.

Vertigo occurs when the otoliths aka “crystals” in your inner move into a new location in the canal and then do not move back to where they need to be. This causes you the sensation that you are moving when you are really not moving. We call this Benign Proxismal Positional Vertigo or BPPV. BPPV can happen spontaneously or can occur after a head injury, prolonged bed rest, ear surgery or decreased blood flow to the ear. However, there are other types of vertigo that relate to the anatomy of the ear. Inflammation of the vestibular nerves (vestibular neuritis), inflammation of the labyrinth (labyrinthitis) and Meinere’s Disease are just a few examples of these.

We don’t always know why vertigo happens. Some people wake up in the morning and have this intense sensation of vertigo with no real explanation, we call this spontaneous or idiopathic vertigo. As we mentioned before, it can be caused by disturbances to the structure of the inner ear (also called peripheral vertigo) or there can be disturbances at the brain along our sensory pathways (also called central vertigo).

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At For Life Therapy, our clinicians have had training specific for treating vertigo and dizziness. We start with completing a thorough evaluation in order to determine what type of vertigo you are experiencing and to determine how to treat it. Then, we begin treatment! In some cases, this can resolve the vertigo very quickly. Other cases, we may need a few attempts at resolving the symptoms. Finally, we retrain the vestibular system back to its original state. We call this habituation. These exercises work at the level of the inner ear as well as areas such as your balance.

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