Do you get dizzy with head movements? and what you can do about it?

Uncategorized Nov 27, 2020

Dizziness is such a common symptom that we see at the clinic and one that is often misdiagnosed and mismanaged, leaving people putting up with symptoms for longer than what they need to. 

Most people related dizziness to their ears, but your sense of balance is a complex interaction between so many parts of your body including your ears, eyes, neck, brain and the many nerves that connect them all together.

Your ears do much more than just help you listen in here, they play an important role in helping you keep your balance as well, however, when there is a problem with your ears, you can lead to feelings of uneasiness, dizziness, nausea, and it can feel like everything around you are spinning, often it can be hard to find what the triggers are. Often leaving people feeling very anxious and afraid to do basic tasks, so what causes this and most importantly, what can we do help it.

Now that in a part of your ear has a series of fluid field canals. The direction, speed and movement of the fluid in these canals, tell your brain what direction you're moving in, how fast you're moving, and if you're speeding up or slowing down... 

This information is coordinated with the information from your eyes, neck and rest of the body, however, when there is a miscommunication of that information, it can lead to a sensation of dizziness or blurred vision.

For example, when lifting your head up after using your phone, your brain has to coordinate the speed of your head moving, as well as moving your eyes and the moving objects on your screen, to the different targets, such as when someone's talking to you. 

This is a complex process with a lot of different stimuli to adapt to, and if there's a problem with processing of that information, you might feel like you can't focus on anything at all, or your vision may begin to blur or the room around you may feel like it is starting to move. 

Similarly, when you perform a head check in the car, your eyes have to move away from all the moving objects in front of you and coordinate with their head and neck to where your line of sight will be, and quickly scan to see if there's anything there, and then quickly come back to tracking the all the moving objects in front of you again. 

There is a lot of small and critical steps that must happen in a space of a few seconds.  However, if there is a miscommunication in one of those steps, it can lead to feelings of dizziness or vertigo, like your head is still moving even though you have stopped moving your head.

Now when there is a miscommunication between all the systems that control your balance, it can lead to things such as dizziness and nausea, balance problems, unsteadiness as well as trouble focusing on what you're looking at.

So what can be done to treat it... 

The first thing is to accurately assess where the miscommunication is coming from.  Is it they eyes, ears, brain or neck, or the way the information is processed?  It’s imperative to perform a comprehensive testing of all the potential areas so you know exactly what to treat.  There are standardized tests for each of the systems, but you have to be skilled at performing and interpreting the tests to get it right. 

Once you know what you are dealing with, then treatment is directed at the problem areas.  It often involves a combination of hands-on manual therapy to treat the top three joints of your neck and decrease the sensitization of your brainstem.  Your neck is intimately connected to your balance system and it is common for the neck to be one of the problem areas in dizziness (but not always) 

Now your brainstem is responsible for processing a lot of information, in particular, your vestibulocochlear nerve, which is the nerve responsible for hearing and balance, that's also located in your inner ear.

When your brainstem is sensitized the information from your inner ear gets muddles and can lead to dizziness.  Depending on how long your symptoms have been there, you may have to do specific excise to retrain your vestibular system to recalibrate your ears, eyes, brain, and neck, so that they can all work together in synchronization again.  This will reduce your symptoms of dizziness, nausea, pain, fatigue, light and sound sensitively. 

Most importantly, though, it's important to get a good diagnosis so that you know what the exact cause of your dizziness is, as there are different dizziness conditions that need to be treated differently and need different exercises.

So it's important to get treatment from someone with advanced training in the field of headaches, dizziness, and migraines so that you can get an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan for the best results.

Dr. Kevin (osteopath) and the team at Melbourne Headache Solutions.

You can schedule a consultation with Dr Kevin by calling (03) 9486 7543

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