Let’s start by discussing what dizziness is. When dizziness is a disorder, it falls into three categories:
- Vertigo: The feeling that you or your surroundings are spinning about — similar to being on a ride at an amusement park.
- Syncope: A brief loss of consciousness, such as when one faints, or dimmed vision and feeling uncoordinated, lightheaded, and confused. You may experience this if you stand up too fast.
- Non-syncope, non-vertigo dizziness: You feel as if you cannot keep your balance, and it may worsen with movement.
Dizziness and vertigo are high up on the list with back pain and headaches as common issues that primary care physicians, clinics and the emergency room are visited for. Many times, these issues result in a fall, for which the elderly are at a higher risk because it combines with other neurological problems and chronic medical problems they may have.
The numbers of people who are affected by dizziness, imbalance, and vertigo are surprising, at 5 to 10 percent of the population under the age of 40. After age 40, it impacts 40 percent of the population. For individuals over the age of 65, the incidence of falling is up to 25 percent. In 2011, there were 3.9 million emergency room visits accounted for due to vertigo or dizziness.
The Swedish National Study on Aging and Care stated that for people under the age of 80, falls were at 16.5 percent and dizziness was at 17.8 percent. For those over the age of 80, falls rose to 31.7 percent and dizziness was at 31 percent. In general, older people have more general reasons for why they fall, while younger people usually have some definitive cause for their fall.
Conditions Associated with Dizziness
The most prevalent reason for disability worldwide is mild hearing loss. Approximately 25 percent of people under the age of 25 years have experienced hearing loss. After the age of 40, nearly 40 percent of people have experienced some hearing loss as well.
An interesting thing to note is that vertigo, dizziness, and hearing loss are commonly included with the onset of Meniere’s disease, a condition involving issues in the inner ear that negatively affects the central nervous system.
Migraines are another cause of dizziness and are even more common than Meniere’s disease. About 40 percent of migraine sufferers also have vertigo, mild hearing loss, and motion sickness. This can become problematic when trying to identify which one is the actual cause of the dizziness.
Some other causes of vertigo include:
- BPPV – benign paroxysmal positional vertigo
- Immune-mediated inner ear disease
- A vestibular migraine or migraine-associated vertigo
- Vestibular neuronitis
- Demyelination
- Brainstem or cerebellar vascular lesions
- Acoustic tumors
To learn more about the connection between head and neck injuries and vertigo download our complimentary e-book by clicking the image below.
How Doctors Identify What Kind of Dizziness You Are Suffering From
When a doctor receives a patient who is complaining about dizziness, the first thing they will normally do is take a detailed patient history and proceed with a thorough neurologic examination. A vivid patient history is highly necessary, including the symptoms you are experiencing, their duration, possible triggers and any factors that seem to reduce them. It is also important to describe your problem using descriptive words besides dizzy because this term is rather broad and could involve a variety of different sensations. A few more specific examples are describing whether you feel unsteady, feeling as though things are spinning, feeling weak all over, falling down often, passing out, or just feel off balance. Being as specific as possible should be your goal to help your doctor accurately diagnose your condition. Why would this be so imperative?
Dizziness can be caused by a malfunction in the central nervous system, systemic or cardiovascular disease and can include such things as the following:
- Feeling light-headed
- Motion intolerance
- Imbalance
- Unsteadiness
- A floating or tilting sensation
Vertigo may be related to a problem in the vestibular system and is usually connected to an inner ear problem. Vertigo could involve a false sensation of movement or spinning. The time course of vertigo is very important when speaking with your doctor.
- Episodic vertigo lasts only a few seconds, and if it is initiated by movement of your head in a certain position, it is probably caused by BPPV.
- Episodic vertigo that lasts for days and also includes nausea could be being caused by vestibular neuronitis, especially when you have had a recent virus.
- If you are having vertigo as well as ear symptoms, like congestion and tinnitus, and they last for several hours, then it is likely due to Meniere’s disease.
- Vertigo that happens suddenly but lasts only a few minutes could be brought on by a migraine or brain or vascular disease.
Getting Free from Dizziness and Vertigo Symptoms
An interesting study was done by an upper cervical chiropractor in her private practice. She did examinations of 60 patients in an uncontrolled, nonrandomized environment for about an 8-year span of time. All of the patients had been diagnosed with vertigo or dizziness of one type or another. She gathered their medical histories and noted that 56 of them reported that they had had at least one head or neck trauma prior to being diagnosed with vertigo or dizziness. Among these traumas were car accidents, sporting accidents (skiing, horseback riding, cycling), or falls down stairs or on icy pavement.
By using imaging and radiography, the chiropractor was able to take a closer look at the upper cervical spine, and she found that all 60 patients had a misalignment or subluxation in the bones of the upper neck, particularly the C1 or C2 vertebra. Following this part of their examination, each patient was provided upper cervical care tailored to their specific needs for a 1- to 6-month period. The results were incredible! A total of 48 patients reported a complete resolution of their symptoms, and the remaining 12 experienced major improvements in the intensity and frequency of their vertigo episodes.
Here at Crowder Specific Chiropractic in McKinney, Texas, we apply a similar method as the one used in the study mentioned above. We do not use excessive force to pop or crack the spine to get results. Instead, we use a gentle technique that encourages the bones of the neck to naturally move back into place and hold the correction for longer than general chiropractic adjustments. In many cases, this is enough to fully resolve any symptoms of migraines, dizziness, vertigo and other conditions mentioned above.
To schedule a complimentary consultation with Dr. Crowder call our McKinney office at 972-562-0674. You can also click the button below.
if you are outside of the local area you can find an Upper Cervical Doctor near you at www.uppercervicalawareness.com.
The post Alleviating Dizziness with a Simple Spinal Adjustment appeared first on Crowder Specific Chiropractic.