Vertigo & 4 Interesting Facts

Many of us have found ourselves asking the question, be it on ordinary days or in times of illness, “Why am I dizzy?”

While dizzy spells can be uncomfortable, having vertigo is much more than feeling dizzy. It can make your daily tasks like working, eating and even walking, resulting in falls and injuries. Vertigo is a subjective sensation. Nobody other than the patient can experience what that person is experiencing. Many people with this disorder are inadequately evaluated.

Here are some of the interesting and little-known facts about vertigo and knowing them can help you choose the right diagnosis and treatment for vertigo as early as possible.

Vertigo might be a symptom of another, more serious condition.

With some cases of vertigo, it will be gone on their own without any medical treatment. But it’s still important to be evaluated. It could be sometimes signs of life-threatening conditions like strokes and heart attacks. Migraine-associated vertigo (MAV) is generally unsteadiness and dizziness that occurs along with a migraine pain. So ruling out imminent danger is an important part of the treatment process.

Once you know if the dizziness spell is due to vertigo, your neurologist can plan a treatment for vertigo.

Your diet or dehydration could make you dizzy.

Even mild dehydration may be why you’re feeling dizzy or light-headed, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). Dehydration can also cause blood pressure to drop, which can lead to dizzy spells, notes the AHA.

Vertigo is a symptom, not a disease.

Vertigo alone is not a disease and if you have vertigo, something else is definitely wrong. Vertigo is a spinning sensation that a disease or disorder causes. In many cases, the real problem is the dislodging of cannaliths in your ear. In some cases, vertigo is caused by certain medications or a problem in your brain.

Physical therapy is often the most effective treatment for vertigo.

In forms of vertigo, where the inner ear has suffered damage and the function of that ear is fixed, not changing over time, physical therapy can be quite helpful. When the inner ear is damaged, people commonly experience severe spinning for several days. If after several weeks the person still has a loss of balance, then physical therapy can help restore this balance.

The reason physical therapy is helpful is that it helps train the brain to compensate for the loss of function in the ear. 

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