Vertigo on the ground?
Have you been a little lightheaded lately? If you happen to set your eyes on an object and you see it spinning, then your dizziness may lead to something serious. If your wooziness is coupled with a whirling sensation, chances are you may be experiencing vertigo. Vertigo is a medical term for dizziness that can lead to a balance disorder.
Vertigo is also known as “hallucination of motion”. Individuals having this ailment begin to see blurred motions of stationary objects. It has almost the exact feeling of being in an unstoppable merry-go-round.
It may be left untreated many times, but vertigo is actually one of the most widespread medical problems among adults. In United States alone, around 40% of individuals experience the symptoms of vertigo at least once. This fact is so reported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Studies show that vertigo is more common in women than in men and as a person grows older, he or she may experience more frequent attacks of vertigo.
Vertigo is usually associated inner ear infection, which is also referred to as labyrinthitis. Fluid-filled canals or labyrinths have very small hair cells that are responsible for sending impulses to the human brain. The brain then identifies the individual’s correct body orientation. Once the small organs in the labyrinths gets irritated, then these cells may send incorrect messages to your brain. When this happens, you would feel a sudden drowsiness. Since the ear is responsible for the body’s balance, once your ears are malfunctioning you may often observe yourself getting dizzy and out of balance.
Vertigo can also be caused by balance disorders and inflamed vestibular nerves. If you are physically injured in a part of your ear, chances are you would suffer from vertigo as well. It is important to take not that vertigo is not a disease in itself. It may be a symptom to a more complicated illness like tumor and stroke.
At the first signs of vertigo, immediately consult your doctor for proper advice. The common treatment for vertigo is meclizine. The symptoms of vertigo usually go away on its own but comes back after a few weeks or so. If you experience any signs of vertigo, never tell yourself that’s it’s just a simple headache and would soon go away. As passé as it may sound, prevention is always better than cure.
November 7th, 2007 at 2:19 am
I have suffered from vertigo for nearly a year. I went to the doctor the first day I could not walk from my bed to my bathroom and nearly a year later we still don’t know what’s wrong. Meclizine hasn’t worked. Nor has anything else we’ve tried and all the tests confirm that I am perfectly healthy.
So why can’t I sleep because I feel like the bed is falling out from under me?
You say that vertigo is not a disease in itself. But we’ve ruled out every cause you’ve suggested in this article. Are there any other diseases you haven’t mentioned? Any other options? My 3 MRIs, CT Scan, GNT, carotid ultrasound, multiple rounds of blood work and various prescriptions would suggest that there’s something more because I’m wonderfully healthy even though I can’t walk a straight line sober. But today my doctor threw up his hands and said, “I don’t know.”
I wish someone had an answer because, if this is not a disease and merely a symptom of one, then it would be nice to have someone, anyone!, suggest a cure. In the meantime, those of us who walk around with “undiagnosed” vertigo, this merely a symptom and not a disease, trying not to bump into things or other people, remain as we are . . . scared, confused, wondering why there are no answers.
A prognosis would be nice. Being told that this is merely a symptom feels dismissive and after nearly a year of not having a diagnosis, it breaks my heart.
November 25th, 2007 at 2:03 am
I’m someone suffering too.
But mine started with the fact that I couldn’t get my ears to open when coming down from an airplane ride, then caught the worst cold in my life that settled with ear infections and seemingly permanently damaging my balance.
Three hospital, countless doctors, two very unsuccessful surgeries that caused some new damage, I’m made no progress for the last two years. I’ve never got a good diagnosis and the surgery was to repair the unseen (odd) and to explore (found nothing but left nerve damage). Sorry, you have some problems too. Now I should try John Hopkins, but I’m just staying away from doctors to give myself a break from being someone’s experient. They drilled a hole in my skull and recover wasn’t easy, as explained.