This blog post is about vertigo. Do you ever feel like the world is spinning around you, and no its not after too many beverages. In fact, it’s quite troubling for those who experience it. We all get a little dizzy sometimes, whether it’s because we stood up too fast or we looked at an optical illusion for too long, but vertigo seems to be much harsher and longer lasting than these other brief experiences.
Vertigo is characterized by dizziness combined with a feeling of movement or a spinning sensation, even when you are standing perfectly still. Sometimes headaches, nausea, and fatigue accompany these dizzy feelings. There are a few different ways vertigo can begin, most of them dealing with the way your inner ear and brain communicate. Because of the neurological connection, chiropractic care has been shown to help alleviate vertigo symptoms!
Vertigo is a common symptom in our practice members who suffer from recent neck trauma, but more commonly it may be caused by damage or a disruption in your vestibular system, or inner ears, such as a recent cold/ear infection, or pressure changes.
The good news, chiropractic adjustments have been proven to alleviate a specific type of vertigo called cervical vertigo. And in more complicated cases we take a look specifically at the top bone, the Atlas. This is done by taking very specific xrays and then corrected, adjusted, very specific to your needs. This type of vertigo is caused by stuck spinal joints in the cervical spine from those recent neck injuries or strains. This results in a decrease in communication being sent from the nerves in your neck to your brain. This misinformation may cause you to feel dizzy. Our specific adjustments realign the joints and vertebrae in the cervical spine, correcting the nerve pathways and allowing for clearer communication!
A more common type of vertigo, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), is due to the movement of crystals around the inner ear. These crystals can make you sensitive to gravity. They can shift into other parts of the vestibular pathways, altering your center of balance and briefly making you feel dizzy in certain positions. To help with BPPV specifically, we as chiropractors will use the Epley maneuver, which maneuvers your head into different positions to reposition the crystals inside the inner ear.
We are here to help you! Don’t let vertigo control your day and alter your life!!!