A condition of dizziness in which you feel like spinning or as if your surroundings are spinning is known as vertigo. The most common cause of vertigo is peripheral vestibular system disorder. It is more prevalent in women and can occur at any age. Sometimes it is also known as Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV), it is a condition in which you might get dizzy when you are changing your position. Vertigo has some other symptoms too, so it’s important to consult your doctor if you are facing such symptoms to avoid any complications in future.
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Checking the Symptoms:
- Feeling Of Imbalance: Sense of dizziness and imbalance are the primary symptoms of vertigo. So if you are feeling like your environment or things around you are spinning, you are about to lose your balance or about to fall then this condition suggests vertigo. Vestibular cranial nerve inflammation can also cause these symptoms in any individual so it’s really important to seek help from your doctor in the diagnosis of vertigo.
- Dizziness Related To Head Movement: First you must have to figure out the cause of dizziness. If it occurs when you move your head or when you change the position of your head, this may be the symptom of vertigo. Other activities like bending down, turning over in bed or tilting the head can cause nausea. Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) is the most common cause of recurrent positional dizziness.
- Nausea And Vomiting: Unsteadiness can make a person feel nauseated, that can also cause a person to vomit. These are some symptoms that, along with dizziness indicates the person might have vertigo.
- Weakness, Numbness Or Slurred Speech: If any part of the body becomes weak, numb or if a person faces difficulty in walking then it could be a more serious condition of vertigo. Also note that if a person’s speech is slurred, it could indicate transient ischemic attack or stroke.
- Recurrent Symptoms: You need to figure out either your symptoms are recurrent or not. If you are experiencing these symptoms quite often then you might be suffering from vertigo. A person could be suffering from Meniere’s disease if he is having recurrent episodes of nausea, dizziness, vomiting, hearing loss and imbalance. Ringing in ears or sensation of fullness in ears are some of the other symptoms of this disease. Reach for your doctor if you are facing any of the above symptoms.
2. Visit Your Doctor:
It is important to see your doctor to identify whether you are suffering from vertigo or these are the symptoms of any other disease. Although vertigo is not life-threatening. You need to write down your symptoms before visiting your doctor. This way you would be able to talk to your doctor easily about your health condition. Note down when your symptoms become worse, also write down the symptoms that don’t occur very often like loss of hearing or ringing in ears. Your doctor will take some physical examinations. The doctor may check your ear as the body balance is regulated by our inner ear, as well as examination of eyes and body movements can also show the signs and symptoms of vertigo. Keep in mind that you need urgent care immediately if you are having vertigo along with other severe symptoms like double vision, fever, headache, slurred speech, weakness of limbs or fainting spells. You must visit a doctor without wasting any time to avoid further complications related to your health issues.
3. Looking For Underlying Causes:
In order to treat vertigo, it is very important to determine its underlying causes. Following are some examinations and tests that will be done in order to figure out the causes of vertigo.
- Be Ready For An Eye Movement Test: The balance of the body is greatly influenced by the movement of our eyes. If the person’s eyes show normal movements then he will have less chances of losing his balance and vertigo. Your doctor will do some tests to determine the reason for your vertigo. There are two tests to check eye movement, that are videonystagmography (VNG) and electroencephalography (ENG). Tiny cameras are used in the first test whereas the second test is done by the use of electrodes. Basically these tests are used to determine the movements of your eyes that are made when organs that maintain your balance are stimulated by air or water. The doctor or technician uses electrodes to determine the movement of your eyes by placing them around your eyes in the procedure of electroencephalography (ENG). On the other hand for videonystagmography (VNG) special goggles are used. The purpose of these tests is to check whether your eyes are making involuntary movements or not. If the person has any issue with the organs that maintain the balance then his eyes will make involuntary movements.
- Imaging Tests: Imaging tests are done under observation of experts and doctors to determine the internal condition of a person’s body. In case of vertigo, your doctor will suggest you some imaging tests like MRI. With the help of this test your doctor could easily scan your body and look for any other changes that your body has developed which could be the cause of vertigo. In some cases benign brain tumors also cause vertigo.
- Take A Typography Test: The issues with your balance could be analyzed by a typography test. In this test it is observed how your feet, eyes and inner ear are working and maintaining your balance. Any issue related to these organs can easily be detected by this test. The information gathered from it could help a doctor in working on vertigo.
- Visit An ENT Specialist: If you are facing any symptom of loss of hearing along with vertigo then it is the best time to visit an ear, nose, and throat (ENT) specialist for proper and detailed examination. The ENT specialist will check your hearing ability by doing an audiometry test. The doctor will also check if there is any blockage or bacterial infection in your ear as it also plays an important role in our listening mechanism. Ear blockage or bacterial infection can easily be treated by using topical medicines or some antibiotics prescribed by your ENT specialist. In this way a person could improve his condition of vertigo due to loss of hearing or inner ear problem.