Millions of Americans have disorders of balance they describe as dizziness. What can be difficult for both a patient and their doctor is that dizziness is a subjective term. Vertigo is a term reserved for a sense of motion when the body is really at rest, usually a spinning sensation like that experienced after getting off a merry-go-round. However, dizziness is a more general term used to describe other sensations like wooziness, unbalance, lightheadedness or general unsteadiness.
Dizziness can be caused by insufficient blood flow to the brain, hyperventilation, certain medications, anxiety, or most commonly, inner ear disorders. Dizziness is not the same for all people. Some people feel lightheaded while some people feel faint. Others feel as if they are moving when they are completely idol. Others may experience a spinning sensation in which they are doing the spinning themselves or that the world around them is spinning. The most common form of dizziness is called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, or BPPV, which is a spinning sensation that occurs with certain head movements in certain positions. Vertigo is most often caused by a problem in the balance centers of the inner ear called the vestibular system and causes the sensation of the room spinning. This type of vertigo can often be treated and eliminated during a session in our office locations using the Canalith Repositioning Procedure. These maneuvers involve a series of specifically patterned head and trunk movements performed by a trained Audiologist who closely watches eye movements with each positional change.
Whether your symptoms came on gradually or all at once, you need a complete audiological evaluation to determine if you are a candidate for any treatment.
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