subject: What Are The Symptoms Of Vertigo [print this page] The onset of symptoms of vertigo are among the most likely reasons for seeing a medical practitioner. Vertigo can be defined as the hallucination or feeling of movement, usually in a turning or spinning manner of the either yourself or your environment. It is similar to the feelings of a merry go ride or if you remember spinning in circles as a child, the feeling induced by both of these is like the symptoms of vertigo. In combination with feelings of vertigo or dizziness it is common to feel light headed, off balance, develop a headache and have sickness in your stomach or nausea. What is crucial to understand is that dizziness or vertigo is not a disease but often a symptom. The symptoms of vertigo can be caused by a wide range of problems from serious like neurological and vascular causes to non serious.
The feelings of dizziness or vertigo happen when our balance or equilibrium becomes affected. In our inner ear are semicircular canals that govern our equilibrium. Inside the semicircular canals are tiny hairs that sit in fluid. The tiny hairs are receptors that sense our head movements and then send messages to our brain so we know we are moving. With this understanding of how our balance system works you will better understand some disorders that result in vertigo or dizziness. Three very common problems that affect our balance are benign positional vertigo, labyrinthitis and Menieres disease.
Meniere's disease is a severe form of vertigo. Due to the fact that many sufferers may not seek medical help, there may be more people with the disorder than we know about. The cause behind this vertigo is an increase in the amount of fluid that is in the semicircular canals. Together with severe vertigo that can last hours to days, people will often experience ringing in their ears, fullness or pain in their ears, sickness in the stomach or vomiting. Medication is used to manage the condition because there is currently no cure for it.
When a part of the semicircular canals called the labyrinth becomes inflamed it is termed labyrinthitis. This is usually caused by a virus of some type and will not respond to antibiotics. The inflammation will result in the fluid becoming thicker and therefore disrupts the signals of our balance. People will experience vertigo together with potential headaches and sickness in the stomach with a general feeling of being off balance. Vertigo of this cause is short in duration and usually occurs for seconds to minutes.
The number one cause of vertigo is called benign positional vertigo or bppv. This is caused by debris in the semicircular canals that affect the hair receptors and result in misinformation being sent to the brain about our movement. This disorder is triggered by specific head movements such as rolling over in bed, looking up or bending forwards. The vertigo feelings are short in duration and only last for seconds. Luckily there are some safe solutions to this problem without the use of drugs or surgery.
The ability to balance is one of the most important skills we have. It is often only appreciated once we have lost it. Above are three of the most common reasons for suffering symptoms of vertigo. For the condition bppv or benign positional vertigo there is help available.
