Vertigo can last for hours, days or longer – and it’s more common than you might think. Why does it happen?
The day that sparked Kathee De Lapp’s spiral from being a well person to one who needed to learn to walk again began like any other. She happily drove to her morning university lectures, spent eight hours in classes and then drove herself home. That afternoon, she felt that she might be coming down with a cold. “You know, I felt just kind of lethargic, just generally yuck,” she says. “Nothing specific.
has given many people the impression that vertigo is related to a fear of heights. An ex-cop played by Jimmy Stewart experiences flashbacks after a rooftop chase sees him dangling from guttering several storeys above the street.But vertigo is not caused by a fear of heights, and isn’t the dizziness many of us feel when we look down from the top of a skyscraper. It’s also not a condition in and of itself but a symptom of a variety of conditions.
Some people feel like they’re moving from side to side, or up and down. Others say they feel like they’re on a boat, that the room is swaying, or that their head feels like it’s spinning. “So the ears are messengers [to the brain],” says Chen. “Now, the brain’s going to have to use that information and say, ‘OK, the head is moving in that direction, so how do we make our next step?’”Our vestibular system operates a bit like a stereo, with our left and right ears sending separate signals to our brain. They need to send precisely the same information for us to remain balanced. If one ear becomes damaged, such as by infection, the signals fall out of sync.
Other inner ear disorders can cause vertigo too. Meniere’s disease, which changes the level of fluid in the inner ear, is one. Migraines can also cause vertigo, though doctors aren’t entirely sure why. On top of this, the hole in the bone means the semicircular canals can move outside the bony box they’re normally encased in. “Part of what happens is that you’re converting the balance system to be able to respond to sound, which it normally doesn’t,” says Szmulewicz. “So people get noise-induced dizziness.”
Specialised CT and MRI scans of the inner ear can detect other causes of vertigo, such as structural damage or inner ear inflammation. Some infections that cause vertigo, such as labyrinthitis, also cause hearing problems – so a hearing test might help. Neuro-otologist David Szmulewicz in an Epley Omniax machine at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital.If BPPV is the cause, a doctor or vestibular audiologist or physiotherapist can perform a “log roll” or an. Both are manual procedures that move the head in a particular way to coax the crystals out of the inner ear canals and into the vestibule where they no longer cause havoc.
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