Vertigo Cures

Do you suffer from ear problems, or have trouble hearing sometimes? Does your balance seem off lately, or are you dizzy for no apparent reason? Perhaps you have vestibular neuritis, which is also called labyrinthitis. This is an affliction that affects the vestibular nerve, which resides in the middle ear. It can cause many problems, and greatly affect a person’s life in a negative way. Dizziness is the main symptom, although sometimes more severe side effects go along with it as well.

The cause of vestibular neuritis is not always very clear, although it’s sometimes brought on by a viral infection. Other causes are upper respiratory infection, flu, or sometimes even a severe cold. Middle ear infection is rarely the cause, but also a possibility.

The main problem with vestibular neuritis is that it causes a person to experience dizziness or vertigo, due to the vestibular nerve being the main proponent of balance in our brain. If wrong messages are sent to the brain that motion is occurring when in fact it is not, dizziness is the result. This can happen at any time and is very dangerous to people that have jobs where they are required to move a lot, stay in high places, or drive a vehicle. In many cases the symptoms come and go without warning.

This is a very difficult condition to diagnose as well; many people are thought to just have inner ear infections and are treated with antibiotics. After this course of treatment is finished and symptoms persist, normally an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist is required to find out the exact cause. An MRI is normally used to discover the problem, and other more serious diseases such as brain tumors need to be ruled out as well.

There are also other conditions that are sometimes mistaken for vestibular neuritis, such as benign positional vertigo which is the result of very small particles in the fluid of the inner ear. The particles loosely float around the ear canal, and disrupt the delicate balance receptors which in turn send erroneous signals to the brain. The symptoms are the same, although a slightly different cause is to blame.

What are the treatments for vestibular neuritis? In many cases, little can be done except to proved relief with antihistamines, or antibiotics if the cause is from a bacterial infection. However in many cases steroids such as prednisone are used to combat the problem, although many times no treatment is found that works. In these cases, time is they only ways to find relief – by waiting until the symptoms of vestibular neuritis go away for good.

The bottom line is, if you ever experience vertigo, dizziness, and a feeling of fullness in your inner ear on one side or the other, you should have it checked out right away. Most times it will be something easy to resolve, such as an infection or foreign matter in the ear. But since diagnosing vestibular neuritis is so difficult, be aware that further steps may be necessary to get to the truth of your inner ear problems. Don’t give up, find a doctor that is willing to find the true diagnosis no matter what.

If you suffer from severe ear problems, get help as soon as possible. It could be something very serious, possibly vestibular neuritis. Learn more by visiting us at:
Vestibular Neuritis

The term “vestibular migraine” is not a real medical classification. A more accurate description would be a migraine with vestibular symptoms.

The vestibular system in the inner ear, is one that maintains balance and equilibrium. Therefore vestibular symptoms are dizziness, vertigo (a sense of spinning or motion when at rest), or loss of balance and disequilibrium.

Basilar migraines can also present with vertigo and tinnitus. Menieres disease (a condition with similar symptoms) is often diagnosed when in fact the patient my be experiencing migraines with symptoms of vestibular disorder. It is known that people with migraines are more apt to experience Menieres and vice versa.

Patients with migraines with these symptoms can experience just vestibular symptoms or the symptoms along with migraine head pain. The MRI brain scans of these patients are usually normal.

Though there have been NO control trials demonstrating efficacy for migraines with vestibular symptoms, the following drugs are used by physicians. For frequent or chronic vestibular migraines, daily calcium channel blockers (a blood pressure medication), SSRI’s (a type of anti-depressant), and anti epileptic drugs. Also triptan drugs are used for acute attacks but once again there are no trials showing that they help with the vestibular symptoms.

Though there have been organized clinical trials demonstrating the prophylactic efficacy of high-dose riboflavin and magnesium for treating chronic migraines, there are NO trials showing these ingredients, either alone or in combination reduce or eliminate vestibular symptoms.

Several chronic migraine patients with the symptoms of vestibular disorder who were using a combination of high dose riboflavin, magnesium and feverfew extract in a supplement called MigreLief, report a decrease in these symptoms and an increase in the time they felt their balance and equilibrium were closer to normal.

If additional patients report these benefits a clinical trial of this combination may be warranted.

Your anti-aging scientist & heatlh expert Curt Hendrix, M.S., C.C.N, C.N.S
Helping you to get well, stay well, and stay young and vibrant well into the later years of life!

Visit http://www.MigreLief.com – Discover his patented all natural triple therapy migraine prevention supplement recommended by neurologists and leading headache clinics worldwide. (Magnesium, Riboflavin & Feverfew – listed by the American Academy of Neurology for migraine prevention)

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There is no question that vestibular rehabilitation therapy is the best way to manage most causes of vertigo, dizziness and imbalance. The downside is that there are very few trained specialists in this field competent in diagnosing these disorders and formulating appropriate treatment applications.

This field is mostly the domain of the chiropractic neurologist, and there remain very few doctors sub-specialized in this field, especially in NJ. Further, just because a therapist of sorts offers vestibular rehabilitation therapy, it does not mean that it will be done correctly.

My office sees a myriad of individuals with these conditions. Several have somehow managed to find a therapist who performs some variation of vestibular rehabilitation therapy. All have failed because the therapy provided was a “canned” approach, and was not formulated specific to the patient being treated. I find that canned treatment approaches, especially pertaining to vestibular rehabilitation therapy, are destined to fail. Treatment protocols must be specifically designed for the patient being managed. If this is not the case, some patients will improve, some will stay the same, and some will worsen.

You can look at an analogy of physical fitness. If you want to get into shape and hire a trainer, if the trainer says on day one, ok, were going to start with bench pressing 200 lbs., you can see how that will end up for someone who cannot physically do that. The same thing happens when you exceed someone’s functional capacity with rehabilitation. For more information and to determine if you are a candidate for vestibular rehabilitation therapy, (VRT), log onto my website listed below and follow the links to the online consultation form for vertigo and dizziness disorders.

Dr. Scopelliti is a Fellow of the American College of Functional Neurology and also a Fellow of the American Board of Vestibular Rehabilitation. Practicing at the 279 Professional Arts Bldg at Monmouth Medical Center, in Long Branch, NJ, his office focuses on the drug free management of patients with vertigo, dizziness, balance loss, presyncope, dystonia, headaches, ADD ADHD and other neurological disorders. Dr. Scopelliti has a wealth of information updated weekly on the web at http://www.dcneuro.net. Also, visit our guest book at http://www.dcneuro.net/guests.htm.

Vestibular balance disorders affect in excess of two million people every year, and feature in the top ten complaints that lead patients to visit their doctor.

Doctors need to be cautious when patients are describing their symptoms, as often-used terms such as “dizziness”, “vertigo“, and “motion sickness” can be caused by conditions other than balance problems. Instead, doctors try to encourage patients to describe their sensations in more specific terms. Below are common symptoms described by patients, and what a primary care physician would consider the sensations to be of those symptoms.

Dizziness

In order to satisfy the symptom of “dizziness”, physicians would be interested in sensations that are similar to feeling drunk, including being unsteady, woozy, or giddy. There may not be sensations of spinning, but a feeling of imbalance. Dizziness is typically not caused by inner ear disorders, so may point to a different condition which needs to be investigated.

Vertigo

The sensations associated with vertigo are those such as spinning, turning, falling, whirling, even simply moving straight ahead. The spinning sensations may refer to either the subject spinning or the actual environment. All such sensations of movement are hallucinations and usually suggest an inner ear or vestibular system disorder.

Lightheadness

A physician would consider “lightheadness” to involve one or more symptoms such as tunnel vision, feelings of fainting, sweating, shortness of breath, numbness, or feeling cold. Lightheadness can be caused by the side effects of medication, or heart or blood vessel problems.

Motion Sickness

Common motion sickness symptoms include headache, sweating, nausea, and spinning. Rather than being a symptom of a condition or disease, motion sickness is quite a normal response to experiencing motion for which you have not yet adapted. Some people’s threshold for suffering motion sickness is much lower than others, and can be caused by relatively stable journeys by road, air, or sea.

Summary

If you are feeling any of the sensations described above, visit your doctor. There is also a new website – see below – designed for sufferers of these conditions to share symptoms and coping strategies, and there is a recommended resource which has helped many people overcome dizziness and similar unpleasant disorders.

About the Author: Beth McGrath runs an information and support website for people looking for a vertigo cure or remedy. There is also a new forum for vertigo sufferers [http://www.vertigoremedy.com/vertigoforum]. See http://www.vertigoremedy.com