if you are experiencing dizziness or vertigo and/or have experienced concussion [head injury with or without losing consciousness] and experience the symptoms of headaches, pain in the neck and upper back region, sensitivity to light, voice or general irritability, please do not ignore these symptoms. Please consider seeing physical therapist who is trained to perform vestibular and concussion assessment and treat you earliest. Also see your family physician or in severe symptoms i.e. vomiting, throbbing headaches or any discharge from nose or ears, please see your family physician or attend the emergency department immediately as you may require 24 hours to 72 hours of close monitoring.
There are many patients who would not be able to differentiate between dizziness and vertigo. In our common terms, the dizziness is simply when patient feels that their body moves and the surroundings are fixed but were to go is when the surroundings are moving like experiencing an earthquake and body is stable.
Dizziness could be the reason of many factors i.e. blood pressure changes, posture changes [in seniors quick sit to stand can lead to dizziness], prolong postures at work i.e. computer work with forward neck posture can lead to dizziness, low vitamin B12 RIN can lead to dizziness. We believe to assess you thoroughly to find out the reason of dizziness and treat you accordingly sometimes it may require releasing the tight bands/trigger points around neck and upper back region, stretching of tight groups of muscles, muscle energy techniques or reverse loading to promote normal posture and blood flow surrounding the spine and the brain to prevent and treat dizziness.
Vertigo could be the reason of aging or fall where sudden thrust or jolt of head or body can lead to imbalance into the movements of crystals in the inner ear canal. When these crystals do not move smoothly, it can create the experience like earthquake where patient would feel sudden loss of balance, occasional vomiting or headaches for short period of time and it may subside when the head moves back into the different position. It would again be triggered if the head moves into first position as the crystals are not moving smoothly within the canal. This needs assessment by a trained physiotherapist to assist the smooth flow of crystals into the canal by putting the head into certain positions at certain angle. We can treat vertigo in the clinic with immediate results. The treatment may take sometimes up to 1 hour as we try to make sure the crystals are aligned and moving smoothly by reassessing the patient’s frequently during the session. Most of our vertigo patients require 1-4 appointments and it can be fixed quickly.