Have you heard the terms but are not sure what is the difference between dizziness and vertigo? To make it more confusing, the words are often used interchangeably despite referring to different issues.
Experiencing dizziness or vertigo can significantly affect your quality of life. From keeping you from enjoying the activities you love to increasing your risk of falling, dizziness or vertigo can have a long-lasting impact. That is where highly qualified and experienced Vestibular Physiotherapist can step in. Specifically trained in diagnosing these conditions and underlying factors and providing relevant treatment, these healthcare professionals can support your goal of improving your dizziness and vertigo symptoms and overall well-being.
Our team can help you towards understanding dizziness and vertigo and reaching your target outcomes relevant to your symptoms. Learn more about these issues and how Vestibular Physiotherapy may help.
What is Dizziness?
It is important to know that dizziness is a symptom rather than a medical condition. This means that there is typically something happening that is causing you to feel dizzy. That is why it can be advantageous to visit one of our qualified Vestibular Physiotherapists to gain a thorough assessment and diagnosis. Understanding your dizziness at a base level is pivotal to the development of your treatment plan and can make a significant difference to therapy outcomes.
Your experience of dizziness may differ from another person’s. This symptom is often described as feeling like you are rocking, bobbing, swaying, or tilting, feeling unbalanced, wobbly, or lightheaded. Dizziness can happen when standing, moving, your head sitting, and even lying down. Feeling dizzy may be followed by symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and fatigue for some people.
Causes of Dizziness
There is a long list of reasons why you may be experiencing dizziness. Many of these are benign and can be rectified with simple exercises guided by a Vestibular Physiotherapist others may require focused short- or long-term treatment. Some of these issues can be diagnosed by tests such as Vestibular Function tests or be treated with medication, in which a specialist doctor such as Neuro-Otologist may need to be involved with.
Some reasons why you may be experiencing dizziness include:
- Inner ear problems that can result in Dizziness such as Vestibular Neuritis, Vestibular Migraine or Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV).
- Low blood pressure, or more specifically, Postural hypotension, which involves a sudden decrease in your blood pressure when you stand up.
- Iron Deficiency Anaemia which means your body doesn’t have enough iron to produce adequate red blood cells leading to reduced oxygen delivery to tissues and organs.
- Low blood sugar: your brain may not be receiving adequate amounts of glucose to function optimally.
- Dehydration: can result in dizziness and in some causes fainting (syncopal episodes).
- Side effects of certain medications.
- Neurological conditions or disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis or Cerebellar Ataxia.
What is Vertigo?
While vertigo is similar to dizziness, it differs because you can experience a false feeling of movement when there is none. This may be that you feel like you are moving, or that the world around you spinning, rocking, bobbing or swaying. This sensation can often be intense and may range from a brief occurrence to an ongoing issue.
Because your feeling of stability and awareness of movement are affected, maintaining balance can be significantly difficult for people dealing with vertigo. It can also lead to other issues such as falling, nausea, decreased focus, and anxiety.
Causes of Vertigo
Inner ear issues are often to blame when it comes to vertigo. This is because many of the mechanisms within the ear, known as the vestibular system, are crucial to our ability to maintain our balance and movement control.
Some issues that can cause Vertigo include:
- Vestibular neuritis, which is when the vestibular nerve becomes inflamed and its ability to send messages from the inner ear to the brain is compromised.
- Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, (BPPV) which is a result of tiny particles of calcium (called Otoconia) becoming displaced in the semicircular canals in your inner ear. When you move your head into certain positions such as getting in and out of bed or rolling in bed, these particles move and often result in a sensation of vertigo.
- Vestibular Migraine: A type of Migraine which results in Vertigo resulting in vertigo, headaches, photophobia (sensitivity to light), phonophobia (sensitivity to sound), nausea and imbalance.
- Meniere’s disease, which results in attacks of vertigo, mid to low frequency hearing loss, tinnitus, a feeling of fullness in your ear.
- Persistent Postural Perceptual Dizziness (PPPD): results in a constant sense of rocking and swaying usually worse when upright and worse in busy crowded environments like supermarkets and shopping centres.
Understanding Dizziness and Vertigo Supports Comprehensive Vestibular Rehabilitation Therapy
If you are dealing with dizziness or vertigo, receiving a professional assessment and diagnosis can be pivotal to long-term outcomes. Although similar, these two experiences do differ in the signs and sensations involved and whether there is a sense of movement during an episode. Subsequently, the correct identification of underlying factors can lead to a suitable treatment plan that aims to improve your symptoms.
Our experienced and qualified vestibular physiotherapists deliver high quality services that are tailored to your needs and goals. Please contact our friendly team to organise an initial consultation and assessment.
