What is the best way to get rid of dizziness or vertigo?

If you’re standing or sitting still and suddenly feel like you’re spinning, swaying, bobbing or shifting, that can be unnerving, even nauseating.

Dizziness can happen to anyone, though it’s more common as we age. It can be fleeting or chronic.

When you’re feeling dizzy, you may feel off-balance or as if you’re going to faint or fall. You might get tunnel vision and feel the need to sit down.

Dizziness is not a disease, but a symptom of a disorder.

Vertigo is a type of dizziness experienced when you feel as though your body or your environment around you is moving when everything is still.

A spinning or tumbling vertigo may signal a problem in your inner ear, which contains your body’s motion sensors, telling your brain where your head is and how you’re moving – up, down, sideways, across the room. Problems in your inner ear or your brain can cause vertigo.

Sometimes it can be hard to tell whether you’re experiencing vertigo or another type of dizziness.

Common causes of vertigo:

Causes linked to your inner ear:

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is the most common reason for ear-related vertigo. It happens when tiny calcium crystals in your ear come loose and drift into the rotary sensors in your ear. If that happens, you might often experience short episodes lasting less than a minute of feeling as if you’re tumbling when you lie down or roll over in bed.

Meniere’s disease is a disorder relating to a problem in your inner ear. It causes unpredictable bouts of vertigo and dizziness. You might often experience trouble hearing, ringing in your ears, a feeling of fullness in your ears and hearing loss. You can feel dizzy for minutes or hours.

Vestibular neuritis and labyrinthitis are both disorders caused by inflammation in your inner ear. Vestibular neuritis can cause a long period of vertigo lasting more than one day. Along with vertigo, if you also have sudden hearing loss, you may have labyrinthitis.

Causes linked to your brain:

Strokes can cause dizziness and vertigo. If you have severe dizziness or vertigo, nausea, vomiting and significant imbalance, it’s important to seek medical care as soon as possible.

Central vertigo can occur when your brain misinterprets or overreacts to normal balance signals. Vestibular migraines and persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) are two very common causes of dizziness related to the brain. Both disorders can make you feel dizziness and sensitivity to bright lights, loud sounds and different head or body movements. Another example of central vertigo is cruise ship vertigo, also called mal de debarquement syndrome or disembarkment syndrome. The syndrome causes you to feel as if you are on a ship or boat, though you got off weeks or even months ago.

Cures for dizziness and vertigo:

Physical therapy can be very effective. Health care professionals may prescribe vestibular rehabilitation therapy (VRT), which includes eye and head movements to retrain your brain to interpret your balance signals. If you have BPPV, head and upper body movements can help you move the crystals back into the correct spot in your inner ear. They can also help dizziness related to neck tightness.

Antihistamines decrease the brain’s response to signals from your inner ear causing vertigo. These medications often make people feel sleepy. Among the antihistamines that can be effective are:

• meclizine, which is sold over-the-counter as Antivert or Dramamine Less Drowsy
• dimenhydrinate, which is sold over-the-counter as Dramamine

Benzodiazepine medications also work by slowing the brain’s activity and its response to signaling from the ears. These medications are available by prescription only and have a very limited role in treating dizziness lasting for more than a few days.

Why won’t dizziness go away sometimes?

Dizziness is a complex symptom. It may be caused by more than one problem with your balance signals. Other health problems that may make dizziness difficult to treat include:

• changes in your vision
• nerve damage from diabetes leading to numbness or tingling in your feet
• joint problems
• neck tension
• central vertigo

For some people, dizziness becomes a chronic condition.

You may need to see different specialists to address the causes of your dizziness, including an ear, nose and throat doctor, also called an otolaryngologist, an audiologist for dizziness related to ears, a neurologist for neurologic conditions and central vertigo, an eye specialist for changes in vision, or a vestibular physical therapist.

Like other chronic medical conditions, your primary care provider will also play an important role in helping you manage chronic dizziness.

With so many different causes of vertigo and dizziness, it’s important to contact your health provider if it doesn’t go away so you can regain your sense of balance.