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

FEELING LIKE YOU'RE SPINNING, swaying, bobbing or shifting while you're just standing, sitting or even lying down can be unnerving and even nauseating.

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

Feeling dizzy can make you feel off-balance, as if you might faint or fall. You might also experience tunnel vision and feel the need to sit down.

Dizziness is a symptom of a disorder, but it's not a disease itself.

Vertigo is a type of dizziness where you feel like your body or surroundings are moving, even when everything is still.

Spinning or tumbling vertigo could indicate 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. Issues in your inner ear or your brain can cause vertigo.

It can sometimes be hard to tell whether you’re experiencing a vertigo episode or another type of dizziness.

Common causes of vertigo:

Causes linked to your inner ear:

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is the most common cause of ear-related vertigo. It happens when tiny calcium crystals in your ear come loose and drift into the rotary sensors in your ear. This can cause 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 of the inner ear that causes unpredictable bouts of vertigo and dizziness. You might experience trouble hearing, ringing in your ears, a feeling of fullness in your ears and hearing loss. The dizzy spells can last minutes or hours.

Vestibular neuritis and labyrinthitis are both disorders caused by inflammation in your inner ear. Vestibular neuritis can cause vertigo that lasts more than a day. If you experience sudden hearing loss along with vertigo, you might have labyrinthitis.

Causes linked to your brain:

Strokes can cause dizziness and vertigo. If you have severe dizziness or vertigo along with nausea, vomiting and significant imbalance, it’s important to seek medical care right away.

Central vertigo can occur when your brain misinterprets or overreacts to normal balance signals. Two of these are vestibular migraines and persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD), very common causes of dizziness related to the brain. Both disorders can cause 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. This is different from motion sickness, and it causes you to feel as if you are on a ship or boat, even days, weeks or months after disembarking. 

How to treat vertigo and dizziness:

The best treatment for vertigo can depend on the cause of your vertigo symptoms.

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 balance signals. For BPPV, head and upper body movements can help you move the crystals back into the correct spot in your inner ear. They can also be good for 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. Effective antihistamines include:

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

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

Why won’t dizziness go away sometimes?

Dizziness is a complex symptom that may be caused by multiple issues with your balance signals. Other health problems that may make dizziness difficult to treat include:

• vision changes
• nerve damage from diabetes, causing 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:

• an ear, nose and throat doctor, also called an otolaryngologist
• an audiologist for dizziness related to ears
• a neurologist for neurological disorders and central vertigo
• an eye specialist for changes in vision
• a vestibular physical therapist

As with other chronic medical conditions, your primary care provider will 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 primary care provider if symptoms don't go away, so you can regain your sense of balance.