Certain conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, or problems with your vision, thyroid, nerves, or blood vessels can cause dizziness and other balance problems.
Common causes include inner ear problems, medicines, infections, and traumatic brain injury. These disorders can occur at any age. But they are most common as you get older. Treatment depends on the underlying cause and can include medicine, rehabilitation, and lifestyle changes.
If you are dizzy right now and have any of the following neurological symptoms along with your dizziness or vertigo, call 911 immediately: New confusion or trouble speaking or understanding speech. New slurred speech or hoarseness of voice. New numbness or weakness of the face, arm, or leg.
Dizziness has many possible causes, including inner ear disturbance, motion sickness and medication effects. Sometimes it's caused by an underlying health condition, such as poor circulation, infection or injury.
The most common causes of dizziness are: labyrinthitis – an inner ear infection that affects your hearing and balance, and can lead to a severe form of dizziness called vertigo. migraine – dizziness may come on before or after the headache, or even without the headache.
("Auto" means "self.") Autoimmune inner ear disease (AIED) happens when the immune system attacks tissues in the inner ear. This often causes sensorineural hearing loss. AIED also causes balance problems for about 1 in 2 people who have it. In most cases of AIED, only the ears are affected.
The ear is a sensory organ that picks up sound waves, allowing us to hear. It is also essential to our sense of balance: the organ of balance (the vestibular system) is found inside the inner ear.
Labyrinthitis: An infection or inflammation of the inner ear that causes dizziness and loss of balance. It is often associated with an upper respiratory infection, such as the flu. Ménière's disease: Episodes of vertigo, hearing loss, tinnitus (a ringing or buzzing in the ear), and a feeling of fullness in the ear.
The most common causes of imbalance without dizziness are related to dysfunction of the muscles, joints and peripheral nerves (proprioceptive system), or the central nervous system (brain). People with bilateral vestibulopathy have balance issues but no dizziness if the damage affects both ears at the same time.
Problems with balance are frequent signs of several illnesses. Many of these problems don't need to be treated by a doctor. However, if you experience balance issues, you should visit a doctor to rule out more serious health issues like a tumor or stroke.
Several medical conditions can make a person feel weak, shaky, and tired. They include dehydration, irregular heart beat, Parkinson's disease, and chronic fatigue syndrome. Treatment will depend on the condition a person has.
But you should seek medical attention if imbalance isn't a fleeting sensation, if it's debilitating and disrupting your life or if it's putting your safety at risk. The signs you might have a balance disorder include: Prolonged or extreme dizziness. A spinning sensation when you're not actually moving (vertigo)
In most cases, dizziness associated with heart problems is accompanied by other symptoms. These may include shortness of breath, swollen extremities, frequent fatigue or chest pain. In the event heart disease is suspected, you will undergo one or more tests to get to the root of your problem.
If you are experiencing dizziness, lightheadedness, a spinning sensation, confusion, or blurred vision the first step is to speak with your primary care physician. He or she will begin the process of testing to determine the cause and may refer you to a local neurologist for some aspects of treatment.
Vision problems can make it challenging to maintain proper balance. When someone has troubled vision and the eye muscles work harder to compensate for the decreased visual clarity, eyestrain, headaches, and balance disorders can occur.
However, when you close your eyes, your brain no longer gets accurate information from your visual system, and it relies on information from the vestibular system. If your vestibulocochlear nerve is inflamed, it is constantly sending out incorrect information, leading your brain to think you are moving when you're not.
You might feel like the room is spinning or that your surroundings are moving. This feeling is called vertigo. BPPV is associated with feelings of vertigo when you move a certain way. This could be when you turn your head, stand up, roll over in bed, or lie down.
It can cause weakness in your face muscles, headaches, difficulties with your vision and hearing, memory loss, hallucinations, and mood changes. We usually treat the condition with steroids and other medications to treat inflammation.
This mineral is important for supporting immune function and heart health. A magnesium deficiency may cause increased production of inflammatory chemicals in the body, raising your inflammation contributing to autoimmunity.
Generally, see your doctor if you experience any recurrent, sudden, severe, or prolonged and unexplained dizziness or vertigo. Get emergency medical care if you experience new, severe dizziness or vertigo along with any of the following: Sudden, severe headache. Chest pain.
Causes of lightheadedness may be dehydration, medication side effects, sudden blood pressure drops, low blood sugar, and heart disease or stroke. Feeling woozy, lightheaded, or a little faint is a common complaint among older adults.
Gait and balance issues can cause unsteadiness and difficulty standing and walking. Depending on the cause, a person may also experience vertigo, dizziness, and motion sickness, for example. Common causes of these issues in adults include musculoskeletal injuries, arthritis, and visual or inner ear problems.