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.
Causes of balance problems include medications, ear infection, a head injury, or anything else that affects the inner ear or brain. Low blood pressure can lead to dizziness when you stand up too quickly.
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.
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.
Losing your balance while walking, or feeling imbalanced, can result from: Vestibular problems. Abnormalities in your inner ear can cause a sensation of a floating or heavy head and unsteadiness in the dark. Nerve damage to your legs (peripheral neuropathy).
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.
Sudden numbness or weakness in the face, arm, or leg, especially on one side of the body. Sudden confusion, trouble speaking, or difficulty understanding speech. Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes. Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance, or lack of coordination.
In sum, increased fear and anxiety can lead to stiffening movement and altered postural control, gait, head movements and visual search strategies. All of this can impede balance.
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.
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.
Internal vibrations, also known as internal tremors, can feel like a person is shaking on the inside. They typically affect people with Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, or essential tremor. Internal tremors are shaking sensations felt inside the body.
Untreated, vitamin B-12 deficiency can lead to neurological problems, such as persistent tingling in the hands and feet or problems with balance. It can lead to mental confusion and forgetfulness because vitamin B-12 is necessary for healthy brain function.
The dizziness that accompanies anxiety is often described as a sense of lightheadedness or wooziness. There may be a feeling of motion or spinning inside rather than in the environment. Sometimes there is a sense of swaying even though you are standing still.
It can also cause unpleasant side effects such as unsteadiness, dizziness and vertigo. You can experience these effects if you're feeling stressed, anxious or depressed. These emotions can trigger the symptoms of an underlying issue such as an inner ear condition, but they can also cause vertigo by themselves.
Stress, worry, or anxiety may cause other kinds of dizziness. It might feel more like lightheadedness than spinning. One form of this is chronic subjective dizziness — a vague feeling of imbalance. It happens more often in people with anxiety and in places where your senses have to take in a lot of information.
Pre-strokes or mini strokes are the common terms used to describe a transient ischemic attack (TIA). Unlike a full blown stroke, a TIA only lasts a few minutes and does not cause permanent damage. Nevertheless it is a warning sign that a possible stroke may be coming in the future.
A person experiencing a TIA might feel sudden weakness or numbness on one side of the body, have slurred speech, have trouble seeing or talking, and feel confused. The person may experience a combination of these symptoms at the same time. “The real takeaway?
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.
Loss of balance is a symptom of both Ménière's disease and lupus. However, dizziness and spinning sensation (vertigo) that may cause loss of balance are hallmark signs of Ménière's disease while loss of balance is an uncommon symptom of lupus.
("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.
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)