We’ve all experienced dizziness at some point. Riding a rollercoaster or carousel might elicit dizziness in some folks. For others, it may be something simple like turning their head too quickly. How can you tell when dizziness is something transient, or something you need to worry about?
Duration of symptoms
If you’ve been feeling dizzy off and on for more than a few days (or even weeks or months), see a physical therapist. If you notice that you feel dizzy when you first sit up in the morning, and it happens every time and it’s been going on for a while, don’t feel like you need to suffer. We can help! If you’re dizzy after a winding car ride or a rollercoaster, don’t worry. That should resolve.
If you get dizziness or vertigo and it only lasts for a few seconds, that’s a good sign that it can be treated simply with a few maneuvers of your head. You’ll need to come and see us to make sure!
Recent infection
If you’ve had an upper respiratory or gastrointestinal infection recently, you may have some involvement in your vestibular nerve, which controls your equilibrium. This may look something like a spontaneous onset of vertigo that lasts for several days, with nausea or vomiting. Yikes! This isn’t fun. For symptoms like that, seek your primary care physician for help with medication (meclizine is often given for dizziness) and then come and see us to help speed your recovery!
Balance Changes
Let’s say you’ve been dealing with dizziness for months and months. You’ve managed to work around it, hoping it would go away… until you fall. When the vestibular system isn’t working at full capacity, you can feel “off,” like you don’t quite know where your feet are, and you may worry about taking a spill on a sidewalk. Don’t let it get that far! There’s a chance that we can work to strengthen your body’s balancing systems and habituate to your dizziness. That does mean we’ll need to do things that make you dizzy, but the more you do them, the less dizzy you will feel.
As with anything, don’t feel like you need to suffer. Sometimes these issues can resolve on their own, but if we can help speed up the process, isn’t that better? We think so! Call us today!