Dizziness or vertigo can be completely debilitating and outright terrifying. There are many causes of vertigo and our osteopaths are well placed to help you work out exactly what’s going on.

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is a very common cause of dizziness and frequently causes a sense of your world spinning around you, we call this vertigo. It is typically associated with light-headedness, a loss of balance, blurred vision, nausea and even vomiting. These symptoms are often triggered by any  change in position, especially when moving from lying to sitting or standing and usually one side is more effected than the other.

How does BPPV cause vertigo ?

The inner ear contains small sensors called the otolith organs that monitor your head position and movement. These organs contain crystals that move about with head movements to tell our brain that there has been a change in head position. In BPPV, these crystals can become dislodged, sending a barrage of faulty information to the brain leading that we experience as dizziness and vertigo. This can happen with head trauma, local swelling or infection, or with other inner ear pathology.

Our osteopaths can quickly assess for BPPV using the Dix-Hallpike test and if indicated, BPPV can be treated immediately using the Epley maneuver to relocate crystals and reduce the symptoms so if you suffer from vertigo there’s a good chance  it can be readily treated within a few short sessions so book in for a treatment with one of our osteopaths today.