Cervical Vertigo
Cervical Vertigo, never heard of it right? but you’ve heard of being dizzy and you’ve probably already googled this and found out about BPPV. So which type of dizziness do you have? Before reading any further my advice to you is to schedule an appointment to see a professional for a diagnosis. Without a proper diagnosis how can one expect to manage the problem? The information here is our own personal blog where we discuss what we know and it is not meant to be used to self diagnose.
Cervical, so the neck and vertigo, being dizzy. So you thought dizziness was just dizziness? no, there are different reasons people will feel dizzy. This list is not exhaustive but anything from medications that can cause dizziness, systemic causes such as cardiovascular disease, external environmental factors, mental health such as anxiety, being dehydrated, fatigue, Postural Orthostatic Hypotension, Vertebrobasilar compression, blood pressure, low iron, inner ear problems, infections and fever. What I will discuss today as we have already spoken about BPPV in a previous post, is musculoskeletal causes of vertigo, cervical vertigo.
The neck is responsible for our sense of balance, when we move our neck we also have associated head, eye, neck and body movements yes? ok stay with me here because it can get confusing. The way this works is the input from little cells in the neck provide proprioceptive feedback to the brain which enables coordinated head, neck and eye movements while also ensuring body posturing and spatial orientation. In short, the neck enables us to be upright. When there is altered proprioceptive input from these little cells in the neck we get dizzy.
Some symptoms of cervical vertigo:
neck pain
dizziness with rotating and flexing the neck
episodic or persistent balance issues
tinnitus
blurred/altered vision
headaches
earache
stiff neck
One of the things that I was taught in my early years is that one symptom in isolation is not a diagnosis. It is tempting to see it as such, especially when you’ve been struggling with a condition that doesn’t seem to be resolving. As you can see, there are a variety of reasons and symptoms associated with being dizzy.
Treatment options for cervical vertigo with a physiotherapist are largely manual therapy, along with retraining neck, eye and head positioning with fun looking equipment, target practice for the head/eyes and neck and laser pointers on your head. As always, prognosis is based on how long the symptoms have been occurring, any other co-morbidities the patient is suffering with and other psychosocial factors that predict outcomes.
Andrew and myself are available for consultation in our clinic located in Bowral where we can help put together this puzzle for you.