What is dizziness?

Dizziness is a sudden disruption in your sense of balance and often accompanied by unsteadiness, spinning or general disorientation related to surrounding. It is caused when delicate relationship between the inner ear, eyes and brain is damaged. One may be nauseated, light headed, woozy or likely to faint and it’s often caused by varying conditions or illnesses but in most cases it is often associated with problems of inner ear and hearing loss.

The major types of Dizziness,

• Vertigo - Whirling or spinning when you are not actually moving
• Disequilibrium - Feeling off-balance or unsteady
• Light headedness – Wooziness or disconnected from the surrounding
• Presyncope – losing consciousness or fainting

Common Cause of Dizziness

It includes,

• Migraine
• Medications
• Anxiety disorders
• Neurological conditions
• Low iron and blood sugar levels
• Most cases when there is an imbalance in inner ear fluids

How does an ear problem impact the dizziness?

There is always an anatomical connection between one’s balance and hearing in nature. Thus ear is always associated with balance and hearing, thus change in inner ear fluid (cochlea fluid) causes hearing loss, dizziness or other conditions such as tinnitus. Thus a disturbance in blood circulation or fluid pressure on inner ear can trigger dizziness and also on the case of pressure on the nerves that are carrying balance information to the brain.

What is Tinnitus, Vertigo and Meniere’s disease and their connection?

• Tinnitus : A persistent ringing, buzzing or whirring sound in ear can prove tinnitus, these sounds can often be soft, pulsing, loud or steady. But the symptoms vary with each person, and there is no permanent cure for this, instead it can be diagnosed and treated based on whether it is temporary or persistent, mild or severe, gradual or instant. Tinnitus affects about 15 to 20 percent of people and it is a common symptom of an underlying condition such as age related hearing loss, ear injury or a circulatory system disorder.
• Vertigo : It is a feeling of moving when you are actually still. The most common causes of vertigo are inner ear infections called Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) and it often causes mild to intense dizziness. It is used to be that “dizziness was the umbrella term and vertigo fits underneath it”. The common causes of vertigo includes normal aging, medications, head injuries, neurological disorders, change in blood pressure or most importantly ear related issues. It’s a rather a symptom than a condition itself and caused by BBPV, migraines and labryrinthitis and inflammation of vestibular nerve.
• Meniere’s disease : It is a disorder of the inner ear that can cause dizzy spells often referred to as prolonged vertigo symptom or even Hearing loss. And it mostly affects only one ear, and it is caused by sudden attacks and its impacts that include abnormal amount of fluid in inner ear, stress, over work, emotional distress, pressure changes, food habits. There are three stages in this disease that fluctuates between different hearing levels.

Thus depending on the condition that is causing the problem in the balance of inner ear fluid level will eventually trigger dizziness, tinnitus, conductive hearing loss or vertigo and in prolonged vertigo cases it is Meniere’s disease. These cases should be properly diagnosed and treated and with persistency in order to keep balance.

Other causes of Dizziness:

Without any connection to the function of the Inner ear, they are generally categorized into two types of dizziness.

• Central Dizziness: Inability of the brain to coordinate the inputs from three different parts of the vestibular system. The most common causes of central dizziness include tumors, migraines, infections and other degenerative diseases like multiple sclerosis. It’s a feeling when you lie down and look up where the whole room is spinning
• Visual Dizziness: It is caused when eye muscles are imbalanced or there are errors of refraction, inability to focus the eyes, difficulty reading or blurred vision.