Dizziness is a general and non-specific term to describe a variety of related symptoms such as feeling dizzy, light-headed, nauseated, weak, or unsteady. If your dizziness causes a spinning sensation or it feels like your surroundings are spinning, this symptom is more accurately called vertigo. Dizziness is a common cause of a person visiting the doctor and of course is an annoying and uncomfortable thing to feel. However, dizziness is rarely a sign of a serious, life-threatening condition. There are many ways to treat dizziness at home, but be aware of the "red flags" that require medical attention.
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Part 1 of 2: Coping With Dizziness at Home
Step 1. Reduce your stress or anxiety
High levels of stress can alter respiratory rate and hormone levels, resulting in dizziness or lightheadedness and nausea. Certain anxiety disorders such as panic attacks or various phobias can also cause dizziness. So try to reduce stress and anxiety from your life as much as possible by communicating your feelings and solving problems in your relationship. Reducing the burden on your mind will probably reduce the dizziness you experience.
- Sometimes, a new job, reducing hours, changing work schedules, or working from home can reduce stress and anxiety problems.
- Exercises that you can try to relieve stress naturally at home include yoga, tai chi, and deep breathing exercises. Watching online tutorials before trying to practice might be helpful.
Step 2. Increase water intake
Acute or chronic (long-term) dehydration is also a common cause of dizziness, especially a lightheaded sensation. If your body isn't getting enough fluids, due to vomiting, diarrhea, fever, or not drinking enough water in hot weather, your blood will thicken and your brain won't get the oxygen it needs. As a result, you will feel dizzy. Furthermore, dehydration can also cause hyperthermia, another common cause of dizziness. So make an effort to drink plenty of water, especially in hot and humid weather, and watch how it affects your dizziness.
- Try to drink 8 glasses of 240 ml of water every day (about 2 liters in total) if you are active or are outside in hot weather.
- Avoid alcoholic and caffeinated drinks such as coffee, black tea, soda pop, and energy drinks. Alcohol and caffeine are diuretics and will make you urinate more often than normal.
Step 3. Eat something easy to digest
One of the common causes of dizziness, headaches, lightheadedness and general weakness is low sugar levels. Low blood sugar levels (hypoglycemia) are a common problem in people with diabetes who take too much insulin or who skip breakfast and don't have time to eat during the day. The body needs sufficient glucose in the blood to function properly. So, consider changing the dose of insulin injected (with your doctor's approval) if you have diabetes, or eat something that your stomach/intestines digest quickly, and see if your dizziness subsides. In hypoglycemia, dizziness is often accompanied by sweating and confusion.
- Sweet fresh fruit (especially ripe bananas and blueberries), cider (especially apple cider or sweet grapes), white bread, ice cream, and honey are all great to eat to quickly raise your blood sugar levels.
- Conversely, persistently high blood sugar levels (hyperglycemia) can also cause dizziness due to dehydration and high acidity. Chronic hyperglycemia is usually experienced by people with diabetes who are undiagnosed or untreated.
- Reduce sodium intake because too much can aggravate vertigo and dizziness.
Step 4. Stand up slowly
Brief dizziness, especially in the elderly, may be due in large part to orthostatic hypotension. This condition occurs in people with relatively low blood pressure (especially in systolic pressure) who stand up suddenly from a lying or sitting position. When you wake up quickly, the pressure in the arteries that supply blood to the brain does not adjust quickly enough, as a result of which the oxygen received by the brain is reduced for about a few seconds and symptoms are brief dizziness or a sensation of staggering. If this is the cause of your dizziness, stand up slowly and make sure to hold on to something to keep your balance.
- If you get up from a lying position, sit down for a few moments before standing up.
- Chronic hypotension may be caused by overuse of blood pressure medications, muscle relaxants, or vasodilators such as Viagra and erectile dysfunction drugs.
- Peripheral nerve disorders, dehydration, and other medications can also cause hypotension.
Step 5. Get more sleep
Lack of sleep, both in terms of quantity and quality is a cause of dizziness, impaired memory, and dizziness in general. Long-term poor sleep patterns have also been linked to high levels of stress, hypertension, depression, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, all of which cause dizziness in varying degrees of severity. Sleep disturbances are associated with chronic anxiety, emotional/psychological trauma, and many other problems such as narcolepsy and sleep apnea (severe snoring). So, turn off the TV or computer and go to bed early, and avoid caffeinated drinks (coffee, black tea, soda pop) at least 8 hours before bedtime.
- Sleeping late on the weekends is okay and may make you feel more refreshed and/or less dizzy, but you won't be able to make up for the lack of sleep on weekdays.
- Natural ingredients that can help you fall asleep and take some time before bed include chamomile tea, valerian root extract, magnesium (a muscle relaxant) and melatonin (a hormone that regulates sleep and circadian rhythms).
Step 6. Reduce device usage time
Symptoms of cybersickness include nausea, dizziness, headaches, and drowsiness. Give your eyes time to rest and avoid spending long periods of time in front of a computer or cell phone screen. Get outside if possible, read a book, or look out the window for a few seconds to prevent dizziness.
In order to sleep better, try not to use the device 2 hours before
Step 7. Make time for outdoor activities
Staying indoors for long periods of time can make you feel dizzy. Try walking for a while to breathe fresh air so that you feel more refreshed. Just a few minutes of being outdoors can make you feel a little better.
Step 8. Avoid head trauma
Head trauma from accidents and sports is a common cause of mild to moderate brain injuries, which are commonly referred to as contusions or concussions. The main symptoms of concussion include dizziness accompanied by headache, nausea, memory disturbances, and ringing in the ears. Head injuries tend to accumulate, meaning they get worse each time and get worse over time, so try to reduce the risk or chance of hitting your head.
- Sports such as boxing, football, rugby and hockey are particularly at risk for head trauma.
- Always wear a seat belt while driving (to avoid serious head injury) and avoid activities that pull your head off your neck such as jumping on a trampoline, bungee jumping, or riding a roller coaster.
Part 2 of 2: Seeking Medical Help
Step 1. Have your doctor examine you
There are several different things that can cause dizziness, such as ear disease, anxiety, depression, heart disease, and nerve problems. Tell your doctor all your symptoms so they can perform an examination and give you an accurate diagnosis.
Step 2. Ask your doctor about side effects and drug interactions
In fact, almost all drugs (both over-the-counter and prescription) list dizziness as a possible side effect. However, these side effects are more common with certain types of drugs. In particular, the drugs most likely to cause dizziness are blood pressure medications, diuretics, sedatives, tranquilizers, antidepressants, strong pain relievers, and some antibiotics. Even so, make sure whether the drug or combination of several drugs you are taking might be causing dizziness to your family doctor.
- Never stop taking a medication suddenly without a doctor's supervision, even if you believe it causes dizziness. You are better off slowly taking the drug and/or switching to a drug with a similar effect.
- Due to the complex chemical interactions in the body, it is impossible to predict with certainty the interaction between 2 drugs.
Step 3. Consult your doctor for flu symptoms
The viral infections that cause the flu are generally caused by respiratory tract pathogens, so most of the symptoms relate to the lungs, throat, sinuses, and inner ear. However, the buildup of mucus and other fluids can clog the airways and/or inner ear and cause dizziness and balance problems. If this is the cause of your dizziness, just wait a few days, get enough fluids and unblock the sinus passages by gently blowing your nose while covering it with a tissue, or rinsing it with warm salt water.
- Closing your nose and then blowing it is a way to open the blockage of the Eustachian tube which runs from the throat to the middle ear. These canals can equalize the pressure on each side of the eardrum, and dizziness or balance problems are often caused by blockages in these canals.
- Other conditions often associated with dizziness are allergies, migraine headaches, and anemia (low red blood cell counts).
Step 4. Have your blood pressure checked
As described above, both low blood pressure (hypotension) and high blood pressure (hypertension) can cause dizziness, so have your family doctor measure your blood pressure. In general, blood pressure should be 120 (systolic)/80 (diastolic). Of the two conditions, hypertension is more dangerous and sometimes a symptom of heart disease. In fact, most serious heart problems such as cardiomyopathy (disease of the heart muscle), congestive heart failure, and arrhythmias (irregular heart rhythms) can cause hypertension and drastically increase the risk of chronic dizziness recurring.
- If you've had a heart attack or minor stroke, the blood circulating in your brain will decrease and cause dizziness and other symptoms. The doctor may perform an electrocardiogram (ECG) to confirm the presence or absence of a heart attack.
- Unfortunately, blood pressure-lowering drugs are widely known to cause dizziness.
Step 5. Take a blood sugar test
As previously explained, both hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia can cause dizziness. If you have diabetes and have hypoglycemia, your doctor may adjust and reduce your insulin dose. On the other hand, hyperglycemia may indicate that you have diabetes. Your doctor may order you to have a blood sugar test, which will measure your level of glucose (the main source of energy for the brain and most other cells in the body). Normal fasting glucose levels are between 70-100 mg/dl.
- You can buy a glucose meter at the pharmacy. To use it, you have to prick your finger until it bleeds out as a sample. As a general rule, without fasting, normal blood glucose levels should be below 125 mg/dl.
- Short-term hyperglycemia can also be caused by eating a lot of sugary foods (called a sugar rush) which can cause dizziness.
Step 6. Have your cortisol levels checked
Adrenal fatigue occurs when the body doesn't produce enough cortisol and can trigger dizziness or nausea. Your doctor will ask you to have a blood test to determine the level of cortisol in your body, which could be the cause of your problem.
Step 7. Ask for a referral to an ENT specialist
If your dizziness is severe enough to bother you and makes you feel like you are spinning, you may be experiencing vertigo. Vertigo may be caused by clear positional vertigo (a spinning sensation that accompanies head movement), labyrinthitis (a viral infection of the inner ear), or Meniere's disease (fluid buildup in the inner ear). Basically, vertigo is caused by a change in the balance mechanism in the ear (vestibular system) or in the network connecting that mechanism to the brain. In short, the vestibular system thinks you're moving, when you're not, and creates a spinning sensation. However, vertigo often resolves on its own once the body adapts to the problem causing it.
- Benign positional vertigo is often caused by shifting of crystals in the ear that irritates the semicircular canals.
- Sometimes, vertigo is severe enough to cause nausea, vomiting, headaches, and loss of balance for hours.
Step 8. Visit an osteopath or chiropractor
Osteopaths and chiropractors are spine specialists who focus on normalizing the function and movement of the connecting joints of the spine or lumbar facet joints. A fairly common cause of dizziness and vertigo is a stuck/bent/non-functioning joint in the upper neck, at the point where it meets the skull. Manual joint manipulation or also known as adjustment can be used to restore the wrong joint position. You may often hear a rattling sound as your spine is adjusted in position.
- Although a one-time spinal adjustment is sometimes sufficient to relieve dizziness or vertigo, if this problem is caused by an upper neck disorder, you may need 3-5 treatments to see noticeable results.
- Arthritis of the upper neck, especially rheumatic arthritis, can cause chronic dizziness.
Tips
- Seniors are more at risk for medical problems that trigger dizziness and are more likely to use drugs that cause dizziness.
- Avoid driving or operating heavy machinery if you are dizzy or light-headed.
- Avoid consuming caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco when you are dizzy because they can make your symptoms worse.
- If you feel nauseous from dizziness, keep a bucket or similar container nearby in case you have to throw up.
- Practice yoga, especially the head-down posture. Blood flowing to the head will relieve dizziness due to poor circulation and low blood pressure.
- If you feel dizzy, try to keep your eyes away from the monitor screen because staring at a screen that is lit will help.
Warning
- If your dizziness is severe enough (resulting in severe visual disturbances, vomiting, or fainting), seek medical attention immediately.
- Talk to your doctor if you have frequent headaches because it may be due to a problem with the cardiovascular system.
