For those of you who suffer from dizziness, motion sickness, or benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, you know it’s not a pleasant experience. For some, it’s just being a passenger in a car, bus, train, or plane that makes their head spin and their stomach flip. For others, vertigo may come and go at random—causing you to be unable to move one day because the room is spinning and be fine the next. What do chiropractic adjustments have to do with any of this?
Adjustments Promote Proper Nerve Communication
Often the feeling of vertigo results from an imbalance of or improper deposits of tiny calcium crystals in the inner ear. The inner ear is the area of our body that helps us maintain our balance and sense of place. When this is thrown off, it can result in the feeling of falling or spinning, and can make the sufferer nauseous or sweaty. Another cause of vertigo could be miscommunication of your joints to your brain. When your joints are not moving as they should, especially in your neck area, these motions can misinform the body about its position. Whether it’s your joints or your inner ear that is the cause of the problem, your chiropractor can help you through different motions to restore your inner ear’s sense of balance.
Our body relies on different forms of communication to understand its position. These forms of communication include:
- Your eyes. This might be obvious, but your eyes help relay information to the brain about where you are relative to other objects.
- Your skin, muscles, and joints. Your skin, muscles, and joints are sensitive to pressure and this pressure can tell your brain where your body is or where it’s going. The sensory impulses in your neck are very important, as cues from this tell your brain which was your head is turned.
- Your vestibular system. This is where your inner ear comes in. These canals detect movement and have a fluid in them called endolymph. This system is very important and send messages to the brain about your position. The messages should be the same coming from both of your inner ear canals.
When one or more of these communication sensors is not functioning correctly, it can create the sensation of vertigo. Chiropractic adjustments can help alleviate your vertigo.
Real Solutions Rather than Just Treatment
Some doctors may suggest pharmaceutical medication to help deal with your vertigo, but often there isn’t a treatment that will really help you. Extreme sufferers of this feel very sick, nauseous, and off-balance, and it affects their day-to-day living and activities. Imagine feeling dizzy or nauseous all the time, or for long periods of time such as hours in a day, with no relief.
Chiropractic care offers a solution rather than just treatment for your vertigo. Your chiropractor can talk with you about the likely cause of your vertigo and your symptoms. From there, you and your chiropractor can discuss a course of action and what movements or adjustments will be done.
Dr. Gil Kentof of Dr. Gil Center for Back, Neck, and Chronic Pain Relief explains how chiropractic adjustments can help alleviate vertigo: “Balance, coordination, blood pressure, insomnia and heart rate, as well as vertigo, are often related to the alignment of the Atlas (the top vertebrae in the neck). The proper corrective adjustment for this area can often solve vertigo issues with no drugs or painful procedures.”
Since some sufferers of vertigo may feel slightly off-balance or dizzy after a chiropractic adjustment, it’s important to give your body time to adjust to the changes and be gentle with your body and movements.
Chiropractic adjustments have many great benefits, and improved posture and decreased pain are only a couple. Whether inner ear imbalance, postural issues, or a misalignment could be causing your vertigo sensations, a chiropractor can help alleviate your symptoms and get you feeling better today!
References:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/180711-chiropractic-treatments-vertigo/
http://www.chiropractic-help.com/vertigo-dizziness.html
http://chiropractorlakewood-thejoint.com/blog/if-you-are-having-dizziness-your-chiropractor-can-help/
