"The Room is Spinning"

Last time, I told you we would talk a bit more about “dizziness”. The joy of being a therapist is that sometimes you get to help the people who help you most. My mom and I were talking and she mentioned that she was having “some dizziness”. She explained that she had times, like when she got up out of bed, that it felt like the “room was spinning” and that her “eyes were jumping”. From her description, I felt pretty sure what the problem was and new she could quickly get it resolved by seeing the right person. She lives about 2 hours from me, so I got her to a Specialist Physical Therapist in a town near her very quickly.

Remember those “3 balance systems” I wrote about last week. Well, I suspected (and was right J) that her “inner ear” system was affected. The medical term for the balance part of the inner ear is the Vestibular system. Last week I mentioned that the inner ear is a fluid system. Well…that’s not the whole story. It is a fluid system, but there are also tiny crystals in a specific location in that system. It can happen that those crystals “get loose” and are floating in the fluid system- where they aren’t supposed to be. When the fluid with the crystals move- like when you get up out of bed- your brain gets a “mixed signal” and you get the sensation of movement that isn’t occurring. Like my Mom feeling like the room was spinning. I sent her to a Specialist Physical Therapist in a town near her. That therapist did an evaluation and some very specific testing to determine if she was having this problem. And…she was. The medical term for this problem is Benign Positional Vertigo or BPV for short. The great thing is that with a few simple Physical Therapy treatments she is feeling great and has tools in her self- treatment bag if it should happen in the future!

At Dedicated Therapy we also have Specialist Physical Therapists who can help determine if you have BVP causing your dizziness and can treat it appropriately. If you are having problems with dizziness reach out to us and schedule a Taster Session. In that FREE session we can talk with you more about your problems and be sure that we are the right place to solve them. Just click on the following link. https://www.dedicatedtherapysc.com/taster-session

Best,

Shannon