You might think vertigo is a problem that people have when they’re afraid of heights...or
are Jimmy Stewart.
Nope!
Vertigo is all in your head...specifically, your ears.
Hey guys, Lissette here for Dnews.
Vertigo is one of the four main categories of dizziness - it’s a subjective experience
that makes you feel like you’ve lost a sense of your surroundings.
But there are some very real causes behind it - in some cases, vertigo can even lead
to nausea, vomiting and your eyes to twitch from side to side.
There are two types of vertigo: peripheral vertigo and central vertigo.
Central vertigo is a neurological problem-- usually in the brain stem or cerebellum--
which can be caused things like multiple sclerosis, stroke, and tumors.
But the most common by far, and what we’ll be focusing on here, is peripheral vertigo.
Because, as a 2002 study in The British Journal of General Practice reports, at least 93%
of patients with vertigo, are those with peripheral vertigo...which has a lot to do with problems
in your ears.
Your ears are super important for keeping your balance and navigating the world.
They help you orient yourself in it.
In your inner ear, there are these tiny hairs called stereocilia, that line a pouchlike
structure called the saccule.
And interspersed between these hairs, is a sticky goop called glycoprotein that holds
tiny crystals in place.
These guys are made up of calcium carbonate, and move whenever we move, which causes them
to bang up against the hairs in our ear.
When the hairs sense the crystals moving, they send signals through nerves in our ears
to our brain that give it information about our vertical and horizontal movement - essentially,
these crystals tell our brains where the heck we’re going and help us keep our balance.
On top of these nerves, crystals, and hairs, we also have fluid in our ears.
Like the crystals, the fluid moves when we move and that’s picked up by our hairs which
send information to our brain.
Our brain uses the information coming from both ears to figure out whether we’re stationary
or moving, and how we are oriented!
Vertigo occurs when something in this system goes wrong.
The spinning sensation or dizziness is your brain trying to figure out what the heck is
going on.
It’s getting cues that don’t make sense.
And a number of different conditions can cause this.
In the cases of vestibular neuritis and labyrinthitis, parts of your ear become inflamed, usually
because of a viral or bacterial infection.
When one of your two ears is inflamed - particularly the ear’s nerves - it causes your brain
to get imbalanced information so you can end up with vertigo.
Meniere’s disease, although it’s not well understood, it’s thought to be caused by
too much liquid in your ear, which causes the same dizzying symptoms.
And researchers think migraines can cause vertigo because they cause changes in our
vascular and nervous systems, which affect parts of our ears.
Finally, one of the most common causes of vertigo- benign paroxysmal positional vertigo
- has to do with the crystals.
Sometimes these crystals fall out of place - possibly due to a head injury or because
the goop that holds them in place in the inner ear becomes too weak.
When they fall off, these crystals can end up in places where they don’t belong, like
the middle ear, and cause our brain to receive signals that don’t make sense to it.
They throw everything off!
Luckily, this one can often be fixed by simply following a set of head movements that move
the crystals out of where they don’t belong.
Invented by Dr. John Epley in the 1980’s, this non-invasive procedure can be effective
in up to 90% of these vertigo cases..
Other causes of vertigo can be treated with medication, although in more extreme cases
surgery may be necessary.
As nasty as that sounds, some people do undergo these procedures, because vertigo can be horrible.
It can last anywhere from hours to months at a time - and can be debilitating.
On top of that, just moments of Vertigo can cause a lot of harm.
If we lose our balance and fall, this can lead to broken bones or other injuries - which
is particularly concerning when it comes to the elderly.
Vertigo is more than just the spinnies.
For another video on how our brain processing messes up our subjective experience, check
out this video on Deja Vu.
Have you ever experienced Vertigo?
What did it feel like and what, if anything, helped it go away?
Let us know in the comments below.
And remember to like and Subscribe to Dnews for more episodes everyday.
Thanks for watching guys.