Dizziness Patients Undergoing Chiropractic Treatment

Posted in on Jul 15, 2019

Dizziness leaves a person to feel as if their surroundings are spinning, cause one to lose their balance and increase their risk of falling; it gives a person a feeling of lightheadedness, unsteadiness, and wooziness. Patients who describe their dizziness to feel as if they are moving, spinning, tilting, whirling, swaying, or floating have sensations known as vertigo.

There are more than 4 out of 10 people who experience an episode substantial enough to see a doctor. While many doctors recommend medications, dizziness patients undergoing chiropractic treatment have reported their dizziness to be reduced significantly after just a few adjustments while others report having their dizziness no longer returning.

Dizziness patients undergoing chiropractic treatment can see results as soon as one upper cervical adjustment; this is due to the link between dizziness and your upper cervical spine.

 

What is Dizziness Caused by?

For your body to feel balanced, the brain relies on input directed from your eyes, muscles, joints, and the inner ear. Although dizziness itself is usually not serious, it does increase the risk of falling (dangerous for those who are older) and could be caused by a problem within the brain, heart, or inner ear. 

Inner ear disorders are the most common causes of dizziness. Inner ear disorders include the following:

  • Meniere’s Syndrome - A disorder of the inner ear that causes vertigo (severe dizziness that can last anywhere from a few minutes to about 24 hours), loss of balance, headaches, loss of hearing, tinnitus (ringing in the ears), and aural fullness (feeling as if the ear is congested or plugged). Extreme vertigo from Meniere’s syndrome can cause nausea, vomiting, and sweating.
  • Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo - Also known as BPPV, Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo is a common cause of dizziness and causes brief mild to intense episodes of dizziness.
  • Vestibular Neuritis (Labyrinthitis) - A disorder that affects the vestibulocochlear nerve. The vestibulocochlear nerve is a nerve in the inner ear and the disorder can cause a person to experience sudden severe vertigo, balance difficulties, vomiting, dizziness, nausea, and difficulty in concentrating.
  • Acoustic Neuroma - A noncancerous growth on the eighth cranial nerve (the vestibulocochlear nerve). The vestibulocochlear nerve links the inner ear to the brain and consists of two different parts: one part transmits sounds and the other sends balance information from the inner ear to the brain. The pressure from the growth could cause hearing loss and imbalance.

Many dizziness patients undergoing chiropractic treatment that has seen great improvement after upper cervical adjustments have been diagnosed with the above disorders. Other causes of dizziness could be from medication or alcohol consumption. 

Medications are a very common cause of dizziness and can include carbamazepine and phenytoin (prescribed to treat seizure disorders), sedating drugs or antidepressants (drugs that help calm people or sleep), and even medications prescribed for inner ear infections (such as gentamicin and streptomycin).

Medications can suppress the vestibular system in a way that causes the user to experience dizziness or imbalance. Antibiotics known as aminoglycosides may lead to permanent vertigo as they are toxic to the inner ear.

Unlike medications, upper cervical adjustments for dizziness patients undergoing chiropractic treatment are gentle and free from side effects, providing dizziness patients with a great natural alternative.

The other cause of dizziness, alcohol consumption, causes imbalance by changing the volume and arrangement of the fluid in the inner ear. The fluid in the inner ear absorbs alcohol and stays there, even when alcohol is no longer present in the brain or blood.

 

A Natural Dizziness Treatment

Dizziness patients undergoing chiropractic treatment with upper cervical adjustments find many benefits while staying away from medication. Not only does the medication come with numerous side effects, but it does not help in treating the actual cause of your dizziness.

Medications are used to make patients feel comfortable by eliminating or reducing their symptoms temporarily. For dizziness patients undergoing chiropractic treatment, they can feel an improvement in not only their symptoms, but the occurrence (or elimination) of their dizziness, and the results can be permanent.

Adjustments for dizziness patients undergoing chiropractic treatment target the cause of their dizziness which in turn reduces the dizziness significantly and can eliminate dizziness completely.

Upper cervical chiropractic adjustments target the top two bones of your spine, located in your upper cervical area. The two bones in your upper cervical area are set right under the base of your skull and their purpose is to hold up the head, provide mobility in the neck, and to protect your brain stem.

The brain stem allows communication to flow from the brain to the body and is very important for your automatic bodily functions. When any of the top two bones are misaligned, they can apply pressure onto the brain stem and distort the communication; this causes many issues to arise within the body.

When the brain stem is compressed it not only distorts the communication between the brain and the body, but it can disrupt the flow of blood to your inner ear or your lower brain region (the brain stem itself) causing you to feel dizzy. When the blood flow is blocked to the lower brain and inner ear, it is called cervical vertigo.

For dizziness patients undergoing chiropractic treatment who was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease, they too have seen an improvement with upper cervical adjustments. In a study involving 139 patients, 136 of the patients saw their Meniere’s disease symptoms of vertigo either improve or go away entirely after just a few adjustments. (Michael T. Burcon BPH)

It was noticed that all patients involved have had some sort of cervical trauma that has caused their upper cervical area to fall out of alignment. In the study, automobile accidents were the most reported cause of their upper cervical trauma.

Dizziness patients undergoing chiropractic treatment who have Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo saw great improvements as well. Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo can be triggered by movements of the head, which means it is interfering with your upper cervical area.

When patients have adjustments to correct and release the pressure and irritation of this problematic area, their Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo symptoms have been reduced or eliminated.

As for Vestibular Neuritis (Labyrinthitis) and Acoustic Neuroma, they heavily involve the eighth cranial nerve. The eighth cranial nerve, the vestibulocochlear nerve, branches of your brain stem. When the brain stem is compressed, so is your eighth cranial nerve, causing a restriction of signals and confusion to the brain and giving you a false sensation of motion.

The link between the upper cervical area and vertigo has been known for quite some time which is why dizziness patients undergoing chiropractic treatment with upper cervical adjustments continue to see great results.

The brain stem and the top two bones have a heavy influence on how your body perceives balance, the flow of proper signals and communication, and adjustments to the top two bones help correct the natural balance of how your automatic functions work.

The improvements upper cervical can provide to your body’s automatic functions include returning proper inner ear fluid drainage, regulating calcium carbonate crystals (these cause dizziness when they are dislodged from the utricle in the chambers of your inner ear), and allows the body to heal and repair trauma caused by the misalignment thanks to the communication being regulated.

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