Have you ever felt a little dizzy, or do you have a relative who complains of dizziness? Almost everyone experiences a few seconds of spatial disorientation at some point in their lives. But best doctor for dizziness can help to get through it. It can be a symptom of various diseases when it is persistent, and medical care and monitoring are necessary for a correct diagnosis. Before explaining what can cause dizziness, it is important to understand the concept of dizziness. More common in women over 50, dizziness is a feeling of instability and loss of balance. It is often confused with vertigo and labyrinthitis, so it is necessary to know how to differentiate each symptom and condition to carry out an appropriate treatment.
Unlike dizziness, vertigo is the perception that things or the surrounding environment are spinning or moving. It is a type of dizziness. Labyrinthitis is an inflammation of the labyrinth, which is the structure inside the ear that helps us with hearing and balance. Therefore, not all dizziness is labyrinthitis. It is just one of the conditions that can affect the labyrinth and has the symptom of dizziness.
Knowing this, many wonders: what else causes dizziness? The American Vestibular Disorders Association explains that dizziness is usually a primary sign of a vestibular disorder, but can also be a sign of cardiovascular, neurological, metabolic, and psychological problems. Here are 5 diseases that can cause dizziness. Keep reading to also know who is the best doctor for dizziness.
What causes dizziness?
- Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV)
This is known to be a peripheral vestibular disorder which happens when small crystals inside the labyrinth become loose and move around. It happens due to vertigo, one of the common reasons, and it can occur from specific head movements and due to degeneration of the cells with aging.
- Meniere's Disease
A progressive condition that involves excessive buildup or increased fluid pressure in the inner ear.
Metabolic diseases, such as diabetes and migraine may aggravate the disease, which can also cause tinnitus and hearing loss.
- Vestibular neuritis
Like labyrinthitis, vestibular neuritis is a disorder as a result of an inflammatory mechanism. In the case of neuritis, it is inflammation of nerves that connect the inner ear to the brain. It can be due to infections, autoinflammatory diseases, tumors, and demyelinating diseases.
- Vestibular migraine
This type of headache causes throbbing pain in the head. It can also produce changes in the vestibular system during the crisis period in some cases leading to dizziness. Tinnitus may also occur. According to the Brazilian Headache Society, vestibular migraine affects 1% of the population, mainly women.
- Fall in blood pressure
This is one of the best-known causes of dizziness. When there is a drop in blood pressure there may be slight dizziness or even fainting. This can happen after getting up too quickly, not eating well, or as a consequence of other health problems.
Each condition is unique and needs different treatment. Constant dizziness can affect the quality of life, cause accidents, and signal serious health conditions. That's why it is very important to see a doctor. An otoneurologic is a specialist who treats balance disorders.
Identifying dizziness
The best doctor for dizziness, if you are experiencing it, would be either a neurologist or an ear, nose, and throat (ENT) specialist.
According to the doctor, one of the main difficulties in diagnosing what causes dizziness is for the patient to know how to identify it and explain it to the doctor. "Dizziness is a symptom that is often difficult for the person to describe in a precise way, so much so that it is quite common for the patient to tell a story about one type of dizziness and when he goes to another doctor, he tells another story, about another type of dizziness.
That is, people have difficulty, describing dizziness and that is why it is common to confuse dizziness and vertigo, and even because of this, they generalize any dizziness as 'labyrinthitis'. But vertigo would be any abnormal sensation of movement, which is usually characterized by the sensation of the environment or the patient spinning; while dizziness would be more of instability.
Labyrinthitis, on the other hand, as mentioned, is a rare condition of inflammation of the labyrinth and in a specific post-flu or cold condition.
And, nowadays, the most current studies and research in neurology are showing that it is less and less important, from the medical point of view, the characterization of the type of dizziness, but rather its duration, its triggers, and the related symptoms, such as nausea, headache, impaired vision, among others," explains the specialist.
According to the doctor, dizziness is always a symptom that requires investigation, although many people take it as something simple: "In all cases, in a normal health condition, dizziness should not exist and, among its main triggering factors, besides BPPV, are the neurological problems, neurological, cardiovascular, endocrine and even psychiatric diseases.
In addition, it is necessary to pay attention to the excessive consumption of certain substances that can stimulate dizziness symptoms, such as foods with high amounts of sugar, excess caffeine, and alcoholic beverages. But, once again, this food issue, many times people confuse it with things like: 'ah, you had coffee, so you will have dizziness', and this is not it.
These substances, such as sugar, caffeine, and alcohol, can indeed be an irritating factor to the labyrinth when consumed in high quantities, but it does not mean that a simple coffee or a simple sweet will generate dizziness. In my experience, most cases of dizziness have been caused by diseases and not by excessive consumption of substances.
But, of course, if the patient is already in a situation where there is damage to the health of the labyrinth and there is frequent dizziness, the consumption of such foods should be avoided.
According to the doctor, it is worth remembering that aging is a factor that increases the incidence of labyrinthine diseases. In addition, as the years go by, the body naturally loses the functions of the cells, leading to a very common condition in the elderly, called bilateral vestibular hypofunction, that is, when both labyrinths gradually lose their function and the patient suffers from it.
