Vertigo & BPPV

Symptoms

Vertigo is the sensation that you or the room is spinning, even when you’re still. Most cases come from a brief, intense spinning triggered by specific head movements: rolling over in bed, looking up to a high shelf, tilting your head back at the sink. Each episode usually lasts under a minute, but the residual dizziness and nausea can linger for hours.

Other symptoms that often come along:

• Nausea or vomiting
• Loss of balance, especially turning corners
• Visual blurring during movement
• Anxiety about the next episode

Causes

The most common cause is Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV). Tiny calcium crystals in your inner ear become dislodged and float into a balance canal where they don’t belong. Head movements then send false signals to your brain.

Other causes we screen for:

• Vestibular neuritis. Viral inflammation of the balance nerve.
• Vestibular migraine. Vertigo as part of a migraine pattern.
• Ménière’s disease. Episodic vertigo with hearing changes and tinnitus.
• Cervicogenic dizziness. Referred from neck dysfunction.

Identifying the right cause changes the treatment. A 60-minute vestibular assessment can usually pinpoint it.

How we treat it at Omnicure

For BPPV, the gold standard is the Epley manoeuvre: a sequence of head positions that guides the displaced crystals back to their proper canal. Performed correctly, it resolves BPPV in 80 to 90% of cases on the first visit.

For other vertigo causes, treatment combines:

• Gaze stabilization exercises
• Balance retraining
• Habituation exercises for motion sensitivity
• Posture and neck mobility work where cervical contribution is present

When to seek immediate care

Vertigo combined with any of the following warrants emergency assessment, not physiotherapy: sudden severe headache, slurred speech, weakness on one side, double vision, loss of consciousness. These can signal a neurological emergency.