VESTIBULAR BALANCE DISORDER

SYMPTOMS

• Experiencing vertigo
• Lightheadedness and faintness
• Loss of balance or under the state of unsteadiness
• Feeling like floating or dizziness
• Blurriness in vision
• Confusion

Causes

The causes of balance problems are related to a particular sign or symptom.

Experiencing vertigo

• Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) occurs when the calcium crystals inside your inner ears are displaced from their normal position and moved elsewhere.
• Meniere’s disease causes hearing loss fluctuation and buzzing, ringing, ora fullness sensation in your ears. However, this disease is rare and usually develops between ages 20 to 40.
• Migraine or vestibular migraine, which isthe sensitivity to motion and dizziness, can occur because of headaches caused by migraines.
• Acoustic neuroma is rare, and a benign, slow-growing tumor develops on a nerve that is responsible for your hearing and balance. A person commonly suffers from hearing loss and ringing in the ears, dizziness or loss of balance.
• Vestibular neuritis affects the nerves in your inner ear that is responsible for balance. It is an inflammatory disorder caused by a virus with severe and persistent symptoms that lasts for several days until it slowly improves without treatment.
• Ramsay Hunt syndrome, or herpes zoster oticus, is a condition where shingles-like infection affects the facial, auditory, and vestibular nerves near the ears. Vertigo, ear pain, facial weakness, and hearing loss might be felt when the condition occurs.
• Motion sickness in boats, cars, airplanes, or even on amusement park rides.
• Persistent postural-perception dizziness is a condition wherein a person experiences unsteadiness, magnified by watching objects move, such as reading, or in a shopping mall.

Lightheadedness and faintness

• Orthostatic hypotension (postural hypotension) or suddenly standing up causes a substantial drop in blood pressure resulting in presyncope.
• Cardiovascular disease wherein the heart experiences abnormal rhythms, narrowed or blocked blood vessels, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or a decrease in blood volume.

Loss of balance or unsteadiness

• Vestibular problems or abnormalities in the inner ear that leads to having the illusion of a floating effect or massive head, and unsteadiness in darkness.
• Peripheral neuropathy or legs
• Nerve problems due to side effects of medications
• Neurological conditions such as cervical spondylosis and Parkinson’s disease

Dizziness

• Inner ear problems which lead to a floating sensation or other false sense of motion
• Psychiatric disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and other conditions that cause dizziness
• Hyperventilation causes lightheadedness due to anxiety disorders
• Lightheadedness due to medications’ side effects