Not all vertigo and dizziness requires medication or invasive procedures. At ChiroMed Crawfordsville, Dr. Jeff McIntyre successfully treats cervicogenic vertigo, a type of dizziness originating from neck dysfunction, through gentle cervical adjustments and targeted treatment that addresses the underlying mechanical problems causing your symptoms without drugs or surgery.
Understanding Vertigo and Dizziness
Vertigo and dizziness are often used interchangeably, but they’re not quite the same. Dizziness is a general term for feeling lightheaded, unsteady, or off-balance. Vertigo is a specific type of dizziness where you feel like the room is spinning around you or you’re spinning even though you’re standing still.
Vertigo is a symptom, not a diagnosis. Many different conditions can cause it, ranging from inner ear problems to neurological conditions to neck dysfunction. Understanding what type of vertigo you have is crucial for getting effective treatment.
Balance relies on input from three systems: your inner ear (vestibular system), your vision, and proprioception (your body’s sense of where it is in space). When these systems send conflicting information to your brain, you feel dizzy or experience vertigo.
At ChiroMed Crawfordsville, we focus on cervicogenic vertigo, which stems from neck problems interfering with proprioceptive signals. This type of vertigo responds well to chiropractic treatment.
Types of Vertigo
Different types of vertigo have different causes and treatments. Recognizing which type you have helps determine if chiropractic care is appropriate.
Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV)
BPPV is the most common type of vertigo. It occurs when tiny calcium crystals in your inner ear become dislodged and move into the wrong part of your ear canal. Specific head movements trigger intense but brief spinning sensations.
BPPV is typically treated with repositioning maneuvers like the Epley maneuver, which guides the crystals back where they belong. While chiropractors can perform these maneuvers, they’re often done by physical therapists or ENT doctors as well.
Cervicogenic Vertigo
Cervicogenic vertigo originates from neck dysfunction. Neck joints, muscles, and other structures send proprioceptive information to your brain about head and body position. When these structures aren’t functioning properly due to injury, misalignment, or muscle dysfunction, they send inaccurate signals.
Your brain receives conflicting information: your inner ear says you’re upright and stable, but your neck signals suggest something different. This conflict creates dizziness or vertigo.
Cervicogenic vertigo often accompanies neck pain, stiffness, or headaches. It typically develops after neck trauma like whiplash or from chronic neck problems.
Meniere’s Disease
Meniere’s disease involves excess fluid in the inner ear, causing recurring episodes of severe vertigo, hearing loss, ringing in the ears, and pressure in the affected ear. These episodes can last hours.
Meniere’s requires medical management. While chiropractic care won’t cure it, addressing any concurrent neck dysfunction may help reduce symptom frequency or severity in some patients.
Vestibular Neuritis
Vestibular neuritis is inflammation of the nerve connecting your inner ear to your brain, usually from a viral infection. It causes severe, continuous vertigo that gradually improves over days to weeks.
This requires medical evaluation and typically improves with time and vestibular rehabilitation exercises. Chiropractic care addresses concurrent neck problems but doesn’t directly treat the inflamed nerve.
How Neck Problems Cause Vertigo
Understanding the connection between your neck and balance helps explain how chiropractic treatment works for certain types of vertigo.
Proprioceptive Dysfunction
Your cervical spine is richly innervated with proprioceptive receptors that constantly inform your brain about head position and movement. When cervical joints are restricted, misaligned, or surrounded by dysfunctional muscles, these receptors send distorted signals.
Your brain tries to make sense of conflicting information from your neck proprioceptors versus your inner ear and vision. This sensory mismatch creates dizziness or vertigo.
Reduced Blood Flow
Vertebral arteries run through openings in your cervical vertebrae, supplying blood to your brainstem and inner ear structures. Severe cervical misalignment or muscle spasm can theoretically reduce blood flow through these arteries, though this is rare.
More commonly, improved cervical function from chiropractic care optimizes circulation to the head and neck region generally.
Muscle Tension
Chronic tension in neck muscles, particularly the suboccipital muscles at the base of your skull, can irritate nerves and interfere with normal proprioceptive signaling. This muscle dysfunction often develops after whiplash or from chronic postural stress.
Recognizing Cervicogenic Vertigo
Certain characteristics suggest your vertigo may be cervicogenic and thus responsive to chiropractic treatment.
Vertigo associated with neck pain, stiffness, or headaches points toward cervicogenic origin. If your dizziness worsens with certain neck positions or movements, this also suggests neck involvement.
History of neck trauma, especially whiplash from auto accidents, increases the likelihood that subsequent vertigo is cervicogenic. Development of dizziness shortly after neck injury is a strong indicator.
If your vertigo improves when your neck feels better or worsens when neck problems flare up, the connection is clear. Cervicogenic vertigo often fluctuates with the status of your neck condition.
How Chiropractic Care Treats Cervicogenic Vertigo
Treatment at ChiroMed focuses on restoring proper cervical function, which allows your proprioceptive system to send accurate signals again.
Gentle Cervical Adjustments
Chiropractic adjustments restore proper motion to restricted cervical joints. When joints move correctly, the proprioceptive receptors surrounding them send accurate information to your brain.
For vertigo patients, Dr. Jeff uses gentle, controlled adjustment techniques. The goal is improving function without triggering vertigo during treatment. Adjustments are performed slowly and carefully, allowing you to communicate if you feel dizzy.
Soft Tissue Therapy
Massage therapy releases chronic tension in neck muscles, particularly the suboccipital muscles. Relaxing these muscles reduces their interference with normal proprioceptive signaling.
Manual therapy also improves circulation to the neck region and reduces inflammation that may be contributing to dysfunction.
Balance and Proprioceptive Exercises
Specific exercises retrain your proprioceptive system and improve balance. These might include head movements performed in controlled ways, balance training on unstable surfaces, and coordination exercises.
Gaze stabilization exercises, where you maintain focus on a target while moving your head, help your brain recalibrate the relationship between head movement and visual input.
Postural Correction
Poor posture, especially forward head posture, contributes to cervicogenic vertigo. Addressing postural dysfunction through adjustments and corrective exercises reduces ongoing stress on cervical structures.
What to Expect from Treatment
Your first visit includes detailed questions about your vertigo: when it started, what triggers it, what makes it better or worse, and associated symptoms. Dr. Jeff performs a thorough cervical spine examination and checks your balance and coordination.
If appropriate, he may perform positional testing to help differentiate between different types of vertigo. Treatment starts conservatively with gentle adjustments and soft tissue work.
Response varies by individual. Some patients notice improvement within a few visits, while others require several weeks of consistent treatment. Cervicogenic vertigo that developed recently typically responds faster than longstanding problems.
Dr. Jeff monitors your progress carefully. If you’re not improving as expected after a reasonable trial of treatment, he’ll refer you for medical evaluation to rule out other causes that might need different intervention.
When Chiropractic Isn’t Appropriate
Certain types of vertigo require medical evaluation and treatment rather than chiropractic care. Dr. Jeff will identify these situations during your evaluation.
Sudden onset of severe vertigo with hearing loss, double vision, severe headache, difficulty speaking, or weakness needs immediate medical attention. These could indicate stroke or other neurological emergencies.
Vertigo accompanied by significant hearing changes likely involves your inner ear directly and needs evaluation by an ear, nose, and throat specialist. Recurrent episodes of vertigo lasting hours with hearing symptoms suggest Meniere’s disease requiring medical management.
If you’re experiencing vertigo without any neck pain, headaches, or neck stiffness, and particularly if it started without neck trauma, your vertigo may not be cervicogenic. Medical evaluation helps identify the actual cause.
Complementary Approaches
Chiropractic care for cervicogenic vertigo often works best alongside other strategies.
Vestibular Rehabilitation
Physical therapists specializing in vestibular rehabilitation provide specific exercises that help your balance system compensate and adapt. This can complement chiropractic treatment of neck dysfunction.
Lifestyle Modifications
Stay well hydrated, as dehydration can worsen dizziness. Limit caffeine and alcohol, which affect balance. Reduce salt intake if you have Meniere’s disease, as salt worsens fluid retention in the inner ear.
Move slowly when changing positions, especially when getting up from lying down or standing from sitting. Give your balance system time to adjust.
Stress Management
Stress and anxiety can worsen vertigo symptoms and trigger episodes. The stress management strategies discussed in our stress and pain blog also help with vertigo management.
Age-Related Considerations
Vertigo becomes more common with age due to changes in the inner ear, reduced blood flow, and accumulated neck problems. Older adults experiencing vertigo benefit from comprehensive evaluation to identify all contributing factors.
Treatment for older patients uses particularly gentle techniques appropriate for age-related changes in the cervical spine. Balance training becomes especially important to prevent falls, which are a major concern when dealing with vertigo.
Post-Accident Vertigo
Vertigo developing after car accidents, falls, or other trauma often has a cervicogenic component even if imaging shows no significant damage. Whiplash commonly causes both neck pain and vertigo that persist long after the initial injury.
Don’t ignore new vertigo after accidents. Early intervention prevents acute problems from becoming chronic conditions. Even if initial medical evaluation cleared you for serious injury, ongoing vertigo warrants chiropractic evaluation.
Living With Vertigo
While working on treating underlying causes, practical strategies help you function better with vertigo. Keep your home well-lit and remove tripping hazards. Use handrails on stairs. Avoid heights and situations where sudden dizziness could be dangerous.
Inform your employer if vertigo affects work safety. Operating machinery or driving during vertigo episodes isn’t safe. Most vertigo improves with proper treatment, but safety precautions protect you during recovery.
The Importance of Accurate Diagnosis
Successful vertigo treatment requires identifying the underlying cause. Not all dizziness is the same, and different types need different approaches.
If you’ve been struggling with vertigo without a clear diagnosis or without successful treatment, comprehensive evaluation at ChiroMed might identify neck dysfunction as a contributing factor that hasn’t been adequately addressed.
Get Your Balance Back
If you’re dealing with vertigo or dizziness, especially if accompanied by neck pain or following neck injury, chiropractic evaluation can determine whether cervicogenic vertigo is contributing to your symptoms. Dr. Jeff provides thorough evaluation and honest assessment of whether chiropractic care is appropriate for your situation.
Don’t accept vertigo as something you just have to live with. If neck dysfunction is contributing, treatment can provide significant relief without medications or invasive procedures.
Call 765-362-1500 or schedule online at ChiroMed Crawfordsville for your vertigo evaluation. Let’s identify what’s causing your dizziness and create a treatment plan that gets you back on stable ground in Crawfordsville and Montgomery County.
