Have you ever stood up too quickly and felt the world tilt, or turned your head only to find the room spinning? Many people dismiss dizziness as something trivial.
Yet for Mercy Karanja, the Principal Audiologist at Nairobi ENT Clinic, it is a common complaint. Every week, she sees up to 10 patients whose daily lives are disrupted by dizzy spells.
She explains that dizziness is not one condition but an umbrella of symptoms: it may feel like light-headedness, heavy-headedness, loss of balance, or even as though you are being pushed.
The first step in diagnosis is identifying why it is happening. Light-headedness, for instance, can result from hunger, dehydration, medication or alcohol. "It could be from vertigo. A spinning sensation either inside their head or in the room," she explains.
Do children experience dizziness?
"Yes, because children also have the balance system," she says.
Ms Karanja also says conditions like an ear infection that reaches the inner ear will affect their balance: "The most common disease for children is otitis media effusion, where there is fluid build-up in the middle ear, but when it travels to the inner ear, then their balance system gets affected."
Adults are more susceptible to dizziness. A sedentary lifestyle is one factor, but even those who are active, especially people who go to the gym, can experience dizziness because of disruption to their balance system.
"Our inner ear has semi-circular canals that push some crystals, which help us with balance. Sometimes the crystals can dislodge from where they are supposed to be, especially due to sudden head movement."
While the crystals should not be stationary, they need to return to their location.
There are conditions that exacerbate the symptoms.
One is age. People above 40 may feel a bit light-headed when they stand.
Secondly, comorbidities like low or high blood pressure, diabetes and even some medications play a role. "In our bodies, we have our balance organ, which controls our spatial orientation. One of them is our inner ear, which acts like a GPS of our body," she explains.
The inner ear works with your brain, eyes and muscles to give you stability. Anything that happens to the inner ear and destabilises those balance sensors makes you more likely to experience dizziness.
When to see a doctor
You should seek medical intervention when dizziness disrupts your quality of life. Secondly, if dizziness becomes frequent, more than twice unprovoked, and is affecting your confidence or daily activities so that you are afraid of walking alone, then you need to be examined.
Ms Karanja also shares that you should seek help if the dizziness is episodic, and for those seconds to hours you cannot move. If the dizziness comes with sudden hearing loss or a reduction in hearing, then it requires urgent intervention.
While dizziness itself is not dangerous, Ms Karanja says the risks associated with it, such as falling, loss of confidence, isolation, and anxiety, are dangerous.
Should you grab an energy drink when you are feeling dizzy?
"It depends. If the dizziness is caused by dehydration, that is okay," she says. She also warns against prolonged exposure to loud music, which can worsen inner-ear problems. Dizziness may be common, but it should not be ignored. Listening to your body and seeking timely help can keep your inner “GPS” steady.
Since dizziness can be caused by many things, one of the common ways of treatment is rehabilitating the vestibular system.
"It will involve exercises that train the brain to recognise dizziness and adapt or substitute. It involves aligning the crystals back or prescribing medications to reduce the symptoms," she says. That is why treatment is highly individualised.
Since balance sensors are in the inner ear, the first diagnostic test is to check the functionality of the ear.nother test, she says, is a vestibular assessment to examine how the inner ear balance sensors are coordinating with the eyes and brain.
