Vertigo that spins out of control can disrupt people’s lives

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Updated: March 23, 2012 8:07AM

Sandy Marsmaker of Morris will never forget the day she woke up to an upside-down world.

It was in August, 18 months ago, when she woke up in the morning to a room that was spinning so wildly she felt she could not even get out of bed.

She finally ran to the bathroom, so dizzy she was “bouncing off the walls” to get there. When she made it back to her bed, she immediately threw up.

“It was unbelievable dizziness,” she said. “I couldn’t even get to a phone.”

Marsmaker had no idea what was happening to her, but the sudden onset of vertigo incapacitated her for several hours.

She had four attacks that year and was eventually diagnosed with Meniere’s disease, a recurring condition of the inner ear characterized by attacks of vertigo lasting hours, vomiting, nausea, a ringing in the ears and often a decrease in hearing. She has begun taking prescribed diuretics in hopes that they will decrease or put a stop to the attacks.

For months, though, Marsmaker’s life has been drastically altered for fear of another sudden attack. She hesitates to baby-sit her young nieces and nephews or drive out of town by herself.

“The worst part is the anxiety of not knowing where I will be when the next one hits,” she said. “That’s very stressful.”

Scary condition

Tracy Nolan Warwick of Joliet, a young mother of two, had a sudden attack of vertigo in January. She was at home doing some light housework when she became a little dizzy. That light-headedness quickly progressed to full-blown vertigo so bad that she could not even walk downstairs. Paramedics had to be called to take her down to an ambulance for tests at the hospital.

Warwick was eventually diagnosed with viral-onset vertigo, which she said lasted a week and a half. She hopes it’s the one and only time, as it was life-altering.

“I couldn’t hold the baby or take care of him because I was afraid I would drop him,” she said. “I did nothing but sleep. I was extremely exhausted and very unsteady.”

Many causes

Vertigo, or the sensation that the world is rotating, is not that uncommon of an occurrence and is caused by an issue with the inner ear or the brain itself. It is a kind of dizziness that affects an estimated 30 percent of those over 40 at one time or other.

One out of every eight of Dr. Sherwin Ritz’s patients at his Morris ENT office come in for vertigo.

“Sometimes it happens just one time, then it quits,” Ritz said. “People with vertigo should seek treatment when it starts affecting their life. When they don’t feel safe driving or especially if it’s causing falls. If it’s mild, I’d wait six weeks, then they can start with their primary care doctor.”

Ritz said he is seeing more and more cases of vertigo from certain “psych drugs” that can affect the balance centers of the brain. More common causes of vertigo, though, are viral infections of the inner ear and benign postural vertigo.

If a virus causes dizziness or vertigo, he said, a patient will get it once, then it will go away. If the vertigo is recurring, he explained, it’s most likely not a virus that’s causing it, despite what some physicians tell their patients.

“I’m very unhappy when I hear about repeated viral infections of the inner ear,” he said.

More likely, it is benign postural vertigo, which is when one or more of the tiny calcium crystals in the inner ear become dislodged, triggering faulty signals to the brain about balance. A key to diagnosis of this, Ritz said, is that patients will feel the vertigo when they move their head. Movement does not induce vertigo when it is caused by a virus.

Meniere’s disease is another cause of vertigo and is characterized by recurrent dizzy spells, a ringing in the ears, and hearing loss during the attacks. The cause, Ritz said, is a build-up of fluid in the inner ear as a result of allergies, dietary concerns or unknown variables.

“Meniere’s is very episodic, and it usually burns out somewhere in a person’s mid-50s,” he said.

Injuries can also cause vertigo, as can a vestibular migraine. Prescription medications for the dizziness and nausea may be given for an attack, Ritz said, or diuretics for prevention. Surgeries are available for those whose lives have been severely disrupted.