Recently, a client of mine from many years ago emailed me because a friend of hers had started complaining about dizzy spells and a feeling of vertigo that had cropped up.

The friend was consulting with her family doctor about it but was frustrated by the results (or lack thereof). She had been tested for seemingly everything under the sun- a CT scan, an MRI, countless blood tests, a million questions…but no real answers.

What could be causing the dizziness? Is it literally all in her head, as the doctors had started implying?

My client’s friend had been complaining about random dizzy spells for about 3 months. They started out only cropping up about once every couple weeks, and only for a couple of seconds.

She dismissed it as dehydration (it started in warm weather and she is outside a lot), but as the weather cooled and she spent more time indoors, the problem worsened.

Once she noticed she was having spells about once every other day, alarm bells went off and over to the doctor’s office she went. However, nailing down the problem proved to be irritating at best. A better description would be “expensive and frustrating.”
After working with her for a short while, we were able to get her spells eliminated, but it involved looking at 5 critical areas that doctors frequently either dismiss, or completely miss altogether.

Once the doctor rules out the scary stuff, like tumors, or obvious items, like thyroid function or anemia, a harder look at what you are doing and not doing is needed:

[adrotate group=”5″]1) Look at your diet- are you consuming a lot of soda, genetically modified foods, processed foods or high fructose corn syrup? Foods we tolerated without obvious consequences as kids tend to betray us a lot more as we age.

At 51, my new client needed to consider that the same old food habits needed some work. Nutrient deficiencies are proven to cause various conditions and symptoms, and dizziness is usually listed at the top.

2) Look at your medications and supplements– have you changed anything recently, including dosage? Have you been on a medication for a long period of time, such as that for high blood pressure?

Over time, chemicals in these medicines that the body can’t process or expel build up and cause a lot of damage. Dizziness is chief among them.

Even if you’ve taken the same maintenance medication for years doesn’t mean that you won’t find yourself reacting to it at some point. Go over your meds with your doctor and see what you can reduce or eliminate altogether.

3) Look at your health in relationship to your age– As we get older, different stimuli affect us in different ways than it did when we were 25. Thirty years ago we might have been able to recover from too many glasses of wine by the next afternoon, but in middle age it takes a lot longer for the toxic effects of a sugar binge, too much alcohol, or lack of sleep to dissipate.

If you have a collection of “nuisance” problems like pre-hypertension, mild insomnia, and a few extra pounds in the midsection, you are going to have problems with dizziness. By themselves, these trends that doctors aren’t worried about treating (because they don’t meet their criteria for actually being problems) can go completely unnoticed.

Together, they are a mound of small potatoes that actually fill a big truck. Keep preventable, chronic conditions under control and new symptoms like dizziness might stay away.

4) Look at your environment- When was the last time you had your appliances inspected? Do you have mold growing in your basement? Has your fireplace been thoroughly cleaned recently? Do you have a carbon monoxide detector?

Environmental conditions that change slowly over time are hard to get a handle on because they creep up subtly and slowly. Even something as simple as a new environmental allergy can have frustrating effects. Pay attention to when the dizzy spells happen and what’s going on in your space at the time.

5) Look at how you might be limiting oxygen from getting to your brain– All of the above items can actually point in one specific direction, and that’s lack of optimum oxygen reaching the brain. Having high blood pressure or a low heart rate are health issues that keep O2 from getting to the critical areas of the brain.

Carbon monoxide kills by stopping the flow of O2 to the brain. Lack of nutrients that keep blood vessels and other tissues healthy will inhibit oxygen saturation in the brain, and being dehydrated (which is an epidemic in the super-sized soda generation as sodas dehydrate more than hydrate) will easily tank any chances of getting oxygen into the areas of the brain that need it desperately.

High blood pressure is actually a very common underlying cause for vertigo and dizziness. Check out these easy exercises that drop blood pressure below 120/80 as soon as today…

Once you correct these 5 issues, and barring any clinical diagnoses like crystals in the inner ear or a mass growing (which your doctor can rule out), you will be on your way to being completely free of the trappings of dizziness and vertigo.

There is, however, one thing that I’ve found to benefit pretty much anyone who suffers from vertigo and dizziness. It’s a group of easy exercises that loosen up the muscles around the balance system in the ears and eyes as well as pumping more oxygen up to the brain.

These exercises are extremely easy to do – doesn’t matter in what kind of shape you may be. And they only take a few minutes per day.

Learn more about these simple vertigo and dizziness exercises here…

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