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Hey CORE family… it’s Allyson and I wanted to do a blog with just information on vertigo… I have gotten a lot of patients with vertigo and there’s several causes. It’s more of a extreme dizzy spell, not like when your blood pressure sort of drops when you stand up and you have to gather your wits for a second, it’s more of like you can’t stand up, you’re holding onto the wall to not fall over, that kind of dizziness.

You could have reasons like Meniere’s disease or maybe some shock or trauma to the head. You could have tumors and and big things, migraine headaches can set off vertigo attacks but what I normally see is called BPPV or benign paroxysmal positional vertigo… Benign meaning it’s a big deal because it’s happening to you but there’s not something super serious going on that needs surgery or anything and then it’s positional and it’s vertigo…

So what is happening with this, you have your inner ear, it’s these little circular canals in these different positions on both sides in your ears. They’re filled with fluid and they have small hair cells lining the inside of them. When you spin around several times that fluid starts moving and will bend those hair cells a little bit so the hair cells are saying ‘hey we’re going this way.’ It’s telling your brain we’re moving this way, so when you stop spinning, especially if you’ve done it for a little while, that fluid will still be moving around. So you’re stopped but you still feel like you’re moving… kind of like a teeny tiny version of a lazy river and think about that where the water is still going around bending that hair cell.

You have three systems of balance, one is that inner ear, those semicircular canals with the fluid and the hair cells. The second is your vision. You can see where the floor is and where the ceiling is and which ways up. The third is proprioception. You have nerves in your tendons and parts of your body telling your brain if you’re on your toes or if you’re on your heels, if you’re bent forward or sideways. Its tells where your joints are in space which is giving you feedback to say I’m balanced, or I need to adjust. I think my weights too far this way, I need to come this way. So when those three balancing systems aren’t working together… for example the fluid is still spinning but your vision is getting messed up because you know it should be straight, but your eyes start jumping, your tendons are telling you you’re still but that semicircular canal is not… so when they’re not meshing that’s when you have problems with balance and some problems with vertigo.

The kind of vertigo I normally see, the BPPV kind, is a crystal that they think is like a calcium deposit that gets lodged in one of those hair cells on the side of it. It kind of bends that hair cell permanently and that hair cell is giving feedback that I’m spinning… I’m spinning… I’m spinning and it’s not shutting off because it’s stuck there. So that’s the typical vertigo that I would see come in here and I hope that’s helped give you a little bit of an education of why this stuff is going on.

Do you or a friend need to get your dizziness assessed by a professional? It may be time to come in for our Free Discover Session to tell us your story. We can evaluate your condition, set goals to get you back to the things that this condition has got in the way of… Click HERE to APPLY…

Here is some more info on vertigo:

Definition: Vertigo is a sensation of feeling off balance. If you have these dizzy spells, you might feel like you are spinning or that the world around you is spinning.

BPPV. These initials stand for benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. BPPV occurs when tiny calcium particles (canaliths) clump up in canals of the inner ear. The inner ear sends signals to the brain about head and body movements relative to gravity. It helps you keep your balance.

BPPV can occur for no known reason and may be associated with age.

Meniere’s disease

This is an inner ear disorder thought to be caused by a buildup of fluid and changing pressure in the ear. It can cause episodes of vertigo along with ringing in the ears (tinnitus) and hearing loss

Vestibular neuritis or labyrinthitis. This is an inner ear problem usually related to infection (usually viral). The infection causes inflammation in the inner ear around nerves that are important for helping the body sense balance

Less common causes include:

Head or neck trauma – you would know if this happened.

Stroke or tumor

Certain medications that cause ear damage

Migraine headaches

The most common I see is BPPV. This comes on suddenly usually with a quick change in direction of the head.  Sometimes I have seen it after a severe illness like the flu or stomach bug where there has been a sharp increase in pressure around the inner ear.

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Hey guys… my name is Stephen Dunn, I’m a physical therapist at CORE Therapy and Pilates and I’m an owner of the business with my wife Cheryl. Today I want to tell the story about what it was like to be a patient instead of being the physical therapist…

About a month ago at about midnight, I was rolling out my back and doing some work to loosen up my upper back because I’m always stiff and tight leaning forward over people with my job as a hands-on physical therapist. I was rolling on the foam roller back and forth and I dislodged the crystal in my ear that’s in charge of your balance and your vestibular system. What it did is it gave me an incredible bout of vertigo… it was like ‘boom’ and hit me like a ton of bricks… I was on my back rolling and when I went over to my hands and knees the room started spinning so much that I fell while I was on my hands and knees. I couldn’t even be on my hands and knees and after about five minutes I was able to make my way to the bed and go to sleep because laying down didn’t bother me…

Well, the next morning I woke up and had rested pretty well. I just popped up, sat up, stood up and boy it was back on, the whole room was spinning… I fell back into my bed and then it hit me that I was really having a vertigo issue. I’ve had patients complain about vertigo for 19 years of being a PT but it never happened to me and I never really quite understood what it was like until it hit me.

That Friday I had a full schedule, I was booked from 8:00 to 5:00 but I started vomiting after I did a little self technique that you can do at home to try to get the crystals back in place. I did that technique and it ended up making the vertigo a little better but I started vomiting and at that point I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to work that day. I called Allyson, the physical therapist that works with me on Monday and Wednesdays, and I asked her to come in and cover my day. It was fantastic that she was able to actually see my clients that day, but more importantly I was able to get a session with her about five o’clock that afternoon on Friday… So within 24 hours of my bout of vertigo I was actually able to get my first treatment. I saw Allyson for the cranial sacral work that she does and after an hour of the work with her I was able to get up off the table 75% improved. I was still dizzy, I was still spinning, but about 75% better…

That was Friday I went home and went to sleep immediately and slept from like 6:30 p.m. till the next day at like 11a or noon. It was just a massive amount of sleep Saturday and Sunday I felt pretty good.

Sunday afternoon I started having some more of the vestibular issues and vertigo again and I got another appointment with Allyson on Sunday night. So I had an appointment on Friday, I had an appointment on Sunday and I had another appointment on Wednesday and my last appointment on Friday… So over the course of a week I was able to see Allyson for four sessions, she was able to do craniosacral work for me and basically get me to a point so by that Friday I was completely good and I haven’t had any complaints since.

The moral of the story is 30% of PT patients who were in PT for back pain, neck pain or whatever they’re in there for, they also have vertigo. I’ve known this fact and I’ve seen this fact through my practice but when it happened to me I was very grateful to have someone to see me within 24 hours. The craniosacral work that Allyson did took me to a 75% improvement after the first time, it took me to 90% improvement after the second time and then after those next two sessions I was pretty much 100%.

Since then I’ve had zero vertigo issues I moved my neck freely. I’m not fearful of moving but in that week I was just afraid to move. If I turned or moved my neck a certain way it would come on and then the room was spinning so it was a very powerful thing when vertigo is kicking your butt…

This is my case study again as a patient and I want to give a shout out to what Allyson did to help me because it would have really interfered with my work week if I didn’t get that relief. Once the weekend would have came it would have been a hard time to find that relief so again getting treatment within 24 hours I think was super effective…

If you’re having any vertigo issues don’t delay because it can creep up on you when you least are aware of it…

Driving was the scariest part… I had to sit at a red light like this because the cars driving by set off my vertigo so I had to cover my eyes so I could just see the red light above. That’s when I knew that I shouldn’t be driving, it’s pretty crazy and pretty dangerous…

That’s my case study… if you’re having vertigo issues give us a call 512.215.4227 and set up a discovery session with Allyson… It’s a free session to basically evaluate your vertigo, evaluate your vestibular issue and see if you are a candidate for what she does to help with it.

That’s it for today I hope all as well…

Take care. bye

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Hey its Allyson… I am here today to talk to you about what cranial sacral therapy is. I practice it a lot and I get this question a lot…

“What is cranial sacral work and how does it help?”

Cranial Sacral work is a holistic approach to treating the body consistent with our philosophy at CORE Therapy & Pilates. We look at the whole body not just your hip or foot because that’s what hurts. It is very light touch, primarily impacting the neurological system. It’s hands on manual work the whole time and I am using my hands to listen to what the body’s trying to tell me.

Your body is producing a fluid that bathes your brain, nerves and spinal cord then “leaks” out where the nerves exit the spinal column between the vertebra. As you are depleted of this fluid your body makes more. Its kind of like when you breathe, your body uses the oxygen and you exhale to get rid of waste then take in another breath.

Using extremely light touch, I look for asymmetries, decreased amplitude or quality of this cycle as well as areas of restriction. I can find the cranial rhythm throughout your body of the system making fluid and it leaking out,making fluid, then leaking out… this is the nutrition for the nervous system. This work has a powerful effect on the nervous system!

After a sessions, you end up feeling relaxed with less anxiety and stress, refreshed or “different”. You just feel so good! This enables you to do more.

Again, it’s really light touch which is nice for people that are averse to the harsher, harder types of manual therapy. At the end of it all you end up feeling light and less stressed and less weighed down.

An example is one woman who had knee pain and lower back pain at different times that lasted for a week to a month or more. She noticed at times of high stress the pain seemed to get worse. We began weekly cranial sacral sessions. She used to have a day every 2 -3 months of some knee or back pain but with the many techniques she has learned the pain does not last more than a day or 2. She was also able to travel without pain which she had avoided for several years. Now she has regained the ability to begin doing core stabilization exercises in Pilates classes, walk up and down stairs and rise from a chair with biomechanics that will prevent her knees and back from hurting. To summarize this case study, there was real physical things going on with her body but we’ve done a little cranial sacral work which calmed that nervous system down so then we were able to learn how to do exercise on top of that and things that would help fix the physical problems in her lower back and knees.

The other things that I have had a lot of people get better from is vertigo and migraines… HOW Many Of You Complain Of These Things?

I have used it on many children and adults with great success! It is a complement to other physical therapy techniques to speed up recovery. When I have had CST, I leave feeling like some structures are in better places, less tightness, incredibly relaxed and empowered to accomplish more. I have had clients tell me it caused them to quit snoring, improved general feelings of wellness for the week, helps them sleep, in addition to enabling them to perform exercises better. It is a very gentle technique and the benefits unravel for 24 – 48 hours after your session.

It has had dramatic effects on people of different ages and different issues that they’re dealing with. Cranial Sacral therapy can benefit anyone but I have seen the most dramatic effects with issues that are exacerbated by stress or anxiety.

So those are some of the examples of what it can do and how it works… if you have more questions feel free to call 512-215-4227 or click here to apply for a Discovery Session to discuss your Migraines, Vertigo, Anxiety or Stress.

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