Balance Disorders

Your Cayman Islands Balance Specialists

Feeling a bit lightheaded or unsteady on your feet?

All of us experience the same sensation from time to time, but the sensations are usually temporary.

Things get more serious when you begin to experience ongoing vertigo or dizziness and begin to struggle with maintaining your balance.

Issues with your balance can be more than just an inconvenience; for some, it can pose a significant health risk, leading to accidents and falls. In the elderly population, balance issues contribute to more than half of the accidental deaths and numerous fractures, including hip fractures.

If you arrived at this page looking for solutions to your dizziness and/or balance issues, you’ve come to the right place. Cayman Hearing Center is the Cayman Islands’ only dizziness and balance specialists.

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Two Classes of Balance Disorder Symptoms

Motion Intolerance

Dizziness and vertigo sometimes occur after rapid head movements or turning too quickly. These symptoms can be of brief duration or continue for several hours at a time. 

Imbalance or Unsteadiness

Imbalance involves difficulty walking, unsteadiness associated with any form of upright movement, or transitioning from one position to another.

Your Ears Are Critical to Balance

Why are doctors of audiology concerned about dizziness and balance?

A balance disorder results from a disturbance or malfunction of any, two, or all three of these systems.

Our focus is primarily on the vestibular system located in the inner ear. It detects your movement and changes to the positioning of your head in a similar manner as a carpenter’s level.

Maintaining your balance requires coordination between three of your body’s systems, including:

  1. Cues from your visual system
  2. Orientation information from your vestibular system (inner ear)
  3. Proprioceptive system, which involves sensory input from your muscles and joints.

How? 

Your inner ear has three semicircular canals that contain fluid, each of which detects up, down, or side-to-side movement. As the fluid moves, it interacts with hair-like cells, which send signals to the brain regarding the positioning or orientation of your body. 

An interruption of the proper function of your vestibular system leads to dizziness, vertigo, nausea, and sensations of unsteadiness on your feet.  

Damage to the vestibular system can affect people of any age due to disease, syndromes, toxins, or trauma. 

Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV)

BPPV occurs when otoconia from the utricle break off and migrates into one of the semicircular canals causing false signals to the brain as they begin to interrupt the normal movement of fluid inside the semicircular canal, leading to vertigo. 

Vertigo is a sensation of external spinning provoked by a change in your head or body position, like rolling over in bed, lying down, getting up, bending over, or looking upward.  

BPPV is usually treated using a specialized type of physical therapy designed to remove the otoconia from the semicircular canal and return them to the utricle where they belong. Treatments takes only minutes each and 95% of patients see relief with no more than 3-4 treatments. 

Motion Sickness Or Mal de Débarquement Syndrome (MdDS) 

MdDS is an over-sensitivity to motion. It is a neurological disorder that leaves you feeling as if you are rocking, swaying, or continuing to move after you’ve gotten out of a car, or off of a boat, plane, or even a treadmill.  

Confused by the ongoing sensation of motion, your brain reacts to the false stimuli, leading to dizziness, vertigo, and imbalance. 

Vestibular rehabilitation therapy (VRT), is used to treat MdDS or motion sickness. VRT involves manual head maneuvers and/or a progressive program of exercises designed to decrease the symptoms of vertigo, dizziness, and visual issues in order to protect against falls. 

Vestibular Migraines 

Most people associate migraines with headaches, but not all migraines cause a headache, but about 66% of people with a history of migraines are also prone to dizziness, vertigo, nausea, eye pain, changes to vision, and balance disorders. 

Vestibular migraines stem from various causes like BPPV, Méniére’s disease (an increased pressure in the inner ear), and Transient ischemic attack (TIA) – also called a “mini-stroke.”

  
VRT is also a common treatment to help individuals cope with vertigo and balance issues that come with each episode and various medications can also help deal with symptoms. Changes to your diet, lifestyle, and some activities can limit the number or intensity of migraine episodes. 

How to Prepare for Testing

To get the best result from your balance assessment, there are certain guidelines we ask our patients to follow before their appointment, such as:

  • Refrain from drinking alcohol during the immediate 24 hours before your balance assessment.
  • Do not wear mascara, eyeliner, or facial lotion when you come to the clinic.
  • Arrive 15-minutes before your appointment time, so you can settle in and be at ease before testing begins.

VNG Testing

In contrast to Electronystagmography (ENG), which uses electrodes to measure eye movements, videonystagmography (VNG) records your eye movements as they relate to vestibular function and balance using small video cameras.

During a VNG test, you will sit in a dark exam room wearing a special pair of goggles with a camera that records your eye movements.

You’ll be guided through three different tests:

  • Ocular testing, in which you watch different dots or flashes of light while keeping your head still.
  • Positional testing, in which you will move your head or body to different positions.
  • Caloric testing, in which you be subjected to small bursts of warm or cool air or water into each ear, which are design to cause nystagmus.

    • Each response to these actions will be recorded by the camera. The goggles record how your eyes move in response to these different actions.

    Testing usually lasts around 60 minutes.

You may feel slightly dizzy during and immediately after the test, and you may also have some discomfort from wearing the goggles for an extended period. The dizziness will probably go away quickly, but if it lingers, you may need someone to drive you home.

Learn More About Our Tailored Earplug Fittings

Regardless of whether you are using them for hearing aids, hearing protection, swimming, or to get a good night’s sleep, you get better noise management and a more secure fit with personalized earmolds and earplugs.

Find out more about how you can enjoy increased comfort and performance from Cayman Hearing Center’s custom-fit earmolds and earbuds by using the adjacent form.

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