Instead of waking up as normal each morning as you did before your accident, you’re now waking up, dizzy and wobbling to the kitchen and bathroom. It’s an uncomfortable feeling. You’re groggy, and you feel horrible as you brush your teeth.
The symptoms you are experiencing happen to many individuals after experiencing a concussion after a car accident.
You’re probably asking yourself, is there any way to make it go away?
Dizzyness can occur as a feeling of lightheadedness. It can be combined in conjunction with fainting or seizures.
Cervicogenic dizziness can occur after a car accident. This is commonly known as vertigo. Vertigo usually happens as a result of damage to the neck region. It makes you feel like the room is spinning.
In your spinal column, there are several nerves that tell your brain where your body is. These are known as proprioceptors and they allow you to navigate a room in the dark, or with your eyes shut. In addition, these nerves are integral to control your balance. When the proprioceptors are damaged, the information they send to the brain can also be disrupted or damaged, which in turn causes vertigo.
Another type of vertigo, called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), can also cause you to experience dizziness after a car accident.
Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo typically occurs after a violent movement to the head. Inside the inner ear there are tiny calcium crystals known as otoliths. Otoliths move against nerve endings in your inner ear, and are responsible for telling your brain the position of the head.
During a car accident, when the head is violently moved, or jerked in cases such as whiplash, these crystals can be moved from their usual and normal location, to other parts of the ear. Therefore they send confusing signals to the postural control system in the brain which result in dizziness.
The team at Body Option Clinic in Vancouver treat whiplash and other injuries. Book an appointment with us today.
