Vertigo
A 35 year old female presents with vertigo for the past 2 months. Before this, her last severe episode of vertigo was in 2022. She has been doing PT for the past 2 months but had to seize treatment and the sensation is still present.
Main Signs/Symptoms:
Swaying side to side
Daily, constant, 3-4/10 in severity, movement makes it worse but feels it at rest
Patient also presented with:
Congestion
Neck tension
High stress
Burnout
Disrupted sleep and waking up too early
Dates of treatment:
3rd appointment: Vertigo was a little better post treatment - it now switches from a tilting feeling to rocking. Today feels like a mix of both. Head feels sensitive inside when she moves it around.
Neck and shoulder tension improved post treatment - it’s on and off depending on stress from work.
Vestibular therapy PT exercises help for a couple days then symptoms come back.
5th appointment: Vertigo is no longer constant. She has the swaying feeling daily, but it’s less intense. The tilting feeling gets more intense when staring at a screen.
7th appointment: Vertigo is daily, but not constant, and is triggered by staring at a screen and stress. Feeling is still a swaying, less severe than before. Little to no swaying in the morning.
Stress is low for ~3 days post tx and then it slowly creeps back and becomes less manageable. It’s been hard to take breaks at work so her neck and shoulders stay in tension a lot of the time. She isn’t sure if the dizziness is correlated to her neck/shoulder tension.
9th appointment: No vertigo today or 2 days ago. Yesterday she had it when she got out of bed at a low level.
Head “feels sensitive”.
We started spacing out appointments from this point forward to test how progress holds.
Key takeaways:
Acupuncture tends to change the sensation of vertigo first, then the frequency and severity of it.