Symptoms
Tiredness or listlessness in relation to dizziness are common in motion sickness. The motion sickness is caused by unusual movements, such as on a swaying ship. Conflicting information from the sense of balance causes nausea, dizziness and tiredness.
Other symptoms can also be added, such as cold sweat, paleness or headaches. Tiredness during dizziness can just as well be caused by low blood pressure or anemia (poverty of red blood cells). In psychologically stressful conditions such as depression or anxiety disorders, dizziness and tiredness can also occur in addition to other symptoms.
Dizziness often causes a feeling of nausea or even vomiting. This is mostly due to the vomiting center located in the brain stem, which is connected to many other areas of the brain. If the brain now receives non-matching information about movement of the body and the immediate environment, nausea often occurs.
At the same time as dizziness, headaches or a feeling of pressure in the head can also occur. The headache can be unilateral, like a migraine, and can be associated with sensitivity to light. If the headache tends to occur at the back of the head, this can be a sign of a cervical spine syndrome.
It is not uncommon for dizziness to cause visual disturbances of any kind (e.g. double vision, blurred vision, restriction of the visual field). The information of the eye contributes to a large extent to the human sense of balance. Therefore, a visual disturbance can be the trigger of dizziness or a symptom that can have the same cause as dizziness.A precise anamnesis of the vertigo regarding the time of its first occurrence, its duration, the situations in which it occurs and other accompanying symptoms can already reveal the main cause or at least narrow down the circle of possible causes.
The question of existing previous illnesses and currently taken medication can also help in this case. Internal and neurological diseases are excluded as triggers for dizziness by various examinations. These often include a blood pressure measurement, a blood sugar level survey or an ECG as well as an orienting neurological examination with testing of reflexes, coordination or sensory perception abilities.
The so-called nystagmus test can also be instructive here. In this case, abnormal movement of the eyes is checked. If these examinations are not sufficient to determine the cause of dizziness, further options are available. For example, a computer tomography of the head, an ultrasound of the cervical/brain vessels, measurement of the nerve conduction velocity or long-term ECG/blood pressure measurement.
