Vertigo. It can happen at a moment’s notice. All of a sudden, you may feel off-kilter. You may feel like you are whirling, spinning, falling. But you are not moving.

Nathalie Grondin, a physical therapist with Lee Memorial Health System says, “There are so many different reasons for vertigo. We couldn’t go through all the list. Typically, vertigo is more related to an inner ear problem,” explains Grondin. The inner ear is what helps us keep our balance. “This is something we all take for granted. I can look at you and you can see my eyes are on you, that’s my inner ear doing this. If I have a problem, let’s say with my right inner ear, as I move my head to the right, my eyes will not stay focused. I’ll have to refocus. That’s one of the signs that there’s a problem with the inner ear,” adds Grondin.

More and more doctors are now treating vertigo with not just medication, but simple head exercises to help fix the problem. “I’ll take the card and I’ll look at the word and all I do is turn my head from side to side. I have to make sure that my eyes, my focus is on the letter and I can read it. Its not blurry. So I can do this, and the faster I can do it, the better. At this point, if I go too fast and I get fuzzy vision, I have to turn it down a notch a little bit and move my head at the speed I can still read.”

An episode of vertigo shouldn’t be ignored. In some cases, it could be a neurological disorder that could involve more intensive treatment.