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Should Vertigo Patients Avoid Air Travel?

I meet many interesting people while traveling. For both business and personal reasons I travel a lot. As I was always eager to speak to new people, i will someway start a conversation that had lead to many interesting information's.

A common topic of discussion that comes up is vertigo. I have heard from many people who say that travel (both air and car) either causes their vertigo or that it makes it worse.

What does vertigo mean? It means spinning or whirling that is due to the disturbance in the balance of equilibrium. Vertigo is not considered as a disease, it's a mere symptom. There are no certain conditions that cause vertigo and the cause is not always known.

Vertigo's symptoms can include dizziness but not everyone with dizziness (lightheadedness) has vertigo. Vertigo is most often caused from a disorder in the peripheral vestibular system (inner ear structures). It can also be a result of a disorder in the central vestibular system (brainstem, cerebellum, vestibular nerve).

I have also noted that people who have a problem with height do not fear flying. Many people link vertigo to fear of height due to the Alfred Hitchcock movie. This is linked because both the symptoms are similar dizziness and nausea.

The impact of this kind of vertigo will for some minutes. The major cause of this vertigo is due to sudden head movements. BPPV is the most common form of vertigo among all the vertigos.

Symptoms can include: nystagmus (shaking of the eye), nausea, vomiting and sweating. The attacks can stop or improve after a few weeks or months. However in some cases, they can persist for longer. Your doctor can correctly diagnose you and recommend special head and neck exercises to help prevent the onset of vertigo.

Many people who suffer vertigo do not suffer from travel, but they suffer from the way they keep the position of their head. And this what triggers the symptoms.

Alcohol can induce temporary vertigo and should therefore be avoided if flying and especially if driving.

Although not as common, psychogenic vertigo is vertigo caused by a psychological disorder such as anxiety or panic disorder. If suffering from this disorder, traveling could initiate or make symptoms worse.

What most travelers suffer from is motion sickness. The motion of travel can affect the parts of the inner ear that help control balance. This happens most when traveling by boat but can by auto and plane travel.

Just like vertigo the symptoms are pretty quick. The symptoms include nausea, dizziness, headache, cold sweats, hyperventilation (which could lead to faintness) and usually vomiting.

You can help prevent motion sickness by: keeping your gaze steady and head as still as possible, not smoking, not drinking, not reading, and getting fresh air.

There are many medicines that are available to treat motion sickness. But these medicines might cause drowsiness in children and infants may agitate.

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