HERSHEY, Pa. — Imagine suddenly feeling like the world is spinning violently around you. For Chad Correll, a 47-year-old biomedical equipment technician, this wasn't an isolated incident. It was the beginning of a seven-year nightmare.
“I sat up in bed, and everything was just spinning. I’d never had a sensation like that before,” Correll recalled.
He spent years visiting doctors, he said, who misdiagnosed him with everything from clogged eustachian tubes to anxiety. He suffered from debilitating dizzy spells and could hear his own heartbeat pounding inside his head, making concentration impossible.
It wasn't until he saw Varun Patel, an otologist/neurotologist at Penn State Health Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, Correll said, that he finally found an answer: He had Superior Semicircular Canal Dehiscence, a tiny hole in the bone that covers one of the balance canals in the inner ear.
While Correll’s condition was rare, sensations of vertigo and imbalance are incredibly common. Nearly 40% of U.S. adults will experience vertigo at least once in their lifetime.
Is it dizziness or vertigo?
While often used interchangeably, there is a medical difference between dizziness and vertigo.
“Vertigo is a room-spinning sensation, and it’s often ear-related,” Patel explained.
General dizziness, however, is often caused by blood pressure issues, medication side effects or cardiac and neurological issues rather than the inner ear. Patients with general dizziness may feel:
- Lightheaded or faint
- Off-balance or unsteady
- Like they need to hold onto a wall to walk
But when the room feels like it’s rotating while you’re standing still, the culprit is probably the vestibular system; i.e., the inner ear structure controlling balance, Patel said.