My doctor seems to think that there is a link between my vertigo and a previous head injury. When I was 7 (I’m 37 now) I had a fairly severe concussion with vertigo. He says that research has demonstrated that the trauma during a head injury sets off a similar chain of events to that which occurs during a seizure. He thinks that my migraines are triggering the same mechanism from my previous head injury which triggers the vertigo. Just food for thought. Wondering if anyone else has had the same experience.
emkaye, I’m very interested in the head injury - vertigo connection. I feel flat on my face quite hard about one month before my severe vertigo started(this was about 2 years ago)though I didn’t lose consciousness. I’ve always wondered if there is a connection. One doctor said no, another said maybe. I’ve always had motion sick problems and motion intolerance problems so that part of my problem is nothing new. But the vertigo was a new development and the constant feelings of motion sickness seem to have increased a bit. I now have a neurotologist which I didn’t have before. I’ve only seen him once and forgot to ask what he thinks of the connection. I have it on my list to ask him when I go back in January.
Have you had vertigo issues ever since your concussion or is the vertigo relatively new (other than the initial vertigo you had with the injury)?
Hi Emkaye,
My MAV was absolutely precipitated by a pretty severe head injury. I initially had a few episodes of brief dizzy feelings for the first few months and then about 5 months after the injury, I woke up completely dizzy with 24/7 MAV symptoms. Head injury is definitely a cause of MAV.
Hope that helps,
Lisa
I was in a car crash in 1998 where I hit my head and had a concussion. I have no memory of the accident still to this day. After the accident, I had no headaches or vertigo. I developed migraine headaches right after my 1st child was born in 2002 and MAV right after my 2nd child was born in 2006. The interesting thing is that my migraines are always on the side of my head where I hit it in the crash. I have often wondered if the crash had anything to do with my migraines. I have a family history of migraines on my mom’s side of the family but neither my mom or my sisters get them. I’m the 1st one to get the MAV though!
When asked this question by the various neurologists over the past 2 years I’ve answered in the negative. However, the more I think about it I’m not sure. Thru the late 60’s and 70’s I played 11 years of organized football and at times had instances where, what we called then, my “bell was rung”. I would snap to afterwards, but during that era we were encouraged to play thru those kind of situations. Also, the helmets back then were not partcularly protective and often were ill-fitting. I’m starting wonder if all those mini-head traumas made me more vulnerable to MAV after the fact. Good luck to all.
Ed
Thanks to all for your responses!
I’ve felt that the two have been related for years.
I believe that after my concussion, I developed what they call post-concussion syndrome. I just felt some slight dizziness and generally “out of sorts” for months following my concussion. It was at this time that I also developed panic disorder (another syndrome linked to concussions).
About a year or so after my concussion, I had my first bout of BPPV (I was about 8 years old). I’ve had several episodes over the years. BPPV is very rare in childhood so it either has to be linked to the concussion, my migraines or both. I’ve had migraines since I was a child (strong familial history mother and grandmother). Other than my first bout of BPPV at age 8, I was relatively vertigo free until I was about a senior in high school. It was at this time that I developed motion intolerance and occasional rocking, swaying episodes (which I now believe was actually due to migraines). I do get classic migraines with vertigo and vertigo episodes without a migraine. The only other symptom I’ve noticed during my vertigo episodes is light and sound sensitivity.
I now also experience motion sickness which I never had as a child – usually it’s the other way around!
Thanks again for all your feedback! Much appreciated!
I have always wondered about the head trauma theory. I was in a head on collision in 1989 and then whiplshed in 2004. My vertigo attack was in 2006 and I have been constantly dizzy since 2008. There has do be something that triggers all these cases of MAV. I wonder if anybody has a checklist of possible causes around? ex. head trauma, allergies, overseas travel etc.?
Yes. 3 concussions. 2 were bad. The last one occurred during the onset of symptoms in 2005.
Yes, my first bout of BPPV began after a bad slip on the ice a few years ago causing me to fall and whiplash my head. I was kinda dizzy for a couple days afterward which then became full blown spins. Later the BPPV subsided and I was left with chronic MAV. However, I do think my MAV was at least somewhat present before this, or just starting to affect me, because I can remember feeling out of it in grocery stores and in front of a computer for a number of years before it became debilitating.
Yes, I had an auto accident w/head injury, whiplash. I have herniated discs in my neck and a dislocated TMJ, also. I am dizzy 24/7 and have been this way since about a year after my accident. I get migraine w/aura and painless migraines.
Though not quite the same I had a horseback riding accident when I was 14 and I stuck a stuck through my ear. I was leaking brain fluid the trauma was so bad to my ear. This ABSOLUTELY lead to my meniere’s disease. I never had a migraine until I was in my twenties either… about the time my Meniere’s symptoms started actually. I’ve also taken headfirst spills off of horses and landed horribly on my head and neck when I was in high school in a gymnastics accident about a year after the stick through the ear incident.
My MAV with constant rocking 24/7 started in 1993 when i was 21, two and a half weeks after I received a concussion from boxing (only time I’ve ever boxed, just at a party with some gloves, no head protection). Note that the head and dizzyness from the concussion only lasted two days and then went away. I then went through over two weeks of very high stress, and it was at the end of that time that my dizziness or rocking began. When I finally got diagnosed with MAV by Dr. Baloh (UCLA) in 2010, he said that MAV is genetic but it can be triggered by head injury. I’ve always wondered if I would have come down with MAV if it hadn’t been for that concussion.
Brian
I have been reading about everyone’s head injuries and would like to alert people to another under-diagnosed longterm effect of head injury in case anyone has been affected by that as well as by vertigo. (Sorry, you may not want to know!)
About a third of people who suffer head injury - even mild - sustain damage to the pituitary gland, which is fragile and hangs by a stalk from the base of the brain. This may mean that the gland doesn’t make the hormones it should, and you can be deficient in growth hormone, sex hormones, adrenocorticotrophic hormone (governing reaction to stress), thyroid stimulating hormone and prolactin (for breast milk production). Pituitary damage can cause depression, and cognitive defects have been associated with growth hormone deficiency.
If you suspect that you have problems with any of these (particularly if you suffer impotence, ED, infertility, weight gain or depression) I hope you’ll go to your doctor and ask if he’ll refer you to an endocrinologist who can do blood tests to check all these hormones. Effective hormone replacement treatment is available.
Source(s):
www.headinjuryhypo.org.uk which lists much more research and gives some personal stories. Good luck, and please post something if this information helps you get diagnosed.
At 14 months of age, I had a terrible fall from my high chair and had a concussion. I started telling my mom I was dizzy when I was 10 years old (good old horomones). I wonder if I didn’t take that spill if I would have been fine…
When I was 4 years old I fell down the basement steps and suffered a massive concussion. I was bedridden and vomiting for almost a week.
I suffered severe whiplash in an auto accident at 19.
Sarah