Dizziness and Nausea: How the Two are Connected
Dizziness and nausea can often be seen in tandem, which surprises people and is rather unpleasant and destabilizing to experience. The two are often seen together due to the balance centre and the reflex responsible for nausea and vomiting are both located closely together in the brain. When one area is triggered, it can often disrupt the other.
Dizziness is a broad term and isn’t a diagnosis but a symptom, suggesting that something is affecting the system that keeps you balanced. People may describe dizziness as:
- Light-headedness: feeling faint, foggy or like you might pass out
- Unsteadiness: feeling wobbly on your feet or unsure of your balance
- Vertigo: a spinning sensation, where you feel like you or the room around you is moving when it isn’t
Your balance relies on three systems working together: your inner ear (which senses head movement), your eyes (which tell you where you are in space), and your proprioceptors, the tiny sensors in your muscles and joints, especially in your neck, that tell your brain where your body is positioned. When the messages from these systems don’t match, dizziness can follow.
Nausea, like dizziness, is a symptom, not a diagnosis. It is the sensation of feeling queasy in the stomach often with the urge to dry reach or vomit. Nausea can feel like:
- A churning or unsettled stomach
- Feeling “sick” or like you might throw up
- Loss of appetite
- Increased saliva, sweating or feeling clammy
Both dizziness and nausea should be investigated further as there is often a deeper reason as to why your body is responding like this and it’s not just because you didn’t drink enough water or ate something bad.
Not all dizziness is the same and the words you use matter
Broadly, there are four main types of dizziness – vertigo, presyncope, disequilibrium and general or non-specific dizziness. They are categorised by different symptoms and have different causes, so it’s important to notice which symptoms you are experiencing:
- Spinning – you or the room is rotating (vertigo)
- Lightheaded / faint – like you might black out (presyncope)
- Unsteady – off-balance on your feet, but not spinning (disequilibrium)
- Foggy or floating – disconnected, hard to describe (general/non-specific dizziness)
Common causes worth knowing
- Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) occurs when tiny crystals in the inner ear shift. It causes a brief, intense spinning triggered by head position, such as rolling over in bed or looking up to the sky. It frequently comes with nausea.
- Inner ear inflammation (vestibular neuritis or labyrinthitis) often follows a virus and can be days of persistent dizziness.
- Vestibular migraine is under-recognised and includes dizziness and nausea as the dominant symptoms, sometimes with little or no headache.
- Blood pressure and dehydration lead to lightheadedness when standing up quickly, on hot days, or when you’ve had poor fluid intake.
- Medications are a very common and often overlooked contributor to nausea and dizziness and are worth a pharmacist or GP review. This can be especially true if on multiple medications that could be interacting poorly with each other.
- Pregnancy includes a lot of hormonal and blood-pressure changes, especially during the first trimester, leading to nausea referred to as morning sickness (though it can occur anytime during the day).
- Anxiety and over-breathing can trigger symptoms of nausea and dizziness, especially when the nervous system is in an alerted state.
- Neck-related (cervicogenic) dizziness deserves a spot of its own! Find out more below.
Cervicogenic Dizziness - In Depth
If your dizziness is accompanied by neck pain or stiffness and your symptoms are worse after holding a specific neck position for an extended period of time, then you may be experiencing neck-related (cervicogenic) dizziness.This sort of dizziness can be provoked mainly by head movements.
What Causes Cervicogenic Dizziness
The most accepted cause of cervicogenic dizziness is due to sensory mismatch. When the neck is injured, stiff, inflamed or under strain, the sensors in the upper neck can start sending inaccurate signals to the brain. Meanwhile, your inner ear and eyes are sending accurate information. Your brain receives messages that don’t agree with each other, and the result can be dizziness, unsteadiness and sometimes nausea. Common triggers can be:
Signs it May be Coming From Your Neck
- Feeling unsteady, off-balance or light-headed rather than a strong spinning sensation
- Dizziness that comes on with neck pain, stiffness or certain neck movements
- Symptoms that are worse after holding one posture for a long time, such as working at a computer
- Headaches starting at the base of the skull
- Dizziness that lasts minutes to hours rather than seconds
- Reduced range of movement when turning or tilting the head
How Chiropractic Can Help
It is known that hands-on-care for the neck, paired with tailored exercises may help reduce dizzy spells and neck pain for some people and this is exactly what we do at Refined Chiropractic. Through a thorough history, examination process and personalised plan of care, we work to uncover what may be driving your dizziness, provide gentle, targeted care where appropriate, and refer you to or work alongside your GP if further investigation is needed. Treatment can often involve:
- A thorough assessment of your neck movement, posture, balance and eye movements
- Hands-on treatment to improve movement in the upper neck this could be through our chiropractic adjustments and or soft tissue work to ease muscle tension
- Neck position sense exercises: retraining the neck sensors to send more accurate signals to the brain
- Balance and eye-head coordination exercises
- Posture and workstation advice to reduce ongoing strain
When to seek urgent medical attention
Call 000 or go to an emergency department if dizziness or nausea comes with:
- Slurred speech, facial droop, or weakness/numbness on one side
- Sudden severe headache or double vision
- Difficulty walking or severe loss of balance
- Chest pain, palpitations or fainting
- Sudden hearing loss or ringing in one ear
- Symptoms arise following a head injury
Frequently asked questions
Can neck problems really cause dizziness?
Your neck is home to lots of special sensors that are responsible for telling your brain where your head is in space. These sensors work together with your eyes and inner ear to keep you balanced, so when your neck is injured, stiff or tense, these signals can be disrupted which may lead to dizziness.
Why do I feel nauseous without the room spinning?
Whilst nausea and dizziness often arrive as a pair, they don’t always. Nausea can happen in isolation, without feeling like the room around you is spinning, and can be caused by a range of factors. Digestive issues, pregnancy, migraines, stress and anxiety, and some medications can lead to nausea without dizziness.
Is it safe to have my neck treated while I'm dizzy?
Through a thorough examination and specialised testing we will be able to have a better understanding of what is causing your dizziness. If the cause is deemed to be related to your inner ear or neck region, it is safe to get treatment while you are dizzy. However, if we feel the root cause of your dizziness is something else better managed by your GP we will let you know and guide you in the best & safest direction. Our priority is you and your health.
How long does dizziness usually last?
Depending on the underlying cause, the duration of dizziness can vary significantly, from just a few seconds, to hours and even days. It can also be unpredictable and can come and go. For example, general dizzy spells (and BPPV) are usually short, lasting a few seconds to a minute, whereas spells caused by a vestibular migraine can last from minutes to hours. Dizziness caused by infection can last several days to weeks, with symptoms lingering for months.
Book a consultation at our Yokine clinic, or call us directly at (08) 6285 0243 to start your journey toward better health.
