March 8, 2026 • 17 mins
This week on We Need To Talk we're bringing back one of our favourite episodes from the past few years.
It's very likely you or someone you know has experienced vertigo at some point in your life. There are many different causes of vertigo, as it's a symptom and not an illness itself. Luckily, the New Zealand Dizziness and Balance Center specializes in discovering the cause of feelings of vertigo and dizziness and fixing the symptoms in as little as just one session.
In this episode Toni chats with Lisa Goulart and Denise Taylor about the different ways they can treat vertigo, from physiotherapy and ear, nose and throat specialists to psychotherapy.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We need to talk conversations on wellness with Coast FM's
Tony Street.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello, it's great to have you with us for we
need to talk Vertiico is a feeling of you or
your surroundings moving when there is no actual movement. Maybe
you've experienced this before or someone you know has the
problem with vertico and balance disorder is it's often a
multifactorial problem, which means you might need a team of
different people to help you, such as anti specialists, audiologists
(00:28):
and physiotherapists. The good news is New Zealand has a
specialized dizziness and Balance center. That's where our two guests
are from today, Lisa Gulart, who is an audiologist and professor,
Denise Taylor, who was a physiotherapist and lecturer. It's lovely
to have you both with me. I had no idea
we had a dizziness center. It kind of seems like
(00:49):
almost a made up name, Denise, it.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Does rather, but we've been an existence since twenty twelve
when we actually opened, and we opened after some patients
really were talking to us about the need for it,
and we suggested to our E and T friends that
they send us some dizzy people and so we treated
(01:13):
them and there was a great effect. So from that
point we decided that we really needed to do something
and set something up, which we tried to do in
the public health system, but that didn't quite work out,
so we set up this clinic.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
How many people suffer verdigo or dizziness.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
It's really common and it gets more common as we
get older. So the most common condition has a terrible name.
It's called binai and paroxysmal positional vertigo, and it occurs
in about forty percent of people over the age of
sixty five. So most people are probably going to experience
some form of dizziness at some point in their lifetime.
Wew even people under sixty five, even people under sixty five.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And I know this because a friend of mine who
was in her early thirties seid that she was experiencing vertigo,
had no idea where to start to actually get treated.
Is that quite commonly so people not knowing what to
do about it.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Yes. First of all, they think something really bad is happening,
a heart attack or stroke. They panic often well in
one scored for some emergency treatment, and then later on
when stroke or a heart attack is being ruled out,
the dizziness doesn't go away, and then they start to think,
(02:24):
what's happening with me? This patient would often go back
to their GP, and then the GP would contact us,
sometimes not always, and that's when the condition. We see
patient suffering for ten years, ten plus years, and nothing's
been concrete diagnosed, or there's no concrete diagnosis or action around.
(02:45):
They just think is normal. Oh, this is me, this
is my life. Now. Every time I roll over in
bad I will spin And it's not true.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
What causes vertigovin? What is it that leads to an episode?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
There could be lots of different reasons for vertigo. One
of the most common, which is what I've talked about before,
is BPPV, and that's really related to in the middle
part of the inner ear, which is the vestibular system,
there are little crystals that are attached to a jelly
like bed and sometimes they just flake off.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
A little bit.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
People talk about it as crystals, but it's more like
having little bits of dust that are then free and
floating around in the vestibular system, and when you move
your head, they move and create this sense of dizziness,
and so people talk about this as having crystals in
their ear, and it's actually these tiny bits of dust in.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Their inner ear.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
So every time they move their head they get this
horrible spinning dizziness. So we can do certain maneuvers to
diagnose whereabouts in the system this might be and how
to treat it. So we can successfully treat BPPV in
one to three sessions for most people. Depends how long
(03:57):
it's been going on. Of course, if it's been going
on for ten years, it will.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Take us a bit longer. But it is highly curable.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Then BPPV is highly curable. There are a number of
vestibular conditions that aren't curable, such as many as disease,
where we're really looking to manage the condition and teach
people how to manage their dizziness and their imbalance as
best they can.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
How do you know, Lisa, if you might have vertigo
versus maybe just feeling a little bit faint.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
The vertigo, the room will spin around you fast. You
don't lose consciousness, You might be on your force on
the ground. How to maintain upright position and you go
for a spin as if you drink too much, we're
the ones who drink. Put your head back in the pillow, whoa,
the seling starts going. That's the vertical feeling.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
And how often do people experience that, Like, how regularly
does it occur if you have that condition.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Depends what's affecting, depending what's causing the vertigo. If it
is positioned of vertigo, we say, once you have it,
you have it again. We can treat and it could
come back in a month, in a week, in ten years,
in fifty years. We often recommended to keep a diary
of symptoms. Contact us. If we treat someone and the
treatment seems to be successful, expect that this will happen again.
(05:13):
And we just recommended on panic, we'll tact us.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
How widespread is it across the ages? You talked about
the case of sixty five plus, but what about those
under sixty five? How often do you see younger people.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
We still see a lot of younger people, and that
can be across a variety of different sorts of conditions.
So part of what we do is to try and
work out is it the inner ear, is it the
vestibular system that's going wrong? And if it is the
inner ear, what exactly is going wrong? So diagnosis is
the first challenge for us. Once we have a diagnosis
(05:48):
we can treat.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
With your children. We've had seen four five years old concussion,
sleep in the playground, knock the head, something dislodged in
the ear, or treated something. So children. Yeah, would like
not to see anyone under four five. Then I'll think
the a pediatrician to manage and find out because it's
not that common. The eldest would be late nineties.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Oh into the nineties. We've seen we've seen people with
dizziness where we can do something about it and help
improve their quality of life. But there are just so
many things that can cause dizziness, and certainly were aging.
You don't always feel the same sort of spinning that
Lisa was describing. Sometimes you just feel more as if
(06:33):
you're rocking or swaying, and that can be related to
a vestibular dysfunction, although not necessarily.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
And how do you know which specialist is right for you?
Because Lisa you're an audiologist, Denise you are a physiotherapist,
but you can also include an einos and throats specialist.
So when someone comes to you and says, I'm experiencing
this vertigo, this dizziness, how do you know where to start?
Speaker 4 (06:56):
It's based on the history, We're going to ask a
lot of questions. I'm going to want to know the
description of the feeling because it could be just an unsteadiness,
the world is in spinning, the person is spinning inside them,
or they have a sweamy brain. It's very common. So
based on history, the frequency, the test results we find
in our clinic and that will give us a pretty
(07:19):
good idea whether that person should be referred to anions
and plot specialist, or neurologist, or chariologist or a psychiatrist.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
So, Denise, you're a physiotherapist, how do you help people
with this condition? What maneuvers are you doing?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
We work really closely with the audiologists and together we
put our information together and that helps us to determine
what's happening for the person. So as a physiotherapist, we
would be looking at their balance and whether or not
the vestibular system is affecting their balance. So we have
(07:55):
a computerized dynamic postrography, which is a very flashy way
of measuring somebody's balance and how well they're using their
different senses to keep balance. So in order for us
to stay upright, we use information from our inner ear
but also from our vision and from the sense of
our feet on the ground. When people are feeling in balance,
(08:15):
it can be any of those things that are affected.
So we're specifically looking out for the things that are
affecting the vestibular system. So our assessment of balance helps
us to determine that, and then we'll treat giving exercises
to try and improve the use of that system. Sometimes
it's the brain not quite integrating and managing all that
(08:36):
information from the sensory systems well enough, so we give
exercises to help the brain kind of work out what
to do when you haven't got vision, or when your
inner ear is telling you this, but actually your feet
are telling you something different. So we design specific interventions
to help the individual with those sorts of issues, as
(08:59):
well as particular maneuvers for if somebody has this horrible
BPPV condition, so we can do a particular maneuver of
the head to move those crystals back into where they're
meant to be.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Now that we need to talk with Tony Street.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Because I think if you see vertigo to a lot
of people, they might think of a movie, or if
you're climbing a mountain and whole I got vertigo. Is
that a different type of vertigo, Lisa, to what you're
describing today.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
Yeah, I wouldn't call that vertigo.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
I would call that the movie sees it's called, But
Lisa said no, I would say the vertigo is the
true spinning of the world.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
That's what we call true vertigo. That would be an imbalance.
There would be a misinformation, some unreliable information coming from
your vision and your brain's like, whoa, where are you?
You're too high or your feet are sinking on the
snow and this high mountain that we are, there's a
miss message. The brain is just taking a little time
to adjust.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
And that sense of you know, when you're standing on
the high building, and that very sense of vertigo that
people talk about as vertigo is this kind of difficulty
in perceiving the depth compared to your feet are on
the ground, but actually that looks a long way away.
So you get a slight perception of vertigo, but it's
not It doesn't fit the true definition of vertigo, which
(10:27):
is this spinning sensation.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
How debilitating can that sense of spinning be?
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Very I had an event of position of vertigo during lockdown.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
You yourself had it.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Muh myself horrible, horrible in my respect for anyone suffering
from vertigo. Oh, it's gone half a few levels, because
it is very debilitating. I panicked, ironed up any I
was filming my eyes because I know how to read
eye movement. When you have a vertigo attack, your eyes
(11:00):
do funny things, and by looking at someone's eyes, we
can tell where that vertigo is coming from. And I
couldn't interpret it. It was a weird. It was the
most rare version of vertical someone could see. And I
end up in an ear. All I was thinking was
how I'm going to look after my children, I'm going
to go to work. It was horrible.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
How did you? How did you fix yourself?
Speaker 4 (11:23):
It end up? It was a position of vertigo. It
was a rare form. The crystals were stuck in a
very awkward position of the inner ear. I was just
banging my head and trying to free the crystals. And
when I successfully did so, then my vertigo changed the
way I was spinning, and I really recorded my eyes
(11:43):
again and then I could understand what was going on.
And then I treated myself wow with rolling my head
around and before me a maneuver called aptly. So the
inner year. We have three semi circular canals on each side,
so you've got sick possibilities. The crystals could be floating
around six possibility the six is three and three. Mine
(12:08):
was stuck in a small little portion of the ears.
It was a bit of a tricky one.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah, and Denise, you've had verdigo as well.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
I have.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
When did your episode heaven?
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Oh about twenty years ago actually, so a long time
ago before we'd set up the business and balance clinic,
although I was interested in vertigo academically at that time.
But I had a what's called a vestibular writer. So
it's an inflammation or infection of the nerve that supplies
the inner ear. I just had severe spinning dizziness for
about three days where I couldn't get out of bed.
(12:41):
I had a loss of balance, and I felt nauseous
and sick, and I felt so sick. I didn't do anything.
I just lay there and waited for all that to
go away.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
So did it go away on its own or did
you have to be treated.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
So that went away on its own? Or it improves
in about three days, so they of the dizsiness decreases
significantly after about three days, but then I was left
with a little bit of dizziness, but I had to
treat myself because there wasn't any dizziness and balance center.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
At that time and now there is, and now there is.
Does it make you feel quite said that some people
will endure this for over ten years in some cases
when actually they could be fixed with three sessions.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, yeah, it is, and we try to address that.
So we do provide training for other people, and there
are other physiotherapists in particular around the country that also
provide training in how to treat some of the more
common vestibular syndromes. But there's really nowhere else in New
Zealand that has all that assessment equipment in one place.
(13:44):
So we're really lucky at our clinic to have all
the assessment equipment in one place so we can look
at diagnosis. But there are lots of physiotherapists around the
country that have particular expertise in vestibular disorders and they
would usually advertise on the website as a vestibular physiotherapist,
so they will have some specialist training, so they're the
(14:06):
first port of care.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, it's quite hard with some of the language. It's
quite technical, so I can see why people don't automatically
get the messagingle So what would your message be to
anyone that has a dizzy or vertigo episode?
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Try not to panic, Try to understand, Try to describe
exactly how to try to make notes important things for us.
Duration of the attack thirty seconds three hours, that means
completely different things. Try to video record the eye movement.
Can you trigger it? How long does it last? So
(14:41):
if it lasts thirty seconds, can you trigger it? So
rolling over in bed, can you bring it on or not?
It's just it's there for three hours no matter what
I do, So just make notes, keep calm, make notes.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Is there any cases where you can't cure the vertigo.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
There's lots of cases where we can't condition, such as
many airs disease where vertigo will come in attack. So
there'll be a big period of an attack, and then
it tends to settle down for a while, and then
there might be in a year or so another big attack.
We can't do anything during those big attacks, but what
(15:16):
we can do when it's settled down is to teach
people how to manage with their balance a little bit better,
so we can provide some rehabilitation to help to manage
that condition. And I think also explaining to people what's
happening and then having an understanding about what's happening really helps.
It helps people stop panicking about what's occurring to them, which.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
No doubt makes it worse.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
And the use of drugs as well, we understanding better. Yeah, medication,
effective medication.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
What sort of medication would you give? What types?
Speaker 4 (15:46):
What's causing the vertigo for miniairs disease for example, the
use of better histing, sir, I think well, Virgo sixteen
would be the promos your name, high dosars of it,
but needs to be managed by the eonols and flowed socialist.
I'm talking about in the past people being prescribed one
(16:06):
a day to now thirty a day a day, wow,
ten three times a day. So yeah, so it's possible
to manage.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
So the Disneyess and Balance Center sounds like the place
to be if this is an issue for you. So
how do people denise contact you? Guys?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
We are incredibly busy. As you've heard, dizziness is really
common and so we only take referrals from your GP
or another health professional. So we get referrals from ACC,
we have referrals from the DHPS, we have referrals from
people's GPS, and from other health professionals such as other
(16:44):
physiotherapists that people have gone to see.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
So if they're not aware of it, perhaps just let
them know that there is a place and keep that
piece of paper. I really appreciate you both coming in
and especially given you've both had this condition before, and
hopefully for anyone listening to this now know where to go.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
We need to talk with Coast FM's Tony Street. If
you enjoyed the podcast, click to share with family or friends.
To get in touch email, We need to talk at coastonline,
dot co dot MZ
We need to talk conversations on wellness with Coast FM's
Tony Street.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello, it's great to have you with us for we
need to talk Vertiico is a feeling of you or
your surroundings moving when there is no actual movement. Maybe
you've experienced this before or someone you know has the
problem with vertico and balance disorder is it's often a
multifactorial problem, which means you might need a team of
different people to help you, such as anti specialists, audiologists
(00:28):
and physiotherapists. The good news is New Zealand has a
specialized dizziness and Balance center. That's where our two guests
are from today, Lisa Gulart, who is an audiologist and professor,
Denise Taylor, who was a physiotherapist and lecturer. It's lovely
to have you both with me. I had no idea
we had a dizziness center. It kind of seems like
(00:49):
almost a made up name, Denise, it.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Does rather, but we've been an existence since twenty twelve
when we actually opened, and we opened after some patients
really were talking to us about the need for it,
and we suggested to our E and T friends that
they send us some dizzy people and so we treated
(01:13):
them and there was a great effect. So from that
point we decided that we really needed to do something
and set something up, which we tried to do in
the public health system, but that didn't quite work out,
so we set up this clinic.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
How many people suffer verdigo or dizziness.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
It's really common and it gets more common as we
get older. So the most common condition has a terrible name.
It's called binai and paroxysmal positional vertigo, and it occurs
in about forty percent of people over the age of
sixty five. So most people are probably going to experience
some form of dizziness at some point in their lifetime.
Wew even people under sixty five, even people under sixty five.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And I know this because a friend of mine who
was in her early thirties seid that she was experiencing vertigo,
had no idea where to start to actually get treated.
Is that quite commonly so people not knowing what to
do about it.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Yes. First of all, they think something really bad is happening,
a heart attack or stroke. They panic often well in
one scored for some emergency treatment, and then later on
when stroke or a heart attack is being ruled out,
the dizziness doesn't go away, and then they start to think,
(02:24):
what's happening with me? This patient would often go back
to their GP, and then the GP would contact us,
sometimes not always, and that's when the condition. We see
patient suffering for ten years, ten plus years, and nothing's
been concrete diagnosed, or there's no concrete diagnosis or action around.
(02:45):
They just think is normal. Oh, this is me, this
is my life. Now. Every time I roll over in
bad I will spin And it's not true.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
What causes vertigovin? What is it that leads to an episode?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
There could be lots of different reasons for vertigo. One
of the most common, which is what I've talked about before,
is BPPV, and that's really related to in the middle
part of the inner ear, which is the vestibular system,
there are little crystals that are attached to a jelly
like bed and sometimes they just flake off.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
A little bit.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
People talk about it as crystals, but it's more like
having little bits of dust that are then free and
floating around in the vestibular system, and when you move
your head, they move and create this sense of dizziness,
and so people talk about this as having crystals in
their ear, and it's actually these tiny bits of dust in.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Their inner ear.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
So every time they move their head they get this
horrible spinning dizziness. So we can do certain maneuvers to
diagnose whereabouts in the system this might be and how
to treat it. So we can successfully treat BPPV in
one to three sessions for most people. Depends how long
(03:57):
it's been going on. Of course, if it's been going
on for ten years, it will.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Take us a bit longer. But it is highly curable.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Then BPPV is highly curable. There are a number of
vestibular conditions that aren't curable, such as many as disease,
where we're really looking to manage the condition and teach
people how to manage their dizziness and their imbalance as
best they can.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
How do you know, Lisa, if you might have vertigo
versus maybe just feeling a little bit faint.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
The vertigo, the room will spin around you fast. You
don't lose consciousness, You might be on your force on
the ground. How to maintain upright position and you go
for a spin as if you drink too much, we're
the ones who drink. Put your head back in the pillow, whoa,
the seling starts going. That's the vertical feeling.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
And how often do people experience that, Like, how regularly
does it occur if you have that condition.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Depends what's affecting, depending what's causing the vertigo. If it
is positioned of vertigo, we say, once you have it,
you have it again. We can treat and it could
come back in a month, in a week, in ten years,
in fifty years. We often recommended to keep a diary
of symptoms. Contact us. If we treat someone and the
treatment seems to be successful, expect that this will happen again.
(05:13):
And we just recommended on panic, we'll tact us.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
How widespread is it across the ages? You talked about
the case of sixty five plus, but what about those
under sixty five? How often do you see younger people.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
We still see a lot of younger people, and that
can be across a variety of different sorts of conditions.
So part of what we do is to try and
work out is it the inner ear, is it the
vestibular system that's going wrong? And if it is the
inner ear, what exactly is going wrong? So diagnosis is
the first challenge for us. Once we have a diagnosis
(05:48):
we can treat.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
With your children. We've had seen four five years old concussion,
sleep in the playground, knock the head, something dislodged in
the ear, or treated something. So children. Yeah, would like
not to see anyone under four five. Then I'll think
the a pediatrician to manage and find out because it's
not that common. The eldest would be late nineties.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Oh into the nineties. We've seen we've seen people with
dizziness where we can do something about it and help
improve their quality of life. But there are just so
many things that can cause dizziness, and certainly were aging.
You don't always feel the same sort of spinning that
Lisa was describing. Sometimes you just feel more as if
(06:33):
you're rocking or swaying, and that can be related to
a vestibular dysfunction, although not necessarily.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
And how do you know which specialist is right for you?
Because Lisa you're an audiologist, Denise you are a physiotherapist,
but you can also include an einos and throats specialist.
So when someone comes to you and says, I'm experiencing
this vertigo, this dizziness, how do you know where to start?
Speaker 4 (06:56):
It's based on the history, We're going to ask a
lot of questions. I'm going to want to know the
description of the feeling because it could be just an unsteadiness,
the world is in spinning, the person is spinning inside them,
or they have a sweamy brain. It's very common. So
based on history, the frequency, the test results we find
in our clinic and that will give us a pretty
(07:19):
good idea whether that person should be referred to anions
and plot specialist, or neurologist, or chariologist or a psychiatrist.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
So, Denise, you're a physiotherapist, how do you help people
with this condition? What maneuvers are you doing?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
We work really closely with the audiologists and together we
put our information together and that helps us to determine
what's happening for the person. So as a physiotherapist, we
would be looking at their balance and whether or not
the vestibular system is affecting their balance. So we have
(07:55):
a computerized dynamic postrography, which is a very flashy way
of measuring somebody's balance and how well they're using their
different senses to keep balance. So in order for us
to stay upright, we use information from our inner ear
but also from our vision and from the sense of
our feet on the ground. When people are feeling in balance,
(08:15):
it can be any of those things that are affected.
So we're specifically looking out for the things that are
affecting the vestibular system. So our assessment of balance helps
us to determine that, and then we'll treat giving exercises
to try and improve the use of that system. Sometimes
it's the brain not quite integrating and managing all that
(08:36):
information from the sensory systems well enough, so we give
exercises to help the brain kind of work out what
to do when you haven't got vision, or when your
inner ear is telling you this, but actually your feet
are telling you something different. So we design specific interventions
to help the individual with those sorts of issues, as
(08:59):
well as particular maneuvers for if somebody has this horrible
BPPV condition, so we can do a particular maneuver of
the head to move those crystals back into where they're
meant to be.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Now that we need to talk with Tony Street.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Because I think if you see vertigo to a lot
of people, they might think of a movie, or if
you're climbing a mountain and whole I got vertigo. Is
that a different type of vertigo, Lisa, to what you're
describing today.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
Yeah, I wouldn't call that vertigo.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
I would call that the movie sees it's called, But
Lisa said no, I would say the vertigo is the
true spinning of the world.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
That's what we call true vertigo. That would be an imbalance.
There would be a misinformation, some unreliable information coming from
your vision and your brain's like, whoa, where are you?
You're too high or your feet are sinking on the
snow and this high mountain that we are, there's a
miss message. The brain is just taking a little time
to adjust.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
And that sense of you know, when you're standing on
the high building, and that very sense of vertigo that
people talk about as vertigo is this kind of difficulty
in perceiving the depth compared to your feet are on
the ground, but actually that looks a long way away.
So you get a slight perception of vertigo, but it's
not It doesn't fit the true definition of vertigo, which
(10:27):
is this spinning sensation.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
How debilitating can that sense of spinning be?
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Very I had an event of position of vertigo during lockdown.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
You yourself had it.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Muh myself horrible, horrible in my respect for anyone suffering
from vertigo. Oh, it's gone half a few levels, because
it is very debilitating. I panicked, ironed up any I
was filming my eyes because I know how to read
eye movement. When you have a vertigo attack, your eyes
(11:00):
do funny things, and by looking at someone's eyes, we
can tell where that vertigo is coming from. And I
couldn't interpret it. It was a weird. It was the
most rare version of vertical someone could see. And I
end up in an ear. All I was thinking was
how I'm going to look after my children, I'm going
to go to work. It was horrible.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
How did you? How did you fix yourself?
Speaker 4 (11:23):
It end up? It was a position of vertigo. It
was a rare form. The crystals were stuck in a
very awkward position of the inner ear. I was just
banging my head and trying to free the crystals. And
when I successfully did so, then my vertigo changed the
way I was spinning, and I really recorded my eyes
(11:43):
again and then I could understand what was going on.
And then I treated myself wow with rolling my head
around and before me a maneuver called aptly. So the
inner year. We have three semi circular canals on each side,
so you've got sick possibilities. The crystals could be floating
around six possibility the six is three and three. Mine
(12:08):
was stuck in a small little portion of the ears.
It was a bit of a tricky one.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah, and Denise, you've had verdigo as well.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
I have.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
When did your episode heaven?
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Oh about twenty years ago actually, so a long time
ago before we'd set up the business and balance clinic,
although I was interested in vertigo academically at that time.
But I had a what's called a vestibular writer. So
it's an inflammation or infection of the nerve that supplies
the inner ear. I just had severe spinning dizziness for
about three days where I couldn't get out of bed.
(12:41):
I had a loss of balance, and I felt nauseous
and sick, and I felt so sick. I didn't do anything.
I just lay there and waited for all that to
go away.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
So did it go away on its own or did
you have to be treated.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
So that went away on its own? Or it improves
in about three days, so they of the dizsiness decreases
significantly after about three days, but then I was left
with a little bit of dizziness, but I had to
treat myself because there wasn't any dizziness and balance center.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
At that time and now there is, and now there is.
Does it make you feel quite said that some people
will endure this for over ten years in some cases
when actually they could be fixed with three sessions.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, yeah, it is, and we try to address that.
So we do provide training for other people, and there
are other physiotherapists in particular around the country that also
provide training in how to treat some of the more
common vestibular syndromes. But there's really nowhere else in New
Zealand that has all that assessment equipment in one place.
(13:44):
So we're really lucky at our clinic to have all
the assessment equipment in one place so we can look
at diagnosis. But there are lots of physiotherapists around the
country that have particular expertise in vestibular disorders and they
would usually advertise on the website as a vestibular physiotherapist,
so they will have some specialist training, so they're the
(14:06):
first port of care.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, it's quite hard with some of the language. It's
quite technical, so I can see why people don't automatically
get the messagingle So what would your message be to
anyone that has a dizzy or vertigo episode?
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Try not to panic, Try to understand, Try to describe
exactly how to try to make notes important things for us.
Duration of the attack thirty seconds three hours, that means
completely different things. Try to video record the eye movement.
Can you trigger it? How long does it last? So
(14:41):
if it lasts thirty seconds, can you trigger it? So
rolling over in bed, can you bring it on or not?
It's just it's there for three hours no matter what
I do, So just make notes, keep calm, make notes.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Is there any cases where you can't cure the vertigo.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
There's lots of cases where we can't condition, such as
many airs disease where vertigo will come in attack. So
there'll be a big period of an attack, and then
it tends to settle down for a while, and then
there might be in a year or so another big attack.
We can't do anything during those big attacks, but what
(15:16):
we can do when it's settled down is to teach
people how to manage with their balance a little bit better,
so we can provide some rehabilitation to help to manage
that condition. And I think also explaining to people what's
happening and then having an understanding about what's happening really helps.
It helps people stop panicking about what's occurring to them, which.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
No doubt makes it worse.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
And the use of drugs as well, we understanding better. Yeah, medication,
effective medication.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
What sort of medication would you give? What types?
Speaker 4 (15:46):
What's causing the vertigo for miniairs disease for example, the
use of better histing, sir, I think well, Virgo sixteen
would be the promos your name, high dosars of it,
but needs to be managed by the eonols and flowed socialist.
I'm talking about in the past people being prescribed one
(16:06):
a day to now thirty a day a day, wow,
ten three times a day. So yeah, so it's possible
to manage.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
So the Disneyess and Balance Center sounds like the place
to be if this is an issue for you. So
how do people denise contact you? Guys?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
We are incredibly busy. As you've heard, dizziness is really
common and so we only take referrals from your GP
or another health professional. So we get referrals from ACC,
we have referrals from the DHPS, we have referrals from
people's GPS, and from other health professionals such as other
(16:44):
physiotherapists that people have gone to see.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
So if they're not aware of it, perhaps just let
them know that there is a place and keep that
piece of paper. I really appreciate you both coming in
and especially given you've both had this condition before, and
hopefully for anyone listening to this now know where to go.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
We need to talk with Coast FM's Tony Street. If
you enjoyed the podcast, click to share with family or friends.
To get in touch email, We need to talk at coastonline,
dot co dot MZ
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