Overview. Dizziness is a common symptom of MS. People with MS may feel off balance or lightheaded. Much less often, they have the sensation that they or their surroundings are spinning — a condition known as vertigo.
Problems with balance and feeling dizzy are common in MS, and can have knock-on effects on your walking. Like all MS symptoms, these issues affect people differently, and vary from day to day.
Severe, ongoing dizziness
Dizziness has many causes, but MS-induced dizziness is typically more severe and lasts for at least two days. “With MS, dizzy spells can cause you to have trouble walking down a hallway, for example, because your sense of equilibrium is so off,” explains Dr. Bermel.
One of the most uncommon symptoms of multiple sclerosis is vertigo, which occurs in the central nervous system and disrupts the patient's ability to maintain a steady‐state of balance. Multiple sclerosis patients with central positional vertigo as their first symptom are uncommon in the medical literature.
Antihistamine and anti-nausea drugs such as Arlevert (cinnarizine, dimenhydrinate) or betahistine can sometimes help. If the symptom is more severe, steroids can sometimes help.
MS affects the nerves in the brain. And this can cause hearing problems and other MS symptoms related to the ears. When MS damages the nerve fibres, or the myelin sheath around the outside, it can affect messages going to and from the ear.
In a general sense, vertigo-associated disease is commonly treated using vestibular blocking agents or VBAs. These include medications such as antihistamines (promethazine or betahistine), benzodiazepines (diazepam or lorazepam), or antiemetics (prochlorperazine or metoclopramide).
Many people with MS experience dizziness, in which you feel light-headed or off-balance, notes the NMSS. A less-common MS symptom is vertigo. When you have vertigo, you feel as though your surroundings are spinning around you, Dr. Kalb says, or that you are spinning.
Hearing problems caused by MS are thought to be due to damage to the brainstem - the part of the brain that is also involved in vision and balance. Problems are often associated with other brainstem symptoms such as tinnitus and vertigo. Sudden hearing problems can show that you are having a relapse.
Losing your balance while walking, or feeling imbalanced, can result from: Vestibular problems. Abnormalities in your inner ear can cause a sensation of a floating or heavy head and unsteadiness in the dark. Nerve damage to your legs (peripheral neuropathy).
People should consider the diagnosis of MS if they have one or more of these symptoms: vision loss in one or both eyes. acute paralysis in the legs or along one side of the body. acute numbness and tingling in a limb.
These include fibromyalgia and vitamin B12 deficiency, muscular dystrophy (MD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), migraine, hypo-thyroidism, hypertension, Beçhets, Arnold-Chiari deformity, and mitochondrial disorders, although your neurologist can usually rule them out quite easily.
Multiple Sclerosis: It's in Your Head
Brain lesions are a hallmark of MS, but they're not the only way MS can affect your brain function. MS can also contribute to brain atrophy, or shrinkage, over time — a process that occurs in all people as they age, but typically happens much more quickly in people with MS.
What Is Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease? Autoimmune inner ear disease (AIED), is a rare disease that happens when your body's immune system mistakenly attacks your inner ear. It can cause dizziness, ringing in your ears, and hearing loss.
Note that the development of tinnitus, as well as any sudden change in hearing or in the inner ear, may indicate an MS flare. If you're experiencing these types of symptoms for the first time, contact your neurologist. Your health care team can help you manage these and other symptoms of a flare.
For people who are experiencing dizziness when they wake up, dysfunction in the circulatory system or peripheral vestibular system may be the cause. Some medications can also cause morning dizziness, as can alcohol and recreational drugs. Even dehydration or low blood sugar can make you feel dizzy.
Generally, we would be expecting the symptoms to have some kind of impact on your everyday functioning. If you are worse, number one, always check for infection. However, it's very common in MS to have a lot of ups and downs, good days and bad days, and that can be closely related to how fatigued you are.
While it is true that almost all people with MS will have evidence of brain lesions on MRI, not all people with brain lesions have MS.
If you are dizzy right now and have any of the following neurological symptoms along with your dizziness or vertigo, call 911 immediately: New confusion or trouble speaking or understanding speech. New slurred speech or hoarseness of voice. New numbness or weakness of the face, arm, or leg.
Regardless of suspicion for peripheral or central etiology, for episodic or persistent vertigo, if imaging is indicated the best test is MRI Brain and internal auditory canal with and without IV contrast.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a potentially disabling disease of the brain and spinal cord (central nervous system).
A common visual symptom of MS is optic neuritis — inflammation of the optic (vision) nerve. Optic neuritis usually occurs in one eye and may cause aching pain with eye movement, blurred vision, dim vision or loss of color vision.